We recently connected with Anna Victoria Dembowski Riva and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Anna Victoria, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
I am currently working on the biggest project I’ve ever done, my thesis film “Chiquito”! I am co-directing and producing this short film with my teammate, Lesley Marroquin. When we started talking about story ideas we realized both of us would like to showcase our cultures through a unique lens in a lighthearted and fun film. Our story follows an ambitious Salvadorean inventor who has to get her teleportation device back from her pet armadillo after they are teleported to the biggest city in Latin America — São Paulo, in Brazi!
I’m working on this project as an Environment Artist, Look Development Artist, Lighter, Effects Artist and Compositor. It’s been a very exciting project where I’ve been able to develop the visuals for this story, and It’s been exceptionally special since I can add details that express Brazilian culture through my personal experience. Sometimes people can see all Latino cultures as very similar, or even the same. In this film, we want to highlight how different and singular each country is. We want to represent them as places that contrast with each other through color and music.
One of my goals is to represent Brazil through an energetic and exciting atmosphere that expresses my relationship and experience living there. I’m recreating a real place in Brazil, a tourist street called “Beco do Batman” (Batman’s Alley). It’s an area filled with different types of graffiti. I always enjoyed street art. Artist of that city mark their presence in the city’s walls and buildings, in a way, owning these public spaces by making them unique. I love how it makes the city feel alive! São Paulo has a lot of graffiti and pixo, a specific type of tagging created there and I think it highlights a part of Brazil that is usually not showcased in media, especially foreign media. I want people to meet my home country through this film. As a visual artist, I want to bring to the big screen how I feel when I’m there and I hope people can get a glimpse of a different part of Brazil!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a CG Artist specializing in Lighting, Look Development, and Modeling, mainly environments. Currently, I’m a Senior in 3D Animation and VFX at the School of Visual Arts in NYC, but I was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. I like creating animations that will give voice to new perspectives of the world!
Aside from CG, I also enjoy photography and any digital medium where I can experiment with bright and saturated colors. I never expected to follow a creative career. For a long time, I thought I wasn’t a creative person, especially because art school is not a big thing in Brazil, so I never thought I could develop my creativity. I was scared to try and fail. I thought I wouldn’t be able to “create a style,” but I slowly learned that having a style just meant showcasing how I perceive the world artistically. I started exploring my creativity by doing abstract art, photography, video editing, and, later on, illustrations. I think art is also about self-discovery, and I learned how to express myself through different mediums but I found myself in CG.
Animation has always been part of my life, but I never expected to pursue a career in this field. I never thought I would be able to be on the other side of something that I always loved as an audience member. In Brazil, the animation industry is not as big as it is in the United States. I didn’t know there were schools that taught CG until my senior year of high school. My goal before was to pursue film and become a cinematographer. I always had a passion for color and composition to create aesthetically pleasing visuals, so when I started learning CG, I naturally leaned towards these aspects and found myself in look development and lighting! In my illustrations, I like experimenting with a lot of bold and colorful palettes, so figuring out how to best implement that style in a more realistic world in CG requires a lot of experimentation. I like how CG has a good balance between artistic and technical skills. I enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to push creative boundaries in all the different software we have available to explore. It’s been an exciting project directing an animated short film and extending the limits of all the skills I’ve learned since I started doing art in CG!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Saying the final product is the best part would be an easy answer because it is very rewarding to see the result of something you’ve been working on for weeks or months finally come to life. However, I really enjoy the process of troubleshooting problems along the way! I think CG specifically falls in a different category among the arts because it is creative but is also very technical in a way most people don’t anticipate, so we often bump into technical issues on top of creative blocks. Like any other career, there are days that I feel like I can’t properly work on anything because nothing that I’m doing looks good, or stressful days when everything feels like it is falling apart, and I can’t quite find the reason why something is breaking and having issues. After this storm, there are always better days. After taking a step back, sleeping and resting, or after a coffee break, a day later, or a week later, I always feel like I can go back to that task with fresh eyes. It is often simpler than our brains make those problems to be, but in the end, it is always very satisfying to finally troubleshoot something and get to the result you want. I don’t think this analogy will make sense for everyone but to me, it feels the same way when I was able to figure out one of the bonus questions in the Math exam when I was in high school. I feel like these small achievements are what makes me so excited to challenge myself in every project.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I started in CG because I wanted to be part of the animations and video games that I grew up with. All these different medias that I used to consume shaped me as an artist and are the reason why I chose to follow a creative career path. Nowadays, as an artist, I often look at game cinematics, anime, and, of course, CG animated movies to get inspiration for my personal projects. I tend to reference colorful visuals, I like implementing those bright and vibrant colors in my style. The animation industry has recently been bold and trying new styles. This new era of CG also inspires me as an artist to do something that impacts people. When I started college my goal was definitely to be part of Frozen 3 or any movie that was part of my childhood in the biggest animation industry. This is definitely still a dream for me, but after studying in this field for the past four years, I can say my passion for this art has grown even more, and now I focus on my artistic skill and how my art will impact other people. I love every aspect of CG and visual art in general, and I would like to challenge my skills and have the opportunity to create in many different styles. I hope I can create meaningful animations that will also make other people fall in love with this art!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ariva51.wixsite.com/annariva
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annarivart/#
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annariva-/
Image Credits
Personal Photo taken by Tatiana Kireicheva.