Invisible leading lines

Eyes are the strongest language of emotion: they can express reactions both subtly and as expressly as possible. It is not for nothing that in caricatures, comics and animation the eyes are always enlarged - they emphasize and sharpen the emotion and story being told. The viewer always looks at the eyes first and the direction where the character is looking: at the action being performed, the person or object, thus trying to understand the character's intentions.

If you want the meaning of the story you are telling to be fully understood by the audience, you need to indicate where to look - “invisible” lines (leading, for example, to the eyes of the hero) will help with this, especially if your shots are short enough in editing. Let’s see how this principle is used in cinema: both acting and animation. Below are examples where the lines come to the front of the eyes.

Pay attention to the last frame on the left: the rails and the base of the stairs point to both heads of the two-headed character (Terry and Terry Parry) at once, Pixar uses this trick very often.

Concentrating and at the same time pointing designs in Star Wars create a majestic image of the main villain, it could only be made cooler if you shoot from a lower angle.

Usually, to demonstrate the thoughts of a character, the method of panning the camera to the hero is used, but, as you can see in the examples below, the lines, even in a static frame, perform the same function and take us into the inner world of characters just as well.

See how the lines help to create connections between the eyes of two or more people, thereby indicating contact between the characters.

Here, a huge number of lines create a concentration on a specific object, such compositions are suitable for moments of crisis or climax in a story.

In these examples, the lines do not point to the hero's eyes, but help to tell the story with the composition. These scenes are nice to watch and can remain completely static for quite some time, which is especially useful in pauses that follow active incidents.

Surely, you can always say that the line accidentally caught the eye and there is nothing super cool about it. But check the footage from Prometheus: the line almost passes through the eyes of the characters, and this "almost" could be made sharper and stronger.

Of course, you can go on without leading lines, but if you want to control the eye of the audience, this simple but very powerful principle is in your hands.

Founders

Misha Petrick

Founder, Head of Development

In school, I got interested in 3D and rendered pictures with characters. At the same time, I made 2D animations in Microsoft Paint. I studied to become a designer in university and later took animation courses with Sasha Dorogov. In 2019, I completed a visual storytelling and pitching course at Gobelins.

For several years, I worked as a designer and then as an art director at Instinct advertising agency (BBDO). After freelancing for several years as an animation art director, I founded Petrick. I develop the studio as a creative director, combining all three areas of my work experience—animation, design, and advertising.

In studio projects, I have a strong attraction to different styles—probably due to the influence of Soviet cartoons. I'm always interested in exploring new execution techniques — it's just fun. I also love loop animation and pixel art.

I’m growing up together with the studio. At first, I did a lot of work by hand, and the team helped me. We simply took briefs and produced animations with a main focus on its quality. Then we improved in design. Next, we improved in directing. And now it's time for me to try to help the team, or at least not get in their way. Currently, we continue to improve in directing, as well as often write stories and creatives for clients ourselves.

Nadya Petrick

Co-founder, New Business

Producers

Polina Fufarova

Executive Producer

Alena Antonyan

Producer

Natasha Matsota

Producer

Artists

Ruslana Mirzaalieva

Director, Art Director, Character Designer

I have been working in the animation industry since 2013. I have experience managing teams as an art director and animation director since 2017. I can also art direct projects with multiple styles; in one of such projects, there were 18 styles.

In 2019, I directed a music video for the Ukrainian singer Ivan Dorn. The work became a part of a large campaign in collaboration with WWF, aimed at preserving the habitats of birds whose voices were used in the track. The video received over 20 awards at festivals worldwide: D&AD, Golden Drum, Cresta, One Show, Caples, and others.

Adobe Creative magazine interviewed me for the Best of Behance section in 2018. I have given 20 lectures on different stages since 2015: in schools, studios, and festivals.

In my works, I do not stick to a single style because I believe that the style should stem from the project's idea to reinforce it. Deep knowledge of composition, color, and visual storytelling helps me lead projects in almost any style and create a visual language ideally suited to the project.

I also love street art and dream that one of the projects will come out on a wall because I think our offline environment needs color. I am concerned about the feminist agenda and the fight against violence, patriarchy, and inequality, and I am happy to participate in projects on social issues. I love to observe how people express themselves through their clothes, behavior, or facial expressions. I collect photos with interesting examples and transfer them into my drawings. I design characters on almost all my projects.

Oleg Kulinich

Director, 3D Visual Researcher

I have an engineering background: I’m a graduate of the "Automation Systems Management and Control" department.

There, I became interested in filming, worked at the student television as an operator and editor, and later as an executive editor.

From 2012 to 2017, I worked as a freelancer as an animator and director.

From 2017 to the present, I have been working with Petrick — first as an animator, then as an art director and director.

As a director, I have participated in such studio projects as “Zemfira – Austin” (Berlin Music Video Awards: Best Music Video) and “Angry Birds Dream Blast” (NYX Game Awards: Grand Winner).

My engineering education helps me understand technical details, and my experience as a director (and the number of films I watched) lets me come up with storylines. For me, each project is like a construction set. The number of details is limited, but imagination is not. Even with a small number of pieces you can build something interesting. Each time it's a surprise — which brick will be the missing one? A speck of dust in the sun's rays? A glare on the camera? Or a small scratch?

Ilya
Buzinov

Director, Lead Animator

I am an animator, teacher, and director with 10 years of experience in the industry. I have led the animation and directed more than 200 projects and taught animation directing to about ten students at the HSE ART & design school.

After finishing the animation directing course, for several years I worked on motion design and mapping for music concerts. Later, I immersed myself in the animation world, becoming the lead animator in Guy Germanika's project "What it's like to be a real man" in 2016. The film was shown at many major domestic festivals and received various awards.

Since 2019, I have been working at Petrick as a director and lead animator. During this time, I have participated in many studio projects, including directing animation for music videos by Austin and Dich, which have received awards at international festivals such as Annecy, Berlin Music Video Awards, D&AD, and many others.

I have extensive experience working in the gaming industry, having directed videos for games such as Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, Atomic Heart, and others.

As a director, I pay a lot of attention to movement and rhythm. It's important for me to create interesting choreography and editing for the animated characters. In animation, I especially love cinematic techniques, when I can convey an idea not only through the action or reaction of the animated character but also through a special perspective or precise detail.

Vova
Orlov

Director, Lead Animator, Puppet master

I was finishing my master's degree in economics and felt that numbers were not my thing. I wanted to deal with real magic. That's when I started studying animation, first at Animation School, and then with Sasha Dorogov.

In 2015, I started working at Petrick as a classical animator, and soon I plunged into pixel art. Over the past 6 years, I have been involved in all the pixel projects of the studio and have been the lead animator on many projects, including award-winning ones at festivals such as ADC, White Square, G8, and others.

Now I also work as a director. My debut project, a music video for the Norwegian performer Aurora, was the studio's first puppet work, and a meeting point of my favorite work and my main hobby - model building. As one of my hobbies for the past 15 years, I have been assembling and painting miniatures and creating dioramas.

In my opinion, the best animation can be seen not in flashy action scenes, but in slow, subtle scenes, where even the slightest movements of a character can reveal their inner feelings. Humor is also important to me in my work. It's a powerful tool, so even in serious stories, I try to find a place for a moment that will make people smile, to enhance the emotional range of the video.

Denis Pisarev

Art Director, Character Designer

Initially, I studied wooden architecture restoration, then I switched to animation. I had planned to go to university to study directing, but I ended up working at a small animation studio where I learned many programs, from Photoshop to 3D MAX. In addition to this, I took animation courses from Sasha Dorogov, drawing courses from Leonid Ilyukhin, and attended the Gobelins summer school.

I tried out different aspects of production such as animation, design, motion graphics, compositing, and gradually moved into the field of directing. I spent a long period of time working on promo videos for mobile games as an art director. At the same time, I developed my skills in character design and always tried to find authenticity, stylization, and dynamics in my work.

At some point, I realized the power of teamwork. It's super cool when you delegate tasks and share responsibilities with teammates, as things get done faster and better.

Katya Mikheeva

Director, Animator, Character Designer

I have been creating animation since 2016. My passion is short animated films.

In 2018, I made the film "Dacha, Aliens, Cucumbers," which successfully traveled the world: it was shown at festivals in South Korea, Estonia, France, Finland, Ukraine, Budapest, Russia, the Netherlands, and Taiwan.

In 2020, I graduated from the animation department at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and entered the French animation directing school Poudrière. In the same year, I made two films: the documentary short "Can We Talk?" and my graduation project "Cyber-Eva," both of which were selected for the Annecy International Animation Film Festival program.

In 2022, I completed the program at Poudrière with my graduation project "Dans la danse/In the Dance."

In my films, I am practically responsible for the narrative, visual, and animation parts. I am a master of experimenting with artistic techniques and design, attentive to details, and a person of action. I do hip-hop freestyle and believe that my movement practice and animation are complementary and inseparable.