Creative studio Nice Shoes has hired creative director Ninaad Kulkarni as part of its growing experiential division. Kulkarni is a visionary 3D artist, immersive storyteller and animation filmmaker with a background in traditional and 3D animation. In 2019, he was selected as part of the highly coveted Forbes 30 Under 30 India class. He comes to NYC-based Nice Shoes having worked with Audi, among other leading brands.
He established himself as a nontraditional filmmaker to watch following the success of his thesis short film KCLOC. This artful visual exploration of the concept of time was showcased at MoMA, winning the prestigious Red-Dot Award, Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers Award and the AT&T Film Award, as well as being selected for screening at over 130 international film festivals. His most recent project, a collaborative virtual reality film The Other Side VR, is the first-ever immersive experience based on the Partition of India, which fuses traditional woodcut printmaking techniques and 3D animation. He’s currently working to expand the experience, adding more stories and interviews as well as launching it to a wider audience.
Kulkarni studied at the National Institute of Design, India and earned his M.F.A. in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts in New York. In addition to producing stand out work across XR, animation and live action filmmaking, he also has been tapped for his industry expertise as a host for panels and video series at the NAB Show over the past three years.