- Winners Announced! See all Winners
May 22, 2024
Natalie Labarre, Creative Director & Director @ Hornet
Natalie Labarre, Franco-American Director and Creative Director at Hornet, offers a unique blend of elegant animation style and sophisticated storytelling ability to create worlds that are modern yet layered with meaning.
Meet Natalie Labarre, Creative Director & Director @ Hornet
Natalie Labarre, Franco-American Director and Creative Director at Hornet, offers a unique blend of elegant animation style and sophisticated storytelling ability to create worlds that are modern yet layered with meaning. Her directorial debut for the MeToo movement “Daniela” earned her Best Animation honors at the 2019 AICP awards. Her commercial short for AWAY “Travel the Vote” received a Wood Pencil at the 2021 D&AD Awards. In addition, Natalie’s children’s book, ‘Incredible Jobs You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of’’ was longlisted for the 2020 Klaus Flugge Prize and Shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2024.
Clients include Meta, Amazon, Mcdonalds, Away, Kroger, Airbnb, Glamour.
Q: What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?
The year I graduated from SVA I met someone at a film fest who recommended I apply to intern at Hornet. School was very series/feature driven so advertising hadn’t occurred to me. The experience changed everything – I worked on actual jobs immediately, and was given chances to try all aspects of production that I was curious about, from design to boards to animation… Being able to work with different directors and different creative every 3 weeks or so was not only a great way to learn a lot quickly, but also the ideal set-up for me – I was nervous about series work because I wasn’t sure if it would be a good fit for me to work with the same characters and stories for long periods, so this was perfect. Also learned that everyone was right, it’s important to go out and do things, talk to people, you never know what it’ll lead to professionally.
Being able to work with different directors and different creative every 3 weeks or so was not only a great way to learn a lot quickly, but also the ideal set-up for me
Q: Who inspired you to join the field/who inspired your work?
My parents both have artistic backgrounds so the support to go into the arts was always there. I drew stories all the time, tried comics at first and felt really frustrated by the need to “settle” for one pose. Then in high school I took an animation summer school at SVA I was hooked, it just made sense.
Q: Which project are you most proud to have worked on?
It’s hard to say “most” because the projects are so different that they satisfy different parts of me. Most recently, I’m really happy with the holiday campaign I was able to art direct for the USPS, directed by Yves Geleyn, where we created with our team a 12 x 12 foot set of an island town entirely made of shipping supplies and USPS boxes. Both the creative challenge and opportunity to collaborate with Yves were really rewarding.
Q: What do you look forward to most as a founding Collision Award jury member?
It’s so refreshing to look at a lot of new, great work. It’s almost selfish — thank you for the opportunity!
Q: When you look at the future of animation in your field, what do you see?
Blurred lines, in a good way! People are changing up traditional ways of approaching the process of animated filmmaking using new tools, being experimental, creating hybrid styles that are harder to define – it’s really exciting!
Q: What 3 animated films/shows/games/experiences were among some of your favorite work from 2023?
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