Pedro Eboli graduated from Classical Animation in April, and the advertising-copywriter-turned-animator made the most of his VFS year: his final film, Papercut, was recently featured on YouTube, which has resulted in well over 200,000 views as of this writing, and A Pug’s Life, was blogged by Cold Hard Flash. Both films have already made it onto Channel Frederator podcasts - where Pug was just named Frederator’s Cartoon of the Month.

Now, Pedro’s a humble guy - when we caught up with him, he seemed genuinely surprised that we’d want to know more. But he’s enjoying the ride so far, and as it turns out, the development and online success of his two films offers a great personal glimpse inside the Classical Animation program - how a sudden career decision can become therapy for the ad man’s soul.

What’s your story, Pedro? Where are you from?

Sheesh, that’s a tough one. I guess I should say I’m from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - born and raised. I wish I had a big, sweeping, epic story to put here, but that pretty much sums it up. After high school, I went to university and took advertising, because I really didn’t know what else to do.

I never, ever thought of animation as a career, especially being in Rio, where the industry is not so big. It’s not like your career adviser would ever come up to you and say, “You should become an animator.” But I’ve always liked to doodle. Anytime, anywhere. Funny thing is I never, ever colored anything. So, needless to say, my Color Theory classes at VFS were pretty intense.

Why the career change?

Like I said, advertising came as a safe choice for a bachelor’s degree, being a pretty big industry in Brazil. And I enjoyed being able to work with something that involved creativity and doing a completely different assignment each day. It taught me how to be concise in my ideas and how to deal with clients that think very differently than you.

But something wasn’t right. I complained a lot, and I was having more fun doing online comics with a good friend than actually going to work. And that’s when I knew I had to get out, quickly, before my 26 years old turned into 40. After researching some, I came into VFS. And it just seemed right: the city, the curriculum and, above all, the perspective of working as an animator, of drawing for a living.

It was a month between having the idea to do animation and being enrolled in VFS.

Now, let’s talk Papercut: featured on YouTube Canada, then across all the YouTube international sites in the Film & Animation category. In a very short time, it’s racked up 200,000 views. What’s that like? To graduate in April, and already have all those people enjoying your work?

Yeah. That’s pretty cool. I almost jumped out of my chair when I opened YouTube one morning and something like 15,000 people watched the short overnight. I guess I have to thank technology for that.

But at the same time, what matters most to me is that my good friends and family had a really nice reaction to the film. From the viewcounts on Youtube, you can tell that most people are interested in monkeys smelling their fingers and cute baby wombats or whatever.

How did you land on the concept? Did it change much in early development?

Well, from early on in the program we have some Story Concept classes with the awesome Marv Newland, and I’d been torturing the poor guy with a bunch of different concepts, from zombie monkeys fighting robots and cowboys to slapstick relationship comedies. I was all over the place, because when it comes to animation, there are no constraints, really.

Then one class I mentioned something about getting a paper cut and turning into some sort of paper werewolf. And that’s how it began. The paper man was more of a monstrosity at first, and the paper hunters were more like a mix between Van Helsing and a SWAT team. It was only after a friend from Brazil reminded me of the Terry Gilliam short The Crimson Permanent Assurance that the hunters changed to something more ridiculously down to earth. And the paper guy was humanized to reflect better the Kafkian nature of office work.

Pug’s Life. Again, seemed to get traction online pretty much right away. And like Papercut, it’s a slice of absurdity, despite the fact that it came together in basically no time at all. How on earth did you manage something so polished in the last four weeks before graduation?

Oh, the Flash boot camp. There’s no other way to describe it. We are basically in rags from just finishing our Classical film and then… ta-da! We’ve got to make another one from scratch. While learning a completely new software, nonetheless. And Flash, like most things, can be used for evil - like some nasty horrible web clips you see all the time.

But it’s just a tool, the principles of animation are all the same. “Just make it zippy” - that’s the mantra our awesome Flash teacher Edwin Poon tried to burn in our brains. And once you get that, then it’s just a matter of trying to plan everything according to the time constraints you have, only to get over-ambitious halfway through the process and not sleep for a week. That’s how it worked for most people in the class. We all slept for days after the grad, though.

I know that because of the tight timeframe of those end-of-year Flash pieces, students often collaborate with each other. Was that the case with A Pug’s Life?

Well, it wasn’t really a collaboration as in “here’s a scene for you to do” or any of that. I mean, everyone had enough work for themselves as-is. But it sure is a collaboration in the sense that everyone is asking for opinions and suggestions all the time. From the instructors, who we were all chasing down the hall like mad men, but especially from our classmates.

I mean, we were all locked together in a room for most of the day, anyways. Might as well take advantage of it. And it was great. Me and a couple of friends had this nice, healthy “competition” that really paid off for all of us. You look to your right, see something amazing on someone else’s screen, and think, “I’ve got to put in some extra hours today… I mean, look at that guy!”

And, of course, we would poke fun at each other when one of our experiments failed. There’s no fuel like mockery.

What’s next for you? What are you hoping for, career-wise as well as with Papercut and Pug’s Life, now that they’re out in the world?

As for my little self, I’m looking around for opportunities to get working. It’s a brand new industry to me, so it’s good to look around and know who’s doing what where. Thankfully, the school and the instructors have been extremely supportive in this whole process.

Also, I’m working from home on a new short. I can’t say much right now, except that it’s called The Last Romantic Necrophiliac, much to my parents’ dismay. But it’s a fun little story I’ve had with a good friend almost two years ago, and hopefully Flash and some self-imposed deadlines will help me make it.

As far as my two shorts, even though I can’t stand watching them anymore, I hope they get into some nice festivals out there. Festivals are always the best crowds. And it would especially be a dream to get them in the Anima Mundi Festival, in Rio de Janeiro, which I’ve attended for so many years and at which I’ve seen some of my animation heroes on the screen.

We see big things to come for both Papercut and A Pug’s Life! To follow Pedro’s exploits, visit his blog at pedroeboli.blogspot.com.