At the age of ten, Aurelio Voltaire bought a Super 8 camera and taught himself the art of stop-motion animation. At 17, he ran away from home to New York City. There, he was hired by the production company making Pee Wee’s Playhouse to work as a stop-motion animator on national spots. By 18, he was an award-winning animator and director working on station IDs for MTV, SyFy Channel, Nickelodeon and other networks as well as on national spots, including a series of Budweiser spots for the Super Bowl.
While commercials paid the bills, a young Voltaire yearned to make “monster movies.” Through his “Chimerascope” series of short films Aurelio Voltaire was able to explore his more fantastic, monster-filled visions through short, experimental stop-motion films, each narrated by a singer. Narrators of his films include Danny Elfman, Gerard Way, Blondie front-woman Deborah Harry, Psychedelic Furs frontman, Richard Butler and new wave pioneer, Gary Numan. These five shorts earned Voltaire 35 film festival awards.
In the mid 90s, when CGI had practically replaced stop-motion animation, Voltaire ventured into other fields, achieving success as a comic book creator, toy designer and author, ultimately, becoming a world renowned recording artist. His mirthfully macabre music is a perennial favorite on many Halloween playlists and can be heard while walking through a Spirit Halloween. His greatest hits include songs written for the Cartoon Network show The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy as well as his songs featured on the viral YouTube series, Vampair, which presently have a combined 70 million views. The Vampair series is now being developed into an animated show with Voltaire taking on an executive producer role.
Circling back around to his original passion, Aurelio Voltaire has finally made a feature-length “monster movie” in his feature directorial debut, The Demonatrix, which will be making its Richmond debut at RavenCon.
