Today we’d like to introduce you to Thaddeus Varness

Hi Thaddeus, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.

I started my animation journey with sticky note flip-book animations. I would draw bouncing balls on every page and then flip through them with my thumb and watch as the drawings turned into motion. That was the cornerstone for me. Through high school and into college I continued to animate, discovering and throwing myself fully into stop-motion. To me it was the purist form of character animation. There was nothing between you and the performance, not a pencil, a computer, or a program. Going into college I animated on as many projects as I possibly could. I learned so much from collaborating with other people and working with different directors, visions, and styles. Recently I had a stop-motion animation internship in Oregon, learning from some of the best animators in the world and getting phenomenal feedback. It’s always been important for me to grow and expand my abilities.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?

I don’t think art is a smooth road for anybody, and everyone has their own journey. Personally, I didn’t have anyone in my family that worked in the art industry. So, I really had to work for every piece of knowledge and opportunity that I could. I’ve also had to move several times all across the country because of how small the stop-motion industry is. That can be extremely challenging, and unlike other forms of art and animation, setting up a means to do it at a professional level from home can be very daunting. I think resilience and unrelenting dedication are what’s needed to succeed. I’m very fortunate to have a partner who also does stop-motion fabrication. She has been an immense supporter, and we are both able to work together to pursue our goals. We recently just set up a function home studio to continue to work on projects in-between gigs. I’m so lucky to have someone like her in my life.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?

I am a stop-motion character animator, which means I sit in a dark room and pose little puppets for hours on end, snapping individual photos of each pose. When strung together in a sequence, the photos give the illusion of motion. It’s the style of animation used in films like “Coraline”, “Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer” and “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”. I thrive working alone for hours on end and have a deep passion for animation as a whole, so I love my job wholeheartedly. Le Charade was my senior film in college. It’s currently in its festival run and it’s doing quite well for itself. I served as lead animator on the project.

Charade really spoke to my personal sense of problem solving and invention. The film is about a Mime in a diner who slowly starts to become disconnected from reality. The director wanted the animation to reflect this mental state so I did tests and developed an animation style that would be more grounded and naturalistic when the character was calm, and then progressively become more and more cartoony and exaggerated as he lost his mind. It was incredibly fun and allowed me to strip the animation back to the core principles of animation.

How do you define success?

I think success is entirely defined by achieving goals that you set for yourself. I think if you spend your entire life trying to please other people and corralling yourself into predetermined channels it can be a total waste. The only person whose standards matter is your own. The best we can hope to do is to self-actualize what makes ourselves happy. I love seeing people let their flags fly and being themselves, because I know that they are doing what gives them joy. And I think a world full of joyful people is a place I want to live in. I loved animation since I was 10 years old, and everything good in my life has come from my pursuit of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thaddeusvarness.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thadimation_art/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thaddeus-varness-29b40424b/