Kiegan Simard, an 18 year old from Saanich, has been working on software known as ‘Mecaface’ which is now being featured in the new Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse movie.
It was the beauty of animation that inspired Simard to animate and eventually produce software technology that allows 2D faces to be animated onto 3D face models.
“When I started doing Lego animation there was nothing out there to do Lego faces so I learned and experimented for many many months and I finally found a good solution, and once I had that I decided to share it with everyone else,” says Simard.
Simard started working on the software four years ago at the age of 14.
The high-schooler then posted his animations on his YouTube channel which is now grown to an impressive 87,000 subscribers so far.
It was there that a young Toronto animator discovered the unique technology and used it on his own channel, which was then later noticed by Sony Picture Entertainment.
Simard says that he “could not believe it” that his technology was used on the new Spider-man movie.
Kiegan’s father, Hervey Simard, has watched his son develop immensely over the past eight years within the animation world.
“As a parent, I couldn’t be prouder of what he has accomplished. He’s been working since the age of 14 on stuff nobody else has done yet in the industry” says Hervey.
Kiegean is now finishing up High School and has been accepted into the Vancouver Film School where he hopes to continue his career in the industry.
Tchadas Leo
