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Balder Westein |
Director/animator
Born in 1979 and raised in the beautiful green Brabantine nature, this artist's son was destined to muster his senses in a special way. Soon his drawingtalent manifested itself and a puppetfilm he saw on television disclosed his animator's soul. The simple conclusion "I can do this too" got him to make a start with some borrowed materials from school. This did not only lead to his first animation film, but also marked the starting point for his development into a director/animator.
During his training Art/Media/Technics at HKU (Arts Academy of Utrecht) from 1999 till 2004, Balder has mainly learned to work with computers. Right from the start in the first study year he worked on practical commissions. During his traineeship at the Dutch animationstudio Pedrie he learned to make props, moulds and sceneries for several animationseries.
While this was all very instructive, the time had come to make his own animationseries! Together with Patrick Raats he ventured a leap in the dark and he made 'Barbazan', a 13 x 5' puppet animationseries. With this project Balder found out how complicated it is to get off the ground an animationseries in The Netherlands. But there wasn't much time to dwell on this topic, because in the meantime the first commission for a feature film titles sequence arrived: Floris. Soon after came Pluk and his Tow Truck and The Horrorbus, both for BosBros.
The result of these commissions and of his commercials both were so much appreciated that Balder by word of mouth was never without work. On the contrary, the deadlines as hard as nails followed eachother in a dazzling pace and the creative mind worked overtime. Time for a break!
A back-pack trip to Mexico had to refill the mind with beautiful Mexican images. It was time for a new course.
Then the phone-call from BosBros came in. Bullseye!
Now Balder will develop several projects for BosBros. He will give Alfie its featurefilm appearance and for the TVseries Annie MG he has created the subtle phantasy additions. Tom Space will be his first major project. Balder will develop the total concept and direction of this animationfeature. For both BosBros and Balder this is going to be their first animation feature adventure.
His first minifeature will appear from 2010 on prior to each BosBros feature: the new BosBros ident.
Check Balder's own website >>
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