Archive notice: This article was originally published on May 27, 2014. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Students from the renowned French university Supinfocom Arles submitted their illustration-rich graduation film "Contre Temps" to the animago AWARD last year. We spoke with team member Tristan Ménard.
Incidentally: "Very Early Bird Tickets" are already available for this year’s animago AWARD & CONFERENCE.
DP: Hello Tristan, how did “Contre temps” come about?
Tristan Ménard: The film is the graduation film from our studies at Supinfocom Arles. We had no restrictions whatsoever during the project. The only requirements were that a team had to be able to complete the project within a year and that we should apply what we had learned.
DP: How does a project get the green light?
Tristan Ménard: In theory, every student is expected to contribute a film idea in the fourth year of study. The lecturers select seven to eight proposals, and some students are then appointed as the “directors” of their projects. In our case, however, the lecturers assembled the team: my fellow students Thibaud Clergue and Camille Perrin were selected because their two ideas were independently quite similar. In the end, our brief was to come up with a new story about an underwater city.
DP: What was your objective?
Tristan Ménard: First and foremost, we simply wanted to deliver a beautiful piece of work. Something fresh, pure, something that every team member would like. From the outset, it was clear that it should move in the direction of illustration and place more emphasis on style than on technical aspects. Our team loved concept art, and three of us alone worked in that area. That meant we eventually had to hurry a little, because the other groups already had a story when they started their graduation films.
DP: What works influenced you?
Tristan Ménard: We had a huge number of references for this film. Particularly important to us were the game “Journey” and the trailer for the project “Baidir”.
DP: What were the biggest technical challenges?
Tristan Ménard: It was difficult to achieve the look we wanted for the film in the environments, the characters, and the water. Most of the environments are painted, but of course that was not possible everywhere. This affected shots with a change in lighting, such as the opening scene in the stairwell or the scene where the girl stands in front of the bay window – but these shots and the characters also had to match the rest of the film!
The second technical challenge was the water itself. 3D water is always tricky. RealFlow simulations are basically moving meshes – texturing them is almost impossible. But once we knew what the water’s look should be, that illustrative look itself worked to our advantage. With our 2D look, we no longer had to worry about super-realistic RealFlow simulations.
DP: What was the time frame?
Tristan Ménard: Our team came together in July 2011. We presented the film at our final examination in Valenciennes in July 2012. In total, we needed four months for all the animations. We started the matte paintings a little earlier. Our group had three animators, one of whom dealt with the RealFlow simulations; the other three mainly took care of the film’s aesthetics and worked on the matte paintings, rendering, and compositing. The film was in the official selection at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival and Siggraph 2013, as well as among the submissions for the animago AWARD 2013.
DP: Who supported you with music and sound design?
Tristan Ménard: We worked with Sylvain Livenais and Nathan Blais, two students at MAAV in Lyon, who composed the film’s music. We had great difficulty finding the right mood for the different sections of the film. That is why we edited the scenes together to show the two of them what we wanted.
Two of our team members took care of the sound design during production. We recorded a large part of what you hear in the film ourselves. We wanted to create a new world – sound design is essential to make it seem credible.
DP: What software was used?
Tristan Ménard: We worked with 3ds Max (modeling, rigging, animation, shading, and lighting) and used V-Ray for rendering. We also incorporated a little ZBrush for our characters and used RealFlow for some of the water shots. Last but not least, of course, Photoshop for all the matte paintings. We used Audition for sound design, and Premiere was used for sound and editing. The film was made at Supinfocom on our school’s computers; we rendered using the computers of the lower semesters.
DP: How do you look back on the project, and what comes next?
Tristan Ménard: We are all very proud of our student film, with its qualities as well as its rough edges. Of course, there were also problems we could not solve or wrong decisions at important moments in the production. Nevertheless: "Contre temps" was our last opportunity to realize our own project before we had to start earning money. We are happy that we completed the project as a team – despite disagreements during production, which of course occurred. But what is important is that we are all still good friends and sometimes work together. We are all freelancers spread across Europe and work mainly in advertising.
Team
Jérémi Boutelet, Thibaud Clergue, Tristan Ménard, Camille Perrin, Gaël Megherbi,
Lucas Veber
