STORIES OF ACROBATS: Alvaro Passeri – passion, perfection, and doing to learn

As a teenager, Alvaro Passeri started painting oil on canvas and later graduated in sculpture from the Art Institute of Rome. At the same time, he studied music and played the clarinet. Purely artistic, you might say, but he had an equal weight of interest in the technical field - he went on to study the electronics of the thermionic valves. "I'm reluctant to say this," he says, "because people may think I was completely distracted and didn't even know what I wanted to do. But it's not like that – I was and am just interested in many things."

The young Passeri started working as a set sculptor in the theater in 1973. In 1982, he was challenged to do special effects for a movie. Over the years, he then made animals, monsters, miniatures, etc., for hundreds of films. He worked with Dario Argento, the king of horror films in the 1970s and 1980s, and with James Cameron on his first film, Pirania.

He worked in "special effects" at a time when most people didn't know what it meant. Only with the movies E.T. and Star Wars did the understanding of the concept slowly spread. Alvaro Passeri's animations were remarkable. How could he gain this knowledge at a time when there were no such schools and no YouTube or Internet?

"By trying, by failing," says Mr. Passeri. "You know what you want to achieve but don't know how. So you try, and try, and try again until you succeed. I'm absolutely a perfectionist." He learns new skills daily, which he shares on his YouTube channel. "Why? When I was young, it would have meant a lot to me if someone had been able to tell me something like this..."

In one of the film shootings, the director needed footage of a house exploding. Alvaro Passeri built a beautiful house model out of wood, on a scale of 1 to 10, with every tile on the roof artistically finished. At the set, he then sees the cameraman prepare to film the effect of the house blowing up. "It won't be good if you use this telephoto lens and film from ten meters away," he quickly warned. "You will get the best effect if you take the fisheye lens and place the camera closer, filming slightly from the bottom up ..."

The cameraman did not listen. When the director and the crew looked at the footage in the projection room, all Alvaro Passeri could say was: "I told you it wouldn't be good." He then decided also to film his effects himself. He bought his cameras and laboratories, complete with a projection room, an art workshop, a separate room for the development of the mechanics and electronics, another for the woodwork, and two stages where he could shoot special effects scenes.

The horror-crazed Japanese commissioned low-budget films. He made them and negotiated a 7-year license fee. He could then sell the rights to these films to 25 other countries worldwide for seven years, a business model that has brought him a steady income.

The end of the 20th century was a turning point in many ways. The development of computers made it possible to create special effects purely by computer, the internet spread worldwide, and cinema began to lose its power. But Alvaro Passeri was increasingly drawn to developing robots. With an infinite passion for creation, he combined art, mechanics, electronics, music, and animation to make a full robotic orchestra – all animals playing various musical instruments. 

His wife commented on this achievement: "If you can make an accordion-playing monkey, why not one to do the cleaning?"

In the City of Acrobats environment during the Dewesoft Summer Camp, Mr. Passeri gave the students a presentation and advice on developing robots. "Pick up the material to construct what you want to create in the physical world, model the mechanics," he said. "Make it out of cardboard or other materials, and then combine all the mechanics. Building it with your fingers makes it crystal clear how it works. Only then does drawing it all out on a computer screen make sense."  

He continues: "Today, young people do everything directly on the screen. That is not good. When you physically assemble a product, you must know every detail in depth." For example, Alvaro Casseri needed a CNC machine. He has now built seven different types of CNC machines by himself, the last being a 4-axis CNC, which carves styrofoam statues that I later sold. He says, "You learn a lot when you build machines like that yourself."

Alvaro's professional career has been formed by a steady flow of seemingly impossible challenges and problems that had to be solved. Still today, on average, Alvaro works about twelve hours a day, comes home, eats dinner, and then spends another five to six hours learning more and exploring new areas. Alvaro Passeri says, "My wife even claims that sometimes I turn over in my sleep mumbling as if I'm thinking and drawing." 

"The passion, I don't know... I was born this way," Mr. Passeri says. He pauses momentarily and adds, "Your President, Jure Knez, I think he understands." When Jure tells him he is the world's best at this kind of animation, Alvaro replies, "I'm just a little man..."

You can learn more about Alvaro and his work on his website, www.alvaropasseri.it

His work can be seen in: