Luis Leite was born on carnival night in 1973 in Porto, and assumes Grifu as alias. Holds a M.Sc. in Multimedia from Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto and his an assistant professor at Escola Superior de Musica, Artes e Espetáculo (ESMAE) do Instituto Politécnico do Porto (IPP) teaching multimedia and animation classes at Audiovisual (TCAV) and Multimedia (TCM) degree´s.
He is currently a Digital Media Ph.D. student from UT Austin | Portugal, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, and holds a scholarship from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) researching in the digital puppetry field. Member of Porto Interactive Center (PIC) and affiliated with Instituto Telecomunicações (IT / FEUP) as published papers like: “ShapeYour Body“, “Virtual Marionette“, “AnimActor” or “Marionetas Virtuais“. Presented his work in conferences CHI””12, IUI””12,ACE””11 and in events Future Places, Imagens do Real Imaginado, Noite Europeia dos Investigadores.
Started as a computer programmer back in 1990 building Bulletin Board Services (BBS) and proceed exploring audiovisual and multimedia; Worked for companies like Animago and Miragem in the fields of animation, programming, post-production and music. Participated in the production and development of TV Series: Ace London (Live Action plus animation – Emmy award selection), Batatoon (children entertainment), Rita Catita (performance animation), Little Stars (children animated series); animated films: “História de um Caramelo” (3D short film) or “Zé dos Pássaros” (2D short film); performing arts: “Prometeu” (shadow puppet play) or “Frágil” (puppet play). The main interests are in interface design (HCI), 2D/3D digital animation, digital puppetry, post-production and computer programming. For more information please visit his Homepage: http://www.grifu.com, videos at Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/grifu/videos, research project at http://www.grifu.com/vm.