On this episode of Creative Mind, we get deeper into the world of op motion animation with director and co-founder of Dragonframe software, Jamie Caliri.

As a director, Jamie’s animated films have garnered an Emmy and three Annie awards, among others. Caliri’s short works include the sweeping end titles for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, animated spots for United Airlines, and opening titles sequence for United States of Tara that earned him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Design in 2009. 

In the world of live action, Jamie took on music videos in the late ’90s including Marcy Playground’s “Sex and Candy” and Morphine’s “Early to Bed”, which earned a Grammy nomination for best music video.

Giving Stop Motion A Go

In 1993, Jamie and his brother Dyami, collaborated to create the stop-motion animation software. Jamie coupled his directing and animation expertise with Dyami ‘s skills as a professional software engineer. Their first collaboration was to design a custom 35mm film camera control; this then led to a software-based frame grabber, and finally a comprehensive digital-stills-based solution. In 2005, Jamie began directing the United Airlines commercial “Dragon”. He wanted to shoot stop-motion with digital stills.

The Caliri brothers worked closely with virtuoso animator Kim Blanchette to develop software that would meet their extraordinary needs. The result was a comprehensive stop-motion tool that helped bring the Annie-award-winning United Airlines spot to life. After realizing that other stop motion software had major limitations, the Caliri brothers formed DZED Systems LLC to develop Dragon Stop Motion for the public. 

Joining us again on this episode is Aaron Guadamuz, Stop Motion Lead at the School of Visual Development, to give his insight into working with Dragonframe and the world of directing animation.

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