Daren Rabinovitch, 2001 Academy Grad, Sculpts the Future of Motion Design

From "The Tale of Hillbelly," a short film by Encyclopedia Pictura

In Daren Rabinovitch’s view, “The best paintings and sculptures are now being created with movement and sound, and are called films and video games.” Rabinovitch (BFA01 Fine Art/Sculpture) has taken his sculptural background into the cinematic realms of modelmaking, prosthetics and writing, currently as a member of the celebrated motion design collaborative Encyclopedia Pictura.

Before joining EP, Rabinovitch was a film modelmaker; he says his first project of note was as a fabricator on Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, to which he contributed stop-motion puppets that appear throughout the film. “The building of stop-motion puppets is kind of like classical art for filmmaking,” Rabinovitch says, “and I think it was a good place to start. We also got to work in the ILM [Industrial Light & Magic] model shop with all the old Star Wars models — and old Star Wars modelmakers.” Two ensuing years of effects modelmaking “gave me the skills to make photographs look like paintings. That was freeing for me, because I was able to make all kinds of illustrative ideas I had that weren’t suitable for fine art painting or sculpture.”

Rabinovitch came to EP at the invitation of Isaiah Saxon, who attended the Academy from 2001 to 2005, focusing on Motion Pictures & Television. Saxon formed EP while still in school, later partnering with Sean Hellfritsch. For a while Rabinovitch stayed independent, although he worked with EP on music video projects like “Soo Tall,” 2006, for Oakland hiphop duo Zion I, and the legendary “Wanderlust” video for Bjork in 2008. (Most of the EP work in this article can be seen at EncyclopediaPictura.com.)

The blue river god from Encyclopedia Pictura's "Wanderlust" video for Bjork. Character by Daren Rabinovitch from a design by Isaiah Saxon.

Rabinovitch became a full member of EP after its music video period. He’s subsequently collaborated on an unreleased commercial for the video game Spore, a project whose CG characters vividly depict the evolution of life forms. The characters are modeled and painted after drawings by Rabinovitch and Saxon; backgrounds are their digital matte paintings. EP is currently finishing The Tale of Hillbelly, a short film Rabinovitch wrote and designed, and looking ahead to longer-format work. “We’ve been moving forward on a kids’ adventure film that incorporates themes of farming and technology and will be in 3D. This would be done over the next five years, give or take.”

From "Tactical Advantage," a short film

He has mixed feelings and some criticisms about his Academy experience, ranging from the blasé approach of some students to the school’s setting — he thinks it needs a real campus, “with trees and places where people can meet and talk that aren’t lit by fluorescents.” His thoughts on his course of studies reflect his evolution as an artist. “If you’re practicing on a daily basis, you’re already doing 50 percent of what people think they need school for,” he observes. “Having said all this, I appreciate the encouragement and support I did get from teachers. I made professional connections and got jobs through school, [connections] I was too shy to get myself.”

EP’s intricate, imaginary organic forms suggest states of birth, growth, decay and rebirth. Behind all of this work are ideas about reconciling our lives with nature. That may be reflected in the group’s approach to their own living environment. “Right at the moment we’re building a creative community in the hills of Aptos, which is just two hours from San Francisco,” Rabinovitch says. “We’re laying the groundwork for a setting where we can bring in collaborators from outside and have the forest be part of the dynamic … We’re inviting people to contact us who have skills in computer animation, drawing, painting or farming to join.”

Daren Rabinovitch applies finishing touches to the blobman character he created from a design by Isaiah Saxon, in Zion I's "Soo Tall" video by Encyclopedia Pictura.

They’re creating infrastructure from the ground up. “We’ve been building an outdoor kitchen, a kitchen garden, humanure bathrooms, and terracing the hillsides to absorb rainwater. Eventually we want to build living structures and a studio/village that operates sort of like an art residency or hostel. We spent six months hosting and participating in a permaculture class here so we could have some confidence that the space we’re creating will be holistically managed by its members — human, animal and vegetable.”

Editor’s note: Highly recommended: EncyclopediaPictura.com is not to be missed by anyone interested in the future of film and motion design. Special thanks to Daren for his carefully considered, cogent responses to my questions. Read his full text of this interview here.