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Christian DeVita

Christian DeVita was born in Rome in 1973. Having studied cinematography at the prestigious Instituto della Cinematografia e Televisione in Rome, where he specialises in animation hoping for a carrier in comics. Inspired by his love for ‘60’s and ‘70’s Rock bands, Punk and British cool, Christian opts to leave Italy, where opportunities in animation and comics were poor and moves to London. Here he immediately finds work at Ealing Animation thanks to grandfather of British animation, Bob Godfrey. After working on several television series he joins the animation department of Warner Brothers’ Space Jam which is followed by extended sojourns in Philippines, Korea and China directing and supervising shows for the likes of Martin Gates Productions and Swedish company Happy Life. He'll work for Happy Life again this time in Stockholm, storyboarding for their new project from artist director Magnus Carlsson, famous for his Radiohead promo. Back in London Christian proceeds to work for the Aardman, BBC, CITV and Cartoon Network that help hone his skills as director and storyboard artist. It’s at this time that Christian hooks up with his old Warner Brothers’ colleague and friend Paul Mckeown and they form OneHandClaping with the intention of maintaining a higher grade of creative input on their projects and to produce concept more akin to their artistic sensibilities. Together they produce both animation and live-action projects: short films for anti-vivisection charities, comedy shorts for Nickelodeon, pop promos for the likes of Sony BMG, Columbia Records, Universal, commercials for Tribal DDB and COI, as well as writing and producing shorts for Warner Bros. Entertainment amongst many.

It is in 2007 that Christian is asked to join the production of Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox, and works directly with the director from Paris, leading the storyboard team of the award winning films. After a brief spell on storyboards for The Little Big Panda, Christian joins the story team Disney's new Tim Burton movie Frankenweenie due out for release October 2012. Here he will enjoy working directly with Tim Burton in the spooky attic room of the directors’ London studio.

In 2009 Christian begins giving lectures about his work and experiences of Fantastic Mr Fox, and Frankenweenie, attending the Red Stick Festival in Louisiana, the Stuttgart Tricksfilm Festival, Stoke-Your-Fires, Animafest in Zagreb as well as judging the international entries at the Dresden Film Fest, and teaching periods at the Danish animation school in Viborg.