Stop motion: the art of bringing inanimate objects to life. Understanding the Art of Stop Motion “Whaaaat? It takes THAT long to make a stop motion film?” The Ecole Européenne Supérieure d’Art in Brittany (EESAB) and Films en Bretagne, working in partnership with various Brittany-based studios, have just submitted their ambitious Génération Start Motion project to the CNC in response to its "France 2030 – The Great Film Factory" call for projects. In order to meet this demand, we’re going to need to train a new generation of technicians and speed up the transition towards eco-friendliness. And on the audiovisual side, France Télévisions have committed to develop the French-Japanese kids’ series Mogu & Perol (produced by Zephir and Dwarf Animation) which was pitched at the latest Cartoon Forum. Foliascope in Valence are now shooting the feature film The Inventor by America’s Jim Capobianco, we’re executively producing Sauvages (Claude Barras’ new film) on behalf of Nadasdy Film and Haut et Court, and No Dogs or Italians Allowed will be released in French cinemas on 25 January. These productions helped us to regain confidence, helped teams to grow, and opened doors. They also came at a time where we could feel a kind of creative slowdown of 3D CGI and demand from a certain segment of the audience for a less “dematerialised” and more tangible form of animated cinema. In a certain sense, these works made stop-motion less nerdy in France. Then the French-Belgian series Dimitri (2014), created by Agnès Lecreux, arrived on our screens, followed by the Swiss-French feature film My Life As A Courgette by Claude Barras (2015), which lent greater visibility to stop-motion creations. At the end of the ‘90s/beginning of the noughties, French broadcasters were telling us that stop-motion was dead and that computer-generated 3D technology would supersede everything else… at the very same time that Nick Park was creating Wallace and Gromit which would go on to win over millions of prime-time BBC viewers!Ī handful of production companies in France (Vivement Lundi! and JPL Films in Rennes, Folimage in Valence…) kept up their expertise by producing short films and TV specials, and by training new talent. We’ve forgotten that The Magic Roundabout, a cult series in the UK which allowed the BBC to develop its merchandising division from the end of the ‘60s, is an original French creation by Serge Danot. We have a paradoxical relationship with stop-motion animation in France. I’ve been working with this technique for the past 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like it! A dozen stop-motion feature films and series are in an advanced stage of development and/or production in Europe. The revival of stop-motion is a global phenomenon, and the stop-motion community can’t wait for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio to be screened, which is already creating a real buzz for stop-motion film. Where is this revival of stop-motion animation " made in France" coming from? European firms capable of such funding and production engineering feats are rare and they often work within the context of international co-productions. The importance of these teams and these very lengthy production and shooting times translates into high production costs, which force French producers to draft funding plans worth 8 to 12 million euros. Peter Lord, one of the creators of Aardman Studios, says that the beauty of stop-motion animation lies in the fact that on screen, you can feel the presence of the animator behind the puppet. It’s a physically demanding profession involving great precision, and stop-motion lead animators are still few and far between in Europe. One unique characteristic of the technique is the work we do with puppet animators who produce between 3 and 6 useful seconds of film per day per animator. In the closing credits of a film like No Dogs or Italians Allowed by Alain Ughetto, we list a hundred or so artistic collaborators. Stop-motion filming requires a director of photography, an art director and a substantial set design team, costume designers, various assistants, and significant digital post-production work. Jean-François Le Corre: Even though stop-motion is an animation technique, producing a film with animated puppets is closer to a live action fiction film shot in a studio than a cartoon, but, just like digital animated films, everything has to be made, from the puppets themselves to the tiniest accessories. What’s involved in terms of technical skills, production time, etc.? We met with Jean-François Le Corre (whose recent works have included Yuku and the Himalayan Flower by Arnaud Demuynck and Rémi Durin, the series Dimitri, and Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s multi-award-winning work Flee ) to discuss this out-and-out revival of stop-motion animation.Ĭineuropa: Stop-motion is a very particular animation technique.
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