Interview with Kantcho Doskov (Mo-Cap)

Doskov is a character animator at Electronic Arts in Burnaby on the hit video game FIFA Soccer. The new version hit the stores last week and Doskov, who’s from Bulgaria originally, gets his inspiration from his workspace.

Soccer Rocks His World

My office space is a soccer fan’s paradise; it’s my paradise. Hanging on the walls are posters of all of my heroes, soccer legends of the past and stars of the present. If I’m ever feeling frustrated or down, all I have to do is look around at all of my soccer stuff, and I instantly remember that I have the sweetest job ever working on the world’s most popular videogame — FIFA 08. I love soccer and I love video games, and being able to do that for a living is awesome.

Ronaldinho in Action

I love the action figure of Ronaldinho that I have on my desk. It was a birthday present from my girlfriend, Kate, who is also a huge soccer fan. Ronaldinho is one of my favorite players and a hero of mine. The action figure reminds me how lucky I was to meet him in person.

Handy Boots

The boots are worn a bit, but they’ve served me really well over the last year. I’ve been using them to play at the turf field we have here at EA. We have a whole soccer league for all the employees to play on. It’s tons of fun. I even took these boots to Spain, and wore them when I was juggling the ball with Ronaldinho at the motion-capture shoot in Barcelona. I also used them when I was motion-captured for FIFA 08 myself. The boots had to be taped up with all those motion sensors, which made it a bit tricky to kick the ball, but you get used to it.

Drawing An Inspiration

The sketch of me playing soccer was drawn by one of my friends from the FIFA team, also an animator. I like having it up on my wall as it’s a reminder for me to keep playing soccer throughout my life. Even though I love watching soccer and being a fan, there’s nothing better than playing the sport itself. It reminds me to keep on playing the beautiful game.

Precious Scarves

The Bulgarian and the Korean scarves hanging above my desk are very precious to me. Naturally, Bulgaria is there as it’s my country of origin, and the Korean flag and scarf are there as my girlfriend is from Korea. She’s a huge soccer fan too, and was in Korea during World Cup 2002, cheering on her country from the stands. My girlfriend became really passionate about soccer after watching Korea do so well in 2002. Coincidentally, I actually met my girlfriend during World Cup 2006 last year, when we were both cheering for Italy. You’ve got to love the World Cup.

A Signed Ronaldinho Shirt

Ronaldinho is also one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. Earlier this year we packed up our EA Canada motion-capture studio and transported it to Barcelona for a motion-capture session with him, Miroslav Klose (Werder Bremen), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Andreas Ivanschitz (Panathinaikos FC), for FIFA 08. I was lucky enough to be there in Barcelona helping to direct the shoot as we captured the players’ movements for our game. It was an incredible experience actually being there, kicking the ball around with one of my heroes.