Becoming a Lighting & Compositing Artist, Sarah’s choice

Already an illustrator in New York and with a penchant for watercolour paintings, Sarah made the choice to train in 3D when she returned to school. This choice allowed her to discover jobs that combine art and new technologies, but also to enter the world of animated films, which had been her dream since she was a child.

Sarah selected MoPA because, when she was living in New York, she had met our graduate Julien Hazebroucq who showed her his final year film. She was blown away by the quality and style of his film but also by the other short films made by MoPA students. Impressed, in just one year she learnt French in order to fly to Arles and sit the MoPA entrance exam.

Sarah remembers the years at MoPA as some of the best years of her life. She loved living in Arles, a town steeped in history and a place where she met caring and talented friends. She also found the teaching to be of high quality and learned new skills very quickly.

“It really is one of the best schools in the world for 3D animation!”

Sarah is now based in Los Angeles and decided to specialise in Lighting and Compositing. She considers lighting to be the closest speciality to painting. Using colours and lighting, she tries to add emotion to the scenes of the projects that she works on. After having worked at DreamWorks and Nickelodeon, she now works at Disney. She has worked on animated films such as “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “The Rugrats”.

Her advice to our future students: “Work hard but always use your creativity and express yourself”. She explains that when you work in a big studio, you often tend to work on technical elements without being able to express yourself creatively. MoPA gives you the opportunity to do your own fun things.

For international students: “Don’t be scared, just go!”

> Discover Sarah’s creations on her website

Some examples of projects created by Sarah: