Dr. Bayly’s puppet needed to be re-built with new illustrations and new rigging for movements.
Chapter 43 is a first-class art and design company located in Ontario, Canada and Lahore, Pakistan. The company specializes in animation, illustration, graphic design, video editing, motion graphics and much more.
Once Mat Bevel Company completed the first prototype for The Universe Within 3-minute opening videos in 2020, we realized we needed to go back into production to develop more sophisticated puppet animation of Dr. Bruce Bayly and add motion graphics. We reached out on the Internet, and lo and behold, the next day we received a proposal from the very creative team at Chapter 43!
The company has a talented team who always put in their best efforts and energy into the understanding of an idea and turn it into the best outcome possible. What follows is an interview with Mat Bevel Company Vice President Paula Schaper and Illustrator & Animator Mahad Khan:
Mahad Khan, Illustrator & Animator for Chapter43
Paula: Why did your organization reach out to Mat Bevel Company to work on this project?
Mahad: Our business development team reached out to Mat Bevel Company without knowing fully what possibilities this would lead to. As an Art Director upon first meeting with Paula on zoom, I could immediately see the sincere passion she had for this project and the people she works with. Seeing wonderful interesting sculptures and enthusiastic kids sealed the deal for us and we decided that we would love to regularly work on interesting projects like yours.
Paula: What does your team finds rewarding about this project?
Mahad: By far the most rewarding thing is reading Paula’s encouraging and enthusiastic emails. Her guidance and appreciation are what fuels our creative hearts. Paula loves her team a lot and mentions all her coworkers with such warm words. Being of service to such a good bunch of people is worth its weight in gold.
Paula: Tell us more about your area of specialty, Adobe Character Animator and what it took to re-rig Dr. Bayly.
Mahad: I have always been an illustrator and studied character design. Animation was a natural progression of my interest. So, when Paula showed us Bruce, I realized this was something we can really improve. I made a few initial sketches and with Paula kind guidance we settled for the new Bruce we see today. The shirt, the signature beanie and the voice acting all comes together nicely to produce a new and improved Bruce. We used Adobe Illustrator and Adobe After Effects to produce an animatable rig for Bruce that we can use to have him act out all sorts of scenarios.
Paula: How do you think both our teams’ values align?
Mahad: We at chapter 43 believe in giving back to the community and sharing knowledge. I personally conduct a digital illustration class just with the aim to pass on the skills that I have learned and to teach people how easy it is to learn on our own by utilizing the wealth of knowledge available to us online. I feel in this way we both play a somewhat mentoring role in one way or the other. We believe knowledge can only increase by giving it away.
Paula: What is your vision for the long-term partnership with Mat Bevel Company?
Mahad: We are taking this as our first baby steps with you. We want to keep improving and expanding. Animation is usually a time-consuming process and we do have deadlines to meet. But we aim to improve with every episode. We are also Graphic Designers and Creative thinkers so I believe there is a lot left for us to explore and work together on.
Paula: How do you feel about working across the globe on creative projects?
Mahad: It’s such an amazing yet humbling experience that even though we are so far away from each other yet we all have integral roles to play. So many things have to go right just to make a perfect result. We feel like a small part of a very big picture.