About

My name is Mattias Lindberg and I created the alter ego Fake Pilot and company with the same name (Fake Pilot AB). I'm a professional artistic specialist currently working for Lynk & Co Design in Gothenburg, Sweden with the role 3D Real-Time Visual Artist. Just finished a 3 years contract with Electronic Arts in Stockholm, where I worked with motion graphics for BattleField 2042 and Need For Speed. Before that I graduated from Lost Boys School of VFX in Canada, Montréal. Then did a short FX Artist project at Important Looking Pirates.

Background

Born 1978 and raised in Trollhättan, Sweden, near Gothenburg. The youngest of three brothers, the first became an artist, the second a computer expert and I landed somewhere in between. Had basically no ambitions until I turned 18. Quite geeky, into role-playing like Dungeons & Dragon. Then I started with computer games; Blizzard's Diablo. Went to one year of art school. Made my first website with Netscape Composer in '97. It was then I finally found Gabocorp, a website entirely made with Macromedia Flash!

"Will become the best in the world at doing flash animation!"

Attended an Internet course while learning Flash during free time. My first flash website was found by Sweden's largest newspaper Aftonbladet which landed me several job interviews.

Moved to Stockholm for my first Web Designer job at Corpguide. In the back of my mind, I made it my mission to do better than my older brothers, while growing up they where always better than me at everything and my ambitions was oddly shaped by that.

My first big client where I could use Flash animation was The Spy Bar. I was 19 years old, got a VIP card to the coolest night club in Stockholm and got to work with what I loved the most.

Oddly, The Spy Bar was so hip, they didn't have to pay my employer more than VIP cards. The Internet bubble was about to burst, it was 2001 and the majority at Corpguide got fired. That's when my real journey started, when I found my alter ego Fake Pilot. I found and purchased a Russian MIG-29 fighter pilot helmet and did some photography and flash animation with it. Started my own company, landed a 1 million SEK cinematic commercial through the owner of The Spy Bar, Micke Becker, for DUX Beds.

An agent named Yves Darbouze from Miami found me, connected me with clients like Diddy and Ruff Ryders. The work later got ripped-off and used for Levi's Jeans in China and another project was ripped off by Nokia in Italy. I used those in my presentations. One time we made a really cool site design in blue for Ruff Ryders, they called back and yelled:

–"Are you fucking crazy?! Blue is the Crips color, we're the Bloods. Someone could get shot for this shit!"

Got a US green card and was about to move to Miami, that's when Yves froze my checks and ended up in prison, the police found a bag of cocaine in his house, think he was going to spend 30 years in prison for it. My money was sent to his wife and kid, so...

Continued working with two of his former colleagues. Worked more for Sean John and later also Beyonce, Saatchi & Saatchi. The drama continued when Yves was released 3 years later, apparently, evidence showed it was his neighbors cocaine! There was a big fight between Yves and the former colleagues about client theft etc.

Started freelancing with North Kingdom, was sitting in their office in old town of Stockholm for several years. Coke M5, Nicorette, etc. Never moved to USA, but visited NYC twice.

I spent money mostly on traveling, computers and having fun. Did a bucket list. Jumped from an airplane, I got some other guy to jump solo with my pilot helmet. I scuba dived. Bungy jumped. Climbed a volcano in Bolivia. Was contacted by two Japanese agents working from Los Angeles. They travelled to my office and paid a trip for me to do a presentation in Tokyo. Which I did with helmet on in Japanese. Also did a presentation at OFFF in Portugal, screaming out "I love Portugal", 3.000 people screaming back. Closest I felt to being a superstar.

Received my hometown's creativity scholarship, most creative person from Trollhättan of 2007. My mom who worked for the city, saw that sign every day in the elevator to her office floor.

Tried to change the world

After getting back from Japan, I was faced with two opportunities. Either move to Tokyo and start working with Asian clients. Or to start working with a project that my colleague and friend Andreas Lindholm already had started working on, called Menyou.

Flash is dead, long live Flash

When I got back, I had to start over. Flash, my main tool no longer was asked for as much, Apple put the needle in the coffin by not allowing the plugin on iPhones and iPads. Made most companies go over to HTML5 and video. So I started learning 3D. But there was tons of competition now and I was 5 years behind. That and the breakup got me a bit depressed! Started caring more about health and exercise.

Also started VJ:ing for clubs and festivals. The session with Broken Note was my favorite or F.O.O.L. at Dans Dakar.

Forsman & Bodenfors

When you start asking what LinkedIn ever done for you, it magically hits your inbox: "Jobs you may be interested in". F&B Factory, Forsman & Bodenfors daughter company was looking for a Flash and After Effects animator.

If you don't know about Forsman & Bodenfors, I probably just have to say that they made that commercial for Volvo Trucks where Jean-Claude Van Damme does an epic split on two Volvo Trucks. 119 million views on Youtube?

I got the job and that employment helped me with the kind of things other people seek to find first – a home. Been traveling around and living in 2nd hand apartments for 15 years. This job helped me back on my feet. Got an apartment in Stockholm, Södermalm. Ironically – thinking Flash was dead, it saved me one last time. I was now producing Flash banners and digital screen to clients like Comviq, Tele2, H&M, Åhlens, Konsum, Statoil, PostNord. Over the course of two years, I did watch how Flash died and reborn as Animate CC and I became somewhat of an expert at producing HTML5 banners fast and with very high quality.

Another start-up called Intrasenze

When my close friend Andreas Lindholm co-founded a new security company – Intrasenze. I managed to get a 6 months service leave from F&B, travelled to Spain and helped them out working with UI/UX for their iPhone app, produce a teaser trailer for their service, web sites and the start of a Kickstarter campaign.

Diet Doctor

Started working full time for Diet Doctor in August 2017 with inhouse mograph. I worked there for two years with courses, cooking videos and traveled around the world shooting live events. My interest in health got me on a side mission to become a keto expert. But, it didn't work for me. I found that it's more important to focus on protein and micronutrients, than on fat. Still, learned a lot and met a lot of interesting people. Also started with calisthenics, handstand, muscle-ups etc.

After some time, I started half time to work on a short movie via Patreon. Later, my boss gave me a deal to quit and follow my instincts.

Lost Boys

I got accepted to a 5 months FX Artist school in Canada, Montreal. A high intensity course, learning how the big studios work, presenting daily work progress and focusing on learning the most commonly used effects in movies and series today. Fire and destruction, but also electricity, particles, rain, debris, etc. I have been using Houdini for over 5 years now, but only for different projects here and there. My love have been growing with this software, because of the never ending learning process. It’s the most difficult to learn of all 3D software, but most powerful once you learn it.

After the school, I got an FX Artist job at Important Looking Pirates. An FX studio in Stockholm, Sweden. The Covid-19 pandemic had just started, but was able to start on a project. Three weeks later, the client moved my project forward and I lost the job. Back doing freelancing for various clients!

Electronic Arts (EA)

Starting a Motion Graphics Designer position, March 2021, for the marketing department at Electronic Arts, sitting at the DICE office. It's super fun to start working with the gaming industry.

In 2022, I switched over to the cinematic team but still doing 50% of work with the marketing department. Battlefield 2042 takes up most of my time, also did work for NFS and small stuff for other games.

Lynk & Co Design

As an 3D Real-Time Visual Artist at Lynk & Co Design, which I started 2024, 20 March, I work as one of the "artistic eye's" in the Unreal Engine development team for HMI Design. We work on the content of screens inside of the Lynk & Co electric cars. Lynk & Co is a Chinese owned and manufactured, but designed in Sweden, high class car brand. My consultant firm is Contechs.