Worldbuilding Animation: Blurring the Lines of the Known and the Fantastical

Raman Djafari is a filmmaker working in both 2D, 3D, and live-action from Berlin, Germany. Through poetic imagery and fragmented narratives, they hope to reach into a realm of honest emotionality, creating surreal worlds and characters that oscillate between the familiar and the fantastical.

Raman has directed music videos for artists from across the globe, like Elton John, Dua Lipa, Coldplay and Ashnikko, as well as having worked with clients like Adult Swim, Spotify and The New Yorker. Currently they are represented as a director by the London-based animation studio BlinkInk.

LBB> How did you fall in love with animation?

Raman> By coincidence… almost.

Of course I loved animation as a child and teenager, the first film I ever watched in the cinema was ‘The Lion King’ and I am sure I watched the VHS of ‘Space Jam’ at least 1000 times. But as a medium to work in, it always felt out of reach. Too hard to learn, too many resources needed, too… magical to even wrap my head around. So I stuck to drawing.

At the end of my BA in illustration studies, I got asked by some friends from high school to make a music video. The band is called FJAAK and they’re a massive techno group now. I had never animated before but said yes. After six months of constant panic, struggle and feeling like a failure, I had made my first animated music video.

LBB> Tell us about the animation project that kickstarted your career?

Raman> The project I just mentioned is the music video for FJAAK’s song ‘Snow’. On this project I was basically learning how to animate while working on the project. I think my fascination and eagerness to explore the medium are very visible in the film, as it’s bursting with so many ideas. I still love this fact about the video. It still feels fun to me and speaks from a place of naive joy and curiosity.

LBB> How would you describe your art style and what are your biggest inspirations that developed it?

Raman> Through my work in illustration, animation, 3D, 2D, live action and all other mediums, I often try to create a sense of the world that is vulnerable and curious.

I work a lot with bodies, their physicality and how they can represent a state of being. I care a lot about the way people interact with each other and try to show characters in moments of mutual care and states of uncertainty.

I love to build surreal worlds that reflect the internal experiences of the characters and blur the lines of the known and the fantastical. My visual language has grown from this curiosity. Bodies and characters that diverge from normative beauty standards and propose a different way of seeing beauty.

Soft, hairy, fat, uncertain, vulnerable, gender nonconforming bodies are centred in my work. I love using dramatic lighting that feels almost theatrical, like things are happening on a theatre stage or in a Caravaggio painting.

I am inspired by artists like Sasha Gordon and Jordan Kasey, by writers and poets like Ocean Vuong and Otessa Moshfegh and by filmmakers like Charlie Kaufmann, Alice Rohrwacher, Sean Baker and Wim Wenders.

LBB> From your perspective, what’s the key to animation that really lives?

Raman> A genuine care for each aspect of the medium, a curiosity about the world and the desire to create something that is specific to the artist's view of the world.

LBB> Show us your favourite or most impactful project that you’ve worked on – tell us, what is it that makes it special and what were the memorable moments or challenges?

Raman> A long time ago I made a very humble and small one minute poetry short film for Adult Swim called ‘I Want to Be the Ocean’. It’s an attempt to grasp this feeling of being a vulnerable, uncertain and doubtful human.[One] who wants to share their experience of the world and self, to feel less alone in the world, while simultaneously experiencing a world that is being destroyed by the interests of giant monopolies, autocrats, fascists and oligarchs.

Grasping with the unbearable tension of this feeling and the desire to both escape it and really live in it, is something I tried with this film. I have since been trying to create work that can elaborate on that feeling.

LBB> How do you approach character design? What is your creative process like? Show us some of your favourite characters and their journey from notepad to screen.

Raman> Character design is a precious part of the process to me. I really care about them, so sometimes it takes a long time and many iterations to find the right character design. As I said earlier, I centre gender nonconforming characters and characters who don’t adhere to normative beauty standards.

My process of designing a character is very emotional and intuitive. It’s a process of searching and playing through sketches and rough 3D models. Often I go into the design process with a feeling, rather than a visual idea and start playing with shapes, colours, poses and fashion until I feel like there is a character looking back at me that represents that feeling.

It is a process of searching and exploration, of curiosity and uncertainty, that leads to the characters I care the most about.

LBB> Tell us more about observation and movement – what is the process you go through to study the movement of characters?

Raman> To me, animating a character is a form of dancing. I love the feeling of quick gestural drawing to capture the feeling I am trying to express in a character. What’s so special about animation is that every movement is a deliberate choice; every lifting of a cup from a table, every turning of a head, is a dance and a performance. When I started working in 2D animation, I was obsessed with studying people in my class, on the train or in the park, finding the rhythms and patterns in their movements and the shapes their bodies create.

LBB> We all know of some evergreen adult animations, but lately they have definitely been on the rise, from Rick and Morty to Arcane. What sort of opportunities does this open for animators, both within and outside the advertising industry?

Raman> I feel like there is a new wave of animators coming from the indie festival circuit, creating ambitious projects for more mainstream audiences. Greenstreet Pictures is a great example, with their latest show, ‘Common Side Effects’, they created something that feels like it pushes the envelope of what we are used to in the mainstream. The Oscar-winning indie feature Flow, or all the amazing animated short film projects that made it to the Oscars this year, all represent a shift in taste and appreciation for animation beyond the big blockbusters. Animation audiences are growing; I think people are yearning for diverse and fresh animated films and series. I hope people with money will see that and invest in the many incredible directors working right now.

We need all of these perspectives represented!

LBB> How does one figure out what kind of animation style or styles fits a particular story or project?

Raman> As a director of animation, one develops a sense for the intrinsic characteristics of each animation medium. After a while it becomes a very intuitive process. It really depends on the first images that come to mind for a given project. If I see flowing, morphing, surreal character movement, it’s probably going to be 2D. If I see dramatic light, texture and long camera moves through vast sets, probably 3D… etc. etc…

LBB> What is your favourite piece of technology or software that you use and how does it help your creative process?

Raman> I love Blender. It’s an open-source 3D software that can do everything from sculpting, to modelling, to physics simulation to animating and rendering. I love that it’s free, that it lowers the threshold for people to get started in the medium and I admire the people who make it, keeping true to their initial beliefs.

LBB> What sort of briefs or projects do you find more personally satisfying to work on?

Raman> I love music video briefs that come from a place of curiosity and love for the art form. Sometimes you can really see that a musician loves the medium of animation and is excited to share their ideas and find a way to create something special with the synergy of music and animation. I often find myself discovering themes and interests, through an idea that is sparked by the music. It’s the friction between the sound and my visual language that will push me into a direction I haven’t explored before. The music video I directed for Ashnikko for example, shows this world populated with hideous and weird monsters as well as pristine white cold robots going to battle. I would have never entered this universe without Ashnikko’s input and the lore that Ash and Vasso (the creative director of the album) wrote for Weedkiller.

LBB> What recent projects have really stood out for you and why?

Raman> I loved directing my latest music video for Coldplay, because I got the chance to invite 14 other amazing animation directors to the project to join me. People whose work I love and want to celebrate, people I have met at animation festivals all over the world who have become peers and friends. I really love the indie animation community and it was a beautiful experience to showcase all of these different approaches by all the other amazing animators.

LBB> Who is your animation hero and what is it about their work that inspires you? What example of their work particularly stands out?

Raman> Masaaki Yuasa and Satoshi Kon both have been incredibly influential to me. Masaaki Yuasa’s use of movement, of the physicality of a body, and his ability to change animation techniques and approaches from scene to scene for maximum emotional impact, have been a north star for me. Satoshi Kon’s editing – his way to transition from scene to scene to depict the perception of his characters and bring the viewer into his stories – is one of a kind.

I am also really inspired by my contemporaries, who are pushing the envelope of what animation can be. Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Nikita Diakur, Réka Bucsi, Nicolas Keppens, Nina Gantz, Sara Gunnarsdóttir, Flóra Anna Buda and so many more, all inspire me a lot.

LBB> Outside of the field of animation, what really inspires you?

Raman> I feel like what has influenced my work the most lately, is conversations with friends. Especially since I started working on my new short films, I often have these moments when something is said in a conversation, that I immediately need to write down because it resonates deeply with something in me.

Also, I love watching people on the street while sitting in a cafe. There is something so timelessly fun in imagining what a person is like and what kind of life they are living, when they are just passing you on the street.

LBB> What do you think are the misconceptions about animation throughout the industry?

Raman> That there are specific styles and subject matters that people are willing to watch in animation and that everything else will only ever be watched by a hyper-specific audience. I think the next few years will be exciting! Something is changing; a lot of people I have talked to feel the same. It’s like we are slowly approaching a brink of a shift in the appreciation of our medium.

LBB> What are the biggest changes to animation and challenges facing animators at the moment and what are your thoughts on them?

Raman> I think the advance of generative AI will probably lead to a massive devaluation of images and the labour that is behind it. I don’t want to be too dystopian and am still trying to be hopeful, but sometimes I really worry. We will keep making art that is meaningful to us, that is for sure, but I just worry that the funding and pay will not allow many people to live off of animation anymore. It is already really difficult and I can see it getting harder and harder as clients will demand more for less.

LBB> Any advice you would like to give to aspiring artists?

Raman> Find something you care about, pursue it with curiosity. Allow yourself to be doubtful and vulnerable. Try to be sensitive to yourself and your surroundings. Create things that come from a genuine place. There’s no need to rush. Trust in your instincts and let new points of view enter your thoughts.