Alex Laurant

Alex was raised by his mom in San Francisco. She was a fine art painter and art has always been a part of his family. So he’s always drawn since his was a little kid. He watched late night monster movies and scoured the local news stand for every magazine on movies he could find. In school he and a friend made stop motion animated films of their own inspired by Ray Harryhausen. He saw a presentation by Linwood Dunn at the SFMOMA and it set his trajectory for the future. Alex attended CCAC in Oakland for college and focused on illustration and graphic design. He freelanced for several years after school working as a graphic designer just as things were moving from analog techniques to digital. A gig working for a company in the South Bay doing multimedia presentations led to work doing a kind of story boarding and animation combining several of his skills and connecting him to working in the digital space. Alex moved onto another company and became and art director and eventually a manager/team leader working on multi-media “edu-tainment” projects. He was leaning new things everyday and building a set of skills that he’d use for years to come. A chance meeting at an art supply store with another art director Michael Brumsfeld from Colossal Pictures eventually led to a job at ILM. Alex worked as designer and visual effects art director on multiple films at ILM including; Star Wars: Special Editions, Saving Private Ryan, The Mummy, Mission to Mars, Minority Report, among others. After eight years Alex left in 2004 to work in games at Electronic Arts in London. Today he continues to work in games. Alex is a great artist, a kind human, and thoughtfully shares his journey. It was great fun to catch up with him and hear his story.