According to the animation calendar released by Netflix in June, their plans for the second half of 2025 look massive, both in the amount of content and its quality. Their slate spans across animations of different genres and intended audiences, from adult animation to kids and family series, including both new and long-awaited returning shows. As the global interest in animation rises along with the demand for more creative content, new digital tools and pipelines are being introduced, creating the temptation to automate creativity to some extent. Victor Ens, an animator with two decades of experience, who worked throughout his career from a self-taught animator and storyboard artist to participating as a Senior Character Animator or Supervising Animator on award-winning Feature Films such as The Breadwinner (2017) and Klaus (2019), sees modern animation as a collaborative creative process, where the united work of hundreds of team members is required to create the work that catches the attention of the audiences.
He explains that the landscape of modern animation includes a diverse array of forms and styles, from traditional hand-drawn stories to the digital animation created with cutting-edge tools or even combining animation with other media, such as live-action movies with cartoon characters. However, the creation of the story goes beyond choosing and implementing the right style. The job of the lead animator begins before it comes to creating visuals, as it involves shaping the narrative, determining its rhythm and pace through the means of storyboarding. It includes input from directors, editors, writers and leading artists who choose the story’s structure and flow, transitioning from an initial concept to a detailed structure and then to the final animation. Victor Ens began his career as a self-taught animator, diligently honing his skills by studying classic animation works and interning before progressing to roles as a storyboard revisionist and animator. He later advanced to lead animator and eventually supervising animator and storyboard artist, leveraging his experience to resolve story issues and ensure strong narratives and high visual quality.
Why Leadership Matters
Throughout his career, Victor acquired vast experience working not only as an animator in charge of particular scenes or aspects of the animation, such as animating the main characters Ben and Saoirse for the Song of the Sea, a 2014 animation nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 87th Academy Awards, but also as a leader mentoring younger animators, evaluating and correcting their work to keep it aligned with high industry standards and pass on his experience and his methods. Moreover, he participated in reviewing demo reels from applicants, determining hiring decisions, and shaping teams with greater potential for efficient creative collaboration.
“The significance of establishing a productive environment for creative collaboration when working on an animated film is hard to overestimate,” explains Victor Ens. “Not only does it help to eventually create the performance that resonates with the audiences, but it also saves studios time and money, especially in the modern animation industry, where animators often need to work under tight deadlines.”
Supporting the Creative Environment
This method, implemented by Victor himself and by the animators working under his supervision, influenced the style and the final impression of renowned animation works, such as Klaus, The Breadwinner, and Space Jam: A New Legacy, each of them full of unique creative solutions. He applied his approach while working within some of the most respected creative environments in the industry, including SPA Studios, Studio 352, making collaboration, mentorship and innovation central to the production process.
For instance, Space Jam: A New Legacy is a rare example of live-action animation comedy, in a sports-themed adventure featuring classic Looney Tunes characters and starring basketball players LeBron James, among others. The film combines traditional and CG animations, incorporating them into live scenes. Space Jam: A New Legacy became a cultural phenomenon on its own, and Victor’s input as an Artistic Lead of the project played an important part in shaping its unique and recognizable style, creating modern versions of classic 2D cartoon characters and integrating them into a live-action movie. Space Jam: A New Legacy acquired several nominations, including Comedy Movie of 2021 at the 47th People’s Choice Awards and Favorite Movie at the 2022 Kids’ Choice Awards.The film was also a box office success, grossing over $160 million worldwide.
Another project in which Victor Ens took part illustrates the range of his talent, encompassing tasks from animating comedy scenes to creating tragic characters. The Breadwinner is an animated drama based on the eponymous novel by Deborah Ellis, a Canadian fiction writer and activist, who wrote the book based on a series of interviews with refugees at an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan. Both the film and the book tell the story of Parvana, a girl who tries to survive and support her family in Kabul under the Taliban’s rule. Handling such a tragic story and expressing difficult topics through the means of animation provides an artistic challenge, and Victor Ens, as a Senior Animator, managed to establish an environment where such creative work becomes possible.
The Breadwinner was celebrated by multiple awards and nominations, including ten nominations at the 45th Annie Awards, and eventually won the prize for the best animated feature for an independent film. In 2018, it also won the Cinema for Peace Justice award, and Victor Ens as a Senior Animator won the Emile Award for Best Character Animation at the European Animation Awards. It is essential to highlight that these awards are not only due to its subject, which sadly remains as relevant in 2025, after Taliban’s retaking of power in Kabul, as it was in 2001, when Deborah Ellis published the book, but also due to the artistic style, that allows the creators to combine different means to tell a compelling and emotional story.
“Discussing difficult topics, such as war and oppression, in a form that is accessible and relatable both for adult audiences and for children,” commends Victor Ens. “In the modern world, animation can remind us about humanistic values, doing so in an approachable and genuine manner.”
Putting the Story Together
While working on a project of this scale, the job of supervising animator or senior character animator includes a variety of technical, organizational, and creative tasks, such as reviewing scenes, establishing productive interactions between departments, and solving artistic problems, and at the end of the day, saving studios time and money. The key is balancing two aspects that often become contradictory: meeting deadlines while keeping the quality up to standards and following the project’s creative vision.
This becomes especially important for projects that touch on sensitive or complex topics, such as those described above. It is natural to strive for technical excellence; however, this drive often contradicts commercial and production goals. Based on his experience, Victor Ens teaches the younger generation of animators to express their creative vision while meeting commercial goals and facing competition. A vivid example can be seen in Klaus, where Victor’s performance-driven animation method allowed his team to preserve traditional 2D quality while meeting Netflix’s commercial deadlines. His work exemplifies the successful implementation of this approach both in his own performance and in creative leadership, as evidenced by the awards won by Klaus (Quirino Award in 2020) or The Breadwinner (Emile Award 2018).
“I try to inspire young animators to work hard, achieve better results, and grow both as artists and as individuals, creating an environment that supports their growth,” explains Victor Ens. “I want to show by example that it is possible to work fast while maintaining high-quality standards and provide them the opportunity to learn how to do so.” In the future, Victor plans to extend creative work further, developing and creating his own films, drawing from his expertise in animation, storytelling, and leadership.
The examples above clearly illustrate how modern animation becomes a collaborative effort. This is exactly the reason why, while enjoying animation works it is important to celebrate all professionals who participate in their creations, including those whose leadership or organizational efforts become largely unseen but have a great impact on the final creative product.
