Pierre Perifel | |
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Born | Lyon, France |
Occupations |
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Years active | 2005–present |
Employer | DreamWorks Animation (2008–present) |
Pierre Perifel is a French filmmaker and animator. Best known for his work at DreamWorks Animation, he has directed the short film Bilby (2018) and the feature film The Bad Guys (2022).
Perifel was born in Lyon, France. [1] His passion for animation began in high school. In his third year of attending École Émile-Cohl art school, he applied to Gobelins, l'École de l'image and was accepted. [2]
In 2004, Perifel created the short student film A Swell Plan, [3] and collaborated with classmates Xavier Ramonède, Jun Frederic Violet, and Rémi Zaarour on a second short film, Festival Qualité. [4] [5] He graduated from Gobelins in 2005. [1] [6] For his thesis film, Le Building , he reteamed with Ramonède and Zaarour, and also worked with Marco Nguyen and Olivier Staphylas. The film uses a combination of 2D and 3D animation. [7] Le Building screened at numerous international film festivals and won several awards, [6] [8] [9] [10] [11] including Best Undergraduate Animation at the Ottawa International Animation Festival. [10]
The earliest films of Perifel's career include Curious George, Nocturna, Go West: A Lucky Luke Adventure and The Illusionist . [2] The same year as his graduation from Gobelins (2005), Perifel served as a supervising animator on the French short film Imago, which was directed by Cédric Babouche. Imago afforded Perifel the opportunity to work with Ramonède again. [12]
Perifel moved to the United States in 2008 [1] [6] and began his career at DreamWorks Animation doing character animation on the 2D short film, Secrets of the Furious Five , for which he won an Annie Award. [1] [13] [14] Following that, Perifel transitioned to CGI, working on Monsters vs. Aliens for about two months. He then joined onto Shrek Forever After . [2] He returned to 2D animation with a few sequences in Kung Fu Panda 2 . [2] [15] On that film, he also served as lead animator for the character Lord Shen. Perifel has said that he "was in charge of [the character]", even though he "didn't have a team of animators". [2]
Perifel was officially promoted to supervising animator on Rise of the Guardians [2] leading the team responsible for the character North. [16] Both Kung Fu Panda 2 and Rise of the Guardians earned Perifel Annie Award nominations. [1] [13] [17]
Perifel's subsequently was appointed Head of Animation on several films including Monkeys of Mumbai and Larrikins that never got to see the light of day for various reasons.
In November 2017, it was announced that Perifel has been developing an untitled short film with Liron Topaz and JP Sans. The film was selected through the DreamWorks Shorts program, which was set up by Chris DeFaria, after he became president of the DreamWorks Animation Film Group in January 2017. Bilby opened at the closing ceremony of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival 2018. It screened in many festivals and won the Jury Choice Award at Siggraph 2018.
Perifel made his feature directorial debut, directing the animated feature film adaptation of the original Aaron Blabey/Scholastic book series, The Bad Guys . It was released theatrically on April 22, 2022. He will also return to direct the upcoming sequel to The Bad Guys, set to released on August 1, 2025.
Gobelins, l'école de l'image is a school of visual communication and arts in Paris, France, with its main location near the Latin Quarter. A consular school funded by the Parisian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, it provides several programs at a range of fees.
Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 American animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The first installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise, it was directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, from a screenplay and story respectively written by the writing teams of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, and Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris. The film stars the voices of Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, Dan Fogler, Big Mike and Jackie Chan. The film, set in a version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphic animals, centers on a bumbling panda bear named Po (Black), a kung-fu enthusiast living in the Valley of Peace. When the savage snow leopard Tai Lung (McShane) is foretold to escape imprisonment and attack the Valley, Po is unwittingly named the "Dragon Warrior", a prophesied hero worthy of reading a scroll that has been intended to grant its reader limitless power.
James Baxter is a British character animator. He was first known for his work on several Walt Disney Animation Studios films, including various characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Rafiki in The Lion King, and Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Mark Randolph Osborne is an American film director, writer, producer and animator.
Secrets of the Furious Five is a 2008 American animated short film produced by DreamWorks Animation that serves as a spin-off to the animated feature film, Kung Fu Panda (2008), and appears on a companion disc of the original film's deluxe DVD release. It was broadcast on NBC February 26, 2009, and became available as a separate DVD.
The Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject is an Annie Award given annually to the best animated short film.
Kung Fu Panda 2 is a 2011 American animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson and written by the writing team of Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, the film is the sequel to Kung Fu Panda (2008), and the second installment in the Kung Fu Panda franchise. It stars Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, James Hong and Jackie Chan reprising their roles from the first film, with Gary Oldman, Michelle Yeoh, Danny McBride, Dennis Haysbert, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Victor Garber voicing new characters. In the film, Po and his Furious Five allies travel to Gongmen City to stop the evil peacock Lord Shen from conquering China, while also rediscovering Po's forgotten past.
Kung Fu Panda is an American martial arts comedy media franchise that originally started in 2008 with the release of the animated film of the same name produced by DreamWorks Animation. Following the adventures of the titular Po Ping, a giant panda who is improbably chosen as the prophesied Dragon Warrior and becomes a master of kung fu, the franchise is set in a fantasy wuxia genre version of ancient China populated by anthropomorphic animals. Although everyone initially doubts him, including Po himself, he proves himself worthy as he strives to fulfill his destiny.
Nicolas "Nico" Marlet is a French-American animator and character designer employed by DreamWorks Animation. He is best known for his character design work on films in the Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon franchises, as well as Disney television shows such as TaleSpin and DuckTales. He also worked on an unproduced animated version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats at DreamWorks' predecessor studio, Amblimation. His work has appeared in several "art of" books, including The Art of Kung Fu Panda, The Art of How to Train Your Dragon, The Art of Bee Movie, and his own limited edition sketchbook containing some of his personal works.
The Little Panda Fighter is a 2008 Brazilian animated sports action comedy film directed by Michelle Gabriel. The film has drawn criticism as a mockbuster of the DreamWorks Animation film Kung Fu Panda. The film features the voices of Dan Green, David Brimmer, Erica Schroeder, Mike Pollock & Maddie Blaustein.
Le Building is a 2005 French animated short film directed by a team of final year students at Gobelins, l'École de l'image. The story depicts a series of slapstick accidents that cause destruction to a three-story apartment complex. Le Building's team of five directors is composed of Pierre Perifel and Olivier Staphylas, both of whom went on to become Annie Award-recognized animators at DreamWorks, Xavier Ramonède and Annie award-nominated Marco Nguyen, who have continued their careers with animation credits on various high-profile French productions, and Rémi Zaarour, who has since become a comic book artist, published under the pseudonym Pozla.
Marco Nguyen is a French animator, known for his work on French feature films, as well as for his short film Lisa, which served as the pilot for an unproduced television series, and for his award-winning student film Le Building. He directed the music video for Tryo's song "Greenwashing", served as an animation director on the 2011 French film The Rabbi's Cat, and served as an assistant director on the 2019 French film The Swallows of Kabul. In 2017, he received an Annie Award nomination in the Character Animation category for The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales. Nguyen also developed cutscenes for the 2018 video game Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom.
Olivier Staphylas is a French animator, known for his work at DreamWorks Animation and for his award-winning student film, Le Building. He joined DreamWorks in 2006 and, within a few years, attained the role of supervising animator on How to Train Your Dragon. His work on 2011's Puss in Boots, supervising the titular character's animation, earned him nominations for an Annie Award and a Visual Effects Society Award. He then served as head of character animation on Penguins of Madagascar. Starting in 2014, he served in that position at Oriental DreamWorks. Staphylas has since left DreamWorks and worked on 2021's Wish Dragon alongside Base FX and Sony Pictures Animation.
Rémi Zaarour, known by the pseudonym Pozla is a French cartoonist and animator. He is best known for his graphic novels and for his award-winning student film Le Building.
Xavier Ramonède is a French animator and artist, best known for his work on various French films and international co-productions, such as Nocturna and The Illusionist, the French webseries Les Kassos, and his award-winning student film Le Building. Ramonède's artwork has also been featured in multiple publications.
Bilby is a 2018 American animated short film written and directed by Liron Topaz, Pierre Perifel and JP Sans in their directorial debuts, and produced by DreamWorks Animation. It centers on a bilby trying to protect an albatross chick from the dangers of the Australian Outback.
The Bad Guys is a 2022 American animated heist comedy film loosely based on the children's book series of the same name by Aaron Blabey, produced by DreamWorks Animation Studios and distributed by Universal Pictures. The film was directed by Pierre Perifel from a screenplay by Etan Cohen, and stars the voices of Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Alex Borstein, and Lilly Singh. It tells the story of a criminal group of anthropomorphic animals who, upon being caught, pretend to attempt to reform themselves as model citizens, only for their leader to find himself genuinely drawn to changing his ways for good as a new villain has his own plans.
The Bad Guys is an illustrated children's graphic novel series written by Australian author Aaron Blabey. It revolves around a gang of anthropomorphic animals known as the “Bad Guys”, who attempt to perform good deeds to change society's perception of them as criminals.
Andrew Huebner is an American television producer with Nickelodeon Animation Studios. In that capacity, he has received one Primetime Emmy Award and three Daytime Emmy Awards.
The Bad Guys is a media franchise made by DreamWorks Animation, loosely based on the children's book series of the same name by Aaron Blabey. The franchise began with the 2022 film The Bad Guys and a holiday special was released on Netflix in 2023, with a sequel set for release in August 1, 2025.