about #

I'm Eric Max Kaplin, an Art & Tech Director based in TiohtiΓ :ke / Mooniyang / Montreal, QC #

I work where art direction meets technical problem-solving. I've spent my career building the tools, pipelines and worlds that let a project look the way it's meant to. I learn by doing and understand things by taking them apart. That habit has sent me on a lot of self-taught side quests, from electronics and sculpture to music, programming and game engines.

I spent about a decade in animation. At E.D. FILMS I worked on the award-winning short films Giant Bear and Retour Γ  Hairy Hill, and I was Lead Designer on PuppetTool, a tool for blending 3D animation into a handmade look. Earlier in my career I was a VFX animator and compositor at Tonic DNA, and I worked on a feature film by Jean-FranΓ§ois Laguionie.

In 2023 I stepped away from studio work to broaden my practice, and I went on to earn an MFA in Art & Technology at CalArts. There I studied under program director Tom Leeser and worked closely with artist Scott Benzel as his teaching assistant. My thesis project, Memory Palace (2026), is a video game inside a handmade arcade cabinet.

Now that I'm back in Montreal, I'm focused on video games. I want to work with teams on ambitious games and interactive media, where art, technology and design all have to work together.

I also hold a BFA in Film Animation from Concordia University, where I graduated with distinction and received the Concordia University Stop-Motion Award. My films have screened at the Fantasia Film Festival and the Montreal Stop-Motion Film Festival.

Artist CV

Profile photo: Eric Max Kaplin
Eric Max Kaplin at Les Ateliers Belleville


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