THURISTAR

SMOKESCREEN (1999 – 2002)

Halfway my third year of traditional animation studies, I left the academy to join a newborn company named Smokescreen. I joined forces with some wicked dudes, all classmates from the same academy KASK in Ghent; Aykan Umut ( the man behind whatsmyname), Anton Setola ( working on his own shortfilm), Kim Claeys ( the right hemisphere of Littlebigmachine) and Karim Rhellam ( the left one…)

The main objective was to produce an animated series for an adult audience. Nohandsland was born and became a full time job for the five of us. Later on we also worked on Les tripplettes de belleville, animating the racers on their bikes, cars, motocycles and vans in the first half of the race sequence. www.lestriplettesdebelleville.com The company was ended in 2002, NoHandsland was shelved and we each went our own way. For further information about Nohandsland go to www.littlebigmachine.com/nhl

WHATSMYNAME? ( 2002 – 2004 )

After smokescreen ended, Aykan and me wanted to start a new kind of work concept. The main idea whas to work on freelance jobs; commercials, print, company films, visuals, … Either together or separately but allways under one and thesame name; Whatsmyname?

Aykan, late night working and seeing things that aren’t there!

After a few years of having lots of ‘kroelie’ times, many, many, … many late working nights and many, many, … many 50cl Jupilers. I decided to leave Whatsmyname? and start as a character animator on a company short film, produced by Grid-vfx. Today, Aykan is still running WMN, never stopped being a close friend, still works many, many, … many hours and like me, also still drinks many, many, … many 50cl Jupilers along the way. ( Its a wonder we never got sponsored by Jupiler!) He has a spectacular online portfolio which you can visit here: www.whatsmyname.be

TeeVeeMan whas created for the intro off the Whatsmyname – Demoreel? Music by Frederik Segers.

GRID-VFX ( 2004 – 2008)

Worked at Grid for 4 years – learning how to handle presure and high expectations within short deadlines – a good learning period.

Worked mainly as a storyboarder – Animator and Animation director

Projects I worked on:

Centea - Studio 100 (  the Cgi plant sequence in Piet Piraat, K3 movies ) – Pidpa – Proximus – Sutas

TINKERTREE BVBA ( 2007 – present )

In 2007 I joined forces with Grid-vfx managing team; Jan Goossen and Frank De Wulf ( www.grid-vfx.com ) to form a new company called TINKERTREE. The main objective is to create concepts for the production of animation tv series, shorts & feature fims. Currently we are co-producing the development of Plankton Invasion – The TV series, with TeamTO and Nexus factory.

THURISTAR aka Joeri Christiaen BVBA ( 2008 – present )