Daniel Peixe: “I am passionate about telling stories through images”

On March 27, the Oscars were presented at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. The animator Daniel Peixe (Palma, 1976) watched the ceremony in Mallorca, far away from the city where he lived for 12 years while working at Disney Studios, the cradle of the great film factory that has marked several generations in the world.

Text: Juan Ignacio Orúe. Palma.

The 2022 edition went down in history for the slap that Will Smith gave Chris Rock, an anecdotal event for Peixe since that night two films in which he participated, The Windshield Wiper and Encanto, both animated, were awarded.

“I make sure the character moves, breathes and speaks convincingly. The idea is that the audience believes that character is human. The fact that Encanto won were predictable. Disney movies have an unlimited budget, you work with the best computers, screens, equipment, you can afford all the luxuries. At Disney, quality is what matters most, not the time it takes to make things. Instead, The Windshield Wiper was a smaller project, done among colleagues. It makes me more proud”, says Peixe.

He says that as a child he read many comics, watched cartoons and loved the movies. “I’m passionate about telling stories through images”, he adds. He began his career in Palma, trained as a traditional pencil and paper animator in London and in Madrid he participated in the film Planet 51, which opened the possibility of going to the US. Now he works at Moon Studios, an Austrian company for video games.

– The opening scene of the couple on the beach in The Windshield Wiper was done by you. How do you make the characters’ gestures seem so human?

– The scene lasts 6 seconds. It is long in terms of animation. I used a video with two actors as a reference. It served to inspire me. I studied the video frame by frame, obsessively. I had to see everything from how the fingers move to how many frames a blink lasts.

– How much work time did it take you to make such a short scene?

– It can take between a week or more depending on the complexity. In this case there were two characters, but there may be five. When I worked at Disney, for example, four seconds was a work week.

– Did you work at Disney with someone you previously admired?

– My first job was the movie Tangled. The animation director was Glenn Keane, well known in the industry. I admired him from before. Being able to work side by side with him was a brutal experience. I learned a lot. Besides, he really liked to teach his experience. I also worked with the directors of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. They were movies that I revered as a teenager.

– Which Disney movie marked you professionally?

– The one I remember most fondly is Tangled. It was the first one. A very big challenge. Glenn Keane was exciting to work with and very demanding. It is special and inspiring. You notice the love and passion he has for this job. And that is contagious. Not all leaders are like that. I also liked Zootopia because of the final result.

– How is the world of animation in Spain?

– There has always been a lot of talent, but many have had to leave the country. Things are changing for the better. Planet 51 was a hit at the level of putting Spain on the map. Klaus, by Sergio Pablos, is drawn by hand. It hit pretty hard as an original movie on Netflix. Right now Spain, as a place where animation is produced, is quite powerful and in the crosshairs of many American studios.