We were lucky to catch up with Apoorva Gaitonde recently and have shared our conversation below.

Apoorva, appreciate you joining us today. Who is your mentor and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

There are several people who have influenced me in my journey so far. My professors and mentors have shown incredible kindness and generosity in helping me break into the animation industry. My most recent mentorship with women in animation left a lasting impression on me. My mentor, Gustavio Cosio is a storyboard artist at Netflix animation.Over the course of 4 months, we met biweekly to work on storyboard assignments and interact with other artists from the animation community. Many of the guests were coworkers of Gus, who had worked with him on several animated projects. What struck me the most was how they only had good things to say about their working experience with Gus. It seemed like a genuine admiration for each other’s work. Gus is extremely talented at his job and has worked on many renowned netflix shows. Despite the success he has achieved, he continues to stay humble and grounded. I have to credit him for taking time out of his busy schedule to mentor us. He came up with interesting story assignments that helped me get out of my comfort zone and try new genres. The mentorship has inspired me to continue working on my skills, and I hope to work with more people like Gus in the industry.

Apoorva, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As a storyboard artist and illustrator, my job involves working with the director to bring their vision to life. I usually work off a script by creating sequential images that act as a blueprint for the animation pipeline. In 2017, I took a leap of faith that brought me to the US from India. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to have worked for clients such as Nickelodeon, Disney Junior and Hulu among others. I’ve learned a lot by being exposed to the animation industry in LA over the past few years. I love how passionate everyone is about honing their craft to create a show or movie that they’re truly proud of. Some of my proudest moments have been seeing a shot I worked on translated to a cleaned up final animated version. I enjoy watching content from different cultures on OTT platforms. I’ve been transported to their worlds by the engaging stories on screen. I hope to have the opportunity to portray more stories from my own culture and the experiences I grew up with.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Being in the hub of the animation industry has exposed me to some extremely talented artists in my field. With the advent of social media, I’m able to see work from artists around the globe. This helps me to stay humble and understand that I need to keep working on my skills and constantly work on my craft as a storyboard artist. I moved to the US with a dream of working as a storyboard artist for an animated feature film. I’m constantly motivated to keep working towards that goal. Although, lately I’m trying to enjoy the process of getting better as an artist and focusing on trying to work on good projects.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I think one of my greatest strengths is my patience and the ability to never give up, despite undergoing multiple failures. For a long time, I felt a calling to direct a short film based on a story that was very personal to me. I don’t think I anticipated how hard this would be to do along with a full time job. So I put in time after work and over the weekends to achieve the quality of work that I aspired for. This has truly been one of the most rewarding experiences of my career. I also had the support of a terrific team who stood by me until the very end, and brought in their own amazing ideas to create a short film we could all be proud of. My short film is currently running in film festivals around the world. We recently won at the Hollywood shorts fest under The Best Animated Film category.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://agaitonde.wixsite.com/website
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apoorva_gaitonde/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apoorva-gaitonde-50753b34/