EJ Hassenfratz turns to short films with character-led Numo

3D artist and educator EJ Hassenfratz is making his first short film, Numo, turning the character-driven games and Japanese design aesthetic that sparked his interest in motion design into a project of his own.

In a LinkedIn announcement, Hassenfratz said the film would premiere at Motion Plus Design in Paris in November. The supplied post carries only a relative timestamp, “1mo”, and does not specify a year for that screening. The premiere plan is his announcement, rather than independently confirmed event programming.

Hassenfratz describes Numo as a story about rediscovering the pleasure of making art. In the accompanying video transcript, he says the project has involved late nights but has been rewarding, and is something he had wanted to tackle for a long time.

There is a practical payoff planned for other artists, too. Hassenfratz says he intends to share techniques and lessons from the production over the coming weeks and months, covering character design, rigging and animation for people interested in making their own shorts.

The hardware detail is thinner. He mentions pushing a new Dell workstation, but gives no model, specifications, render times or performance measurements. The post includes Dell, Nvidia and Render Network references, but does not establish the full production pipeline or any sponsorship terms.

Teaching is familiar territory for Hassenfratz. In a separate, undated first-person letter published by School of Motion, he announced he was joining as creative director responsible for its 3D curriculum. That letter dates the start of work on Cinema 4D Basecamp to August 2017 and its launch to May 2018. Those are course milestones, not dates for Numo.

His educational role also features in SIGGRAPH’s 2026 conference programme. The organiser lists him among the panellists for “The AI Inflection Point: What It Actually Means for the Next Generation of 3D Artists”, scheduled for 20 July 2026, from 9am to 10am PDT.

The session is framed around what educators should teach as AI handles more technical execution. That is the programme’s premise, not evidence that Hassenfratz is using generative AI in Numo. A LinkedIn commenter asks about AI-assisted rigging, but the supplied material contains no answer.

For now, the concrete story is a creator taking on a first film and promising to open up the process. The production lessons could give his audience a closer look at how character work comes together, beyond a finished showreel.