It’s an instinct he likely honed during a patchwork childhood. His parents, who are Iranian, were in the US when he was born, which gives Mokhberi his US citizenship, but when his dad finished his studies a few months later, they moved back to Iran. The Iranian Revolution happened a few months later. Six years later, the family moved to Stockholm, Sweden. In 1993, when Mokhberi was a sophomore in high school, they moved again. This time, to southern California.
“In Sweden, we studied English, so I went into a regular class,” he says. “After moving from Iran to Sweden, I was used to adapting to a new environment. But, you know, teenage angst. It took until the middle of my junior year. My accent at that point was like Arnold Schwarzenegger. My Persian mixed with Swedish sounded Austrian.”
He played football, and by his senior year, the students elected him to the Associated Student Body. In his junior year, though, he also discovered a natural ability for computer science. And, that led to his computer science major at UCLA, which led to SIGGRAPH, which led to Digital Domain, which led to film school, to Paris, to Gobelins, and to “Oktapodi.”
They began work on the graduation project by brainstorming, trying to come up with an original idea. First, they settled on octopuses, on a story of two octopuses in love. Then, they added a thief – the fisherman – who separates them. When they found the location, a Greek island, and put the fisherman on a truck that races wildly through the narrow streets, they were on their way toward creating their award-winning film.
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At Gobelins, while many of students focused on 2D, Mokhberi’s collaborators gravitated together to explore 3D animation; most had taken Maya classes during their second year and Mokhberi had used Maya at UCLA. “Everyone had been trained in After Effects and Photoshop,” Mokhberi says. “I was fairly proficient at editing through film school. We had a good range of skills – graphic design, art, animation, computer science.”
But, having taken a long time developing the story, they were behind when they started production on the fast-paced, two-minute film. “There is a lot of pressure because Gobelins produces good films year in and year out,” Mokhberi. “The school takes roll at nine in the morning and you can’t leave until six and you see everyone’s work, so there’s a lot of competitive energy. And, the school thought we were trying to do something that was already too much.”
So, all-nighters became the norm during the last six months. “There were six of us on the team and you all want to be sure you put in the same effort as your teammates,” says Mokhberi. “By the end of the year, one of the guys started spewing out nonsense. His brain caught up with him. He had to go sleep for a day.”
They finished the film in July and it immediately began winning film festival awards, including the Canal Award at Annecy, which offers the possibility of funding for another film.
But, one of the team took a job at DreamWorks, two went to Nice, one to Framestore CFC in London, and another stayed in Paris. For his part, Mokhberi stayed in Paris for another year while his wife finished her studies. He worked on his UCLA film, explored Paris, and practiced photography. “During the year we worked on the film, I could have been anywhere,” he says. “I was in school morning to night and worked on weekends at home. At the end of it, we were dead people. It took everyone on the team three or four months to recover.”
Now, back in the US, Mokhberi is interviewing for jobs at animation and visual effects studios in the San Francisco area and Los Angeles. He’s not sure, though, exactly what job to take.
“I wanted to be a technical director, so I did everything in grad school to be a TD,” he says. “But, I got sidetracked. I had never done art in my life before grad school. No photography. No drawing. Not anything. But when people said I should develop my eye, I went to grad school to get enough foundation to be a TD and then one thing led to another. The dean of the animation department talked me into working on animation. I never thought I could. And then, I wanted to do more. Now, I like everything. Animation. TD. I’d love to direct, of course, but that’s not a possibility at this point.”
We’ll see. Whatever he decides, wherever his improbable journey takes him next, we’re sure to hear more from this talented and technical artist in the future.
Related links:
OKTAPODI
Emud Mokhberi
Gobelins
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