I'm Gianluca Fratellini, born in 1980 in Modugno - Puglia, Italy. My career in 3D animation actually started at the early age of 14 during high school years by studing my self Autocad and Lightwave.
After receiving my diploma I I started studying computer science at University.
Quite some time passed before I finally obtained my very first (and very slow) AMD-K6 personal computer and throughout the following years I was just exploring various software as a generalist carrying out different tests in animation and also I started my first short-film "A Bug's Story" (5 minutes), inspired by the characters from Pixar's movie "A Bug's Life".
I started to focus my attention more on animation so I decided to work on a small short-film "A Bug's Story" and at the same time a small company in Luxembourg, Oniria Pictures contacted me.
I decided to leave university and flight to Luxembourg to work in Oniria Pictures as 3D Junior Animator on TV Series "Bob' s Beach" and then became Senior 3D Animator on the first film "Tristan & Isolde" followed by a second feature film "Renart the Fox".
Im the same time I decided to create a short-film "Life in Smoke - Una Vita in Fumo" whit which I won several awards on Italian and European film festivals.
I later worked at Ubisoft at Montrèal, in Canada, as 3D Senior Animator and Layout Supervisor in the Cinematic’s department of big games such as Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six, Far Cry, AND 1, Surf’s Up, etc. At the same time I was also a 3D animations teacher for university programs Level 2 at the Ubisoft's Campus organized by Cegep of Matane in Quebec.
Later I was contacted by Animal Logic in Sydney - Australia where I worked on the movie "Happy Feet" by Warner Bros as 3D Character Animator on the main character "Mumble". I had a great experience working with director George Miller. “Happy Feet” was a really nice movie that allowed us to go on to win the Academy Award Oscar for "Best Animated Motion picture" in 2006.
Then I moved to Spain where I worked at Ilion Animation Studios in Madrid, as 3D Character Animator on the movie "Planet 51".
After that I worked on a commercial for "Actimel Danone" and a TV series "Glumpers" as 3D Lead Animator.I decided later on to move to the UK to work as 3D Senior Animator at Climax working on Konami's game "Silent Hill Origins", "Elveon" and "Overloard" and later I moved to Double Negative in London to work as 3D Character Animator on some live action movies - "Paul" directed by Greg Mottola, with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for Universal Pictures, and on the Disney/Pixar movie "John Carter" directed by Pixar's director Andrew Stanton (from Wall-e and A Bug's Life).
While I was waiting for my USA visa, I moved first to Canada where I worked at Sony Pictures Imageworks in Vancouver as 3D Senior Animator on the cartoon movie "Hotel Transylvania" directed by Genndy Tartakovsky and shortly after that I finally received my visa to work at Blue Sky Studios in New York as 3D Character Animator on movies such as "Epic" directed by Chris Wedge, "Rio 2" directed by Carlos Saldanha, "Peanuts" directed by Steve Martino, "Ice Age 5: Collision Course" directed by Mike Thurmeier e Galen Chu and two short-films with Scrat "No Time for Nuts" and "Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe".
After 3 years in the Usa with my O-1 Alien Visa I decided to leave the snow and come back to Europe working as 3D Animation Supervisor on a commercial for "Budweiser - We will rock you" in Barcelona - Spain and as 3D Lead Animator and Animation Supervisor on the Russian blockbuster "Viking", I'm now in rainy London at Framestore where I worked on the Walt Disney movie "Beauty and the Beast" directed by Bill Condon as 3D Senior Character Animator and on "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" directed by James Gunn.
Then I worked on the new animated Paramount movie "Sherlock Gnomes" as 3d Lead Animator at Mikros Image Animation/Technicolor in London directed by John Stevenson.
I worked as 3D Lead Animator at MPC LONDON for the Walt Disney movies "Dumbo" directed by Tim Burton, "The Lion King" directed by Jon Favreau and on the sequel Disney movie "Maleficent 2" directed by Joachim Rønning.
Also I worked for the 76ª Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica di Venezia - 76th annual Venice International Film Festival for the entire animation and supervision of the spot with a CG lion.
I worked always in London as Animation Supervisor at DNEG (Double Negative) for their first feature animated movie "Ron's Gone Wrong" directed by Jean-Philippe Vine and Octavio Rodriguez working during Covid-19 part in the studio and part remotely.
I had the chance to be involved by MPC as 3D Lead Animator for their 02 spots with the new mascotte robot which I was pleased to give personality for their two commercials: O2 - You & Me and O2 - Unwrap the magic of Christmas in which I worked for the previz too.