This article entitled “Severely limited gaming options” originally appeared in DP 06 : 2016.
Brevity is the spice of humour – with this motto, the animated short film “My Dear Gnome” won over the animago jury last year and also brought hearty laughs at the animago awards ceremony in Potsdam. Emmanuelle Leleu and Julien Hazebroucq from the film production studio Eddy spoke to us about their favourite project with the two cuddly 3D characters.
Emmanuelle Leleu and Julien Hazebroucq are no strangers to animago: in 2013, the two won in the “Best Character Animation” category with their student project “A la Française”. The character designer and 3D artist studied at the French university Supinfocom Arles (now MOPA: www. ecole-mopa.fr) and now work as a director duo at Eddy. There they create commercials for clients(www.eddy.tv/director/46/ emmanuelle-julien) with subtle humour and their excellent timing for comedy, for which they became known with their short films.
The character design and the creation of the 3D characters were realised by Emmanuelle and Julien, while the animation was done by Thibaut Pissot and Jean Marie Vouillon. In total, a team of 19 people worked on the completion of the one-minute project.
DP: How did you come up with the idea for the animated short film and its characters?
Emmanuelle & Julien: The film was intended to enrich our demo reel for future commercial projects. As it was a no-budget short film, we had to approach the project accordingly. We’d had the idea of a garden gnome in mind for a while because we love kitsch and everyday universes from everyday life. We realised at a very early stage that the limitations in the animation of the garden gnome would be appropriate for the film, which quickly became an interesting aspect of the story. Ultimately, this character formed the basis for the entire film. We developed a holistic universe around the deer and the gnome and came up with different situations involving games. So there could soon be a sequel to “My Dear Gnome”.
DP: How did you come up with the title?
Emmanuelle & Julien: We took the same minimalist approach to the project with the same mood as our student short film “A la Fran- çaise”. “My Dear Gnome” was the first title that popped into our heads and stayed there until the end of the project.
DP: Who helped you with the project?
Emmanuelle & Julien: The team consisted of creatives who volunteered to work on “My Dear Gnome”. We know these people well, as we’ve worked on projects with them in the past – so we knew that we would make slow but steady progress on the short film. As we only worked on it in our spare time, it took a year to complete the film. The storyboard and the intended direction were finalised fairly quickly, but the actual production time took several months.
DP: How did the creation of the short film proceed in detail?
Emmanuelle & Julien: The phase in which we develop the characters and the universe surrounding them is a very important one for us. The short film was created in three main stages: First came the character and setting development, then the creation of sophisticated animations that were not necessarily cartoony but were meant to emphasise the awkward moments, and lastly Julien took care of rendering all the shots. In this step, it was crucial that all details and textures were clearly visible in the image.
DP: What 3D tools did you use in the process?
Emmanuelle & Julien: It was very classic: the concept research was done in Photoshop and the 3D work was done in Maya, V-Ray and Nuke. For Julien, working with Maya was a challenge because he usually uses 3ds Max. But the project was a great opportunity for him to familiarise himself with the software, as well as Nuke instead of After Effects. The main difficulty for us was to work efficiently while sticking to Eddy’s Studio production pipeline.
DP: Were there any other challenges with the project? How did you solve them?
Emmanuelle & Julien: The most complicated elements in the environment were the grass and the vegetation. As with “A la Française”, our aim was to create visually exciting vegetation that didn’t look like stock material. For the style of the trees, we looked for a lot of inspiration to create renderings that have the idyllic and fresh look that you would find in an old lady’s garden. We also avoided classically generated grass because it looks too conventional and too 3D. So we modelled everything by hand and converted it into V-Ray proxy objects so that the scene wasn’t overloaded. A general rule is: V-Ray proxies are a great help for all forms of vegetation when the polygon rates are too high.
DP: Are there any special gimmicks in the film?
Emmanuelle & Julien: We managed to include a plastic flamingo in the film – it’s only blurred in the background. He’s very depressed and uncomfortable because he always has his foot in the water and can’t move. Maybe we’ll use this little chap again in the future.
DP: What plans do you have for the future?
Emmanuelle & Julien: We are currently writing another short film, which will be much longer – and not a cartoon. We are currently experimenting with different styles. We don’t want to commit ourselves exclusively to comedies, even though we feel very comfortable in this genre. We are also seriously thinking about a feature film, but we are still at the very beginning.
The links from the box below:
- My Dear Gnome (link is offline)
- A La Francaise
- Eddy
