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Many friends who first watch this film usually think that this is an animated season promo produced by a French animation company, and then begin to imagine: this should be "an epic", right? How to do a dozen episodes to finish the first season first, see the audience reaction, and then pull some investment and then arch the second season and the third season. correct...... The animated short film called Kairos is a full-fledged French comic book promo of the same name, produced over a period of 10 months by Studio La Cachette, which means "mystery hut" in French.
The theme of the promotional film is very simple: on a high moon and dark night, a group of "dragon monsters" dressed in armor of other worlds opened a "parallel world" opening from the fireplace, broke through the mouth, and abducted the hero's sister, the hero fought for love, fought for love, fought for himself, jumped into the "parallel world" alone, and launched a desperate struggle with the "dragon people", which is a journey of love and adventure.
The mysterious character shapes inside have the unique artistic imprint of French cartoonists and animators, various "dragon heads" and cute "animal states" like sketches, and the chemical reaction produced after being paired with a warm color tone is by no means romantic.
It's a French animated short film based on the comic of the same name, Kairos, created by the comic's author, Ulysse Malassagne, and his three partners. Our special correspondent in France visited Studio La Cachette, the studio that made the short film. Here's the interview he brought us.
Paris in July finally bids farewell to the long-awaited rain and officially enters summer. Stepping out of Lamarck, the subway station in Montmartre, down the slope and into a quiet courtyard, Julien came out to pick me up and smiled heartily as he came over to shake my hand. He has an Asian face and has a Chinese girlfriend, but is actually a native Frenchman. Going upstairs into the courtyard, it is the animation studio that produced the animation trailer "Kairos" some time ago, where Studio La Cachette is located. In the small building of the modern structure of the courtyard, there are some artistic workers engaged in different directions. Obviously they are struggling in the field of animation in the Ninth Art. The Secret Cottage Studio consists of four animation director students who graduated from the Gobran Graphics Academy, namely Nuno( Nuno), Oussama (Usama), Julien (Julian) and Ulysse (Huris). The short film Kairos is a promotional short for the manga of the same name, released on the day of the manga's release. The comic was written by a member of the studio, Ulysse (the French comic called Bande Déssinée, or BD for short), a total of 3 volumes, the first of which has been published. Entering the studio to meet Oussama and Nuno at work, Ulysee is sorry that Ulysee is not there. As a first-year student at Gobran, I had the privilege of getting to know seniors who had entered their careers. After some greetings, we began the formal interview.
Many French people have their own little houses when they are young, some on trees or some in their own yards. The hut is the stronghold of the children's "secret activities", and it is also the small world they dominate. In French, "La Cachette" means "secret cabin" for children, and the name of the studio is taken from this. The four young animators who formed the "Secret Cabin" studied at the Gobran School of Graphics and parted ways after graduating in 2010 to work in some of the largest animation studios. After a year or two of experience, they decided to set up an animation studio of their own, Kairos's animated short film is the studio's first work, and they are currently planning to produce an OVA to attract financial support, so that they can produce more animation works.
——I just started school last September, and you have already graduated by that time. Which class are you all graduates of Gobran?
Julien: We graduated in 2010, and the graduation short film le Royaume was the work of the four of us.
- Oh, you did that short film! I watched it, and the animation part was pretty good, and the body language was rich and fluent. What do you find most useful about what you learned at Goblan?
Ulysee: One of the most important things we learned in Goblan was teamwork. During the school period, there are a number of animation assignments that multi-person collaborates on, such as the opening animation short of the Annecy Animation Festival and the graduation short film. When we formed the group of graduation short films, we quickly felt that there was a strong chemistry between us. That's why we decided to continue working together after graduation.
- Yes, I also think our school attaches great importance to the spirit of teamwork. However, we do not have any homework to work with in the first grade.
Oussama (hereinafter referred to as O): There is so in the second grade. Annecy Animation Festival.
- That's right. But how did you get exposed to those jobs during and after school?
U: One of the great things about Goblan is that this school has a lot of communication with the outside world. During our time at school, we have the opportunity to meet many, many professionals, to give us lessons, or to talk to each other. After graduation, we found that in fact, the animation circle is very small, no matter which animation production we are involved in, we always meet people we know.
- Yes, we had the opportunity to meet the producers of Mad Hominids and the director Gilmour del Toro when we were in school this year. Not long ago, Masaharu Kawamori and Masaaki Yuasa also came to the school to participate in exchange activities. Did you start Studio La Cachette after graduation?
O: The studio was founded two years ago. Around November 2011, we found a house in montmartre and set up a studio. However, for a while after graduation, we all worked in other studios. At that time Ulysee started drawing comics for Kairos, jullien and Nuno, and I were involved in the production of some animated films and TV animated series, accumulating experience and money. Then we used the weekends and evenings to do the early days of Kairos.
J: Actually, we started working in this studio full-time since we started making the kairos promotional video. We felt that we had gained enough experience in other studios to start our own projects instead of working too much for other studios. But at the same time, we also keep in touch with some producers and take over the work of making other short films.
How do you feel while working in other studios?
J: We all had the opportunity to deal with some important producers and animation studios, but even though some of the projects were really interesting, we didn't think it was a good fit for us. In some large teams, it is difficult to fully demonstrate their abilities and personal creativity. We wanted to find the right way to realize our film, to find the vibrancy we had when we first made the graduation short film. That's why we later decided to reunite to form the Secret Lodge Animation Studio.
- In fact, you did make a good animated short, and the animation effect of Kairos is quite good. I would like to ask Ulysee, how did you get the inspiration for this story in the first place?
U: Inspired by some of my childhood memories, I wanted to tell a thrilling and somewhat epic story. When I was a child, I watched some of the classic elements in the anime and manga, parallel worlds, rescue the princess... There are also some personal memories of mine, such as the cottage where the hero and heroine lived, inspired by a friend's house.
- Is there any inspiration for character design?
U: My character image is often inspired by people I know around me, and the male and female protagonists are actually a bit like me and my girlfriend in terms of temperament. I often paint my friends and then create human figures based on this, which is the physical aspect of appearance. In fact, these characters are all actors, the actors I decided to put in the story, so I first considered what the purpose of my character image existed for, and then made it full accordingly.
- Can you say what the theme of the storytelling is?
The theme of this story is blind love, or how we give our lives and souls when we lose our minds because of impulses. I always try to tell stories based on this, and the subject always haunts me. Until now, most of my stories have more or less revolved around this theme.
- Looks like something must have happened to you (laughs). So did kairos comics and anime go hand in hand? How long did it take to make this animated trailer?
O: It's about ten months, including the early days when it's only evenings and weekends. In fact, the four of us didn't start at the same time, Ulysee has been drawing Kairos comics since Goblan graduated. There were three volumes of the comic as planned, and when he finished the first volume of the comic, I started working on Storyboard. After finishing the storyboard, we all started working on the animation section. Ulysee is currently working on the second volume and is already halfway through.
──How did you divide the work when you animated Kairos?
O: Basically, according to each person's wishes, Nuno and Julien draw scenes, do visual effects, I do storyboarding, group shots, and Ulysee does animation (the animation here refers to the original painting and the animated part). But we basically do something about it.
- Are kairos animated shorts hand-drawn? What software do you all use to draw?
O: All the animation parts are drawn with TVPaint, a professional animation software widely used in France. Photoshop is used for scenes and After Effect for post-compositing.
The characters in Kairos are all drawn with unclosed lines, giving people a very loose feeling. Wouldn't it be difficult to color this way?
Nuno (hereinafter referred to as N): When adding animation, animators should also add animation to the coloring part with intermediate frames, that is to say, to color before and after the comparison of frame by frame, and then see whether the animation effect after the connection is smooth. If the enthusiasm is not enough, the work is really tiring and time-consuming (laughs).
J: This technique of coloring and animating unclosed lines is something we learned in the animation of "Ait Bear and Xena Mouse.". The same is true of the production of that animation, not closing the lines, watercolor effects. We more or less re-animated this approach in the production of Kairos.
- Well, I thought that animated film was useful for hand-drawn animation.
J: It's all made with Flash.
O: In fact, software is just a tool, a means of creation. As long as you master the animation and animation techniques, you can show a sense of volume, for paper animation, Flash or TVPaint are the same.
- That's right. So will you continue to make an animated version of Kairos after that?
J: We had plans to make an OVA-type short film, but not immediately. We can't tell this story in five to ten minutes, and we need funding. Soon we'll be making a 20-minute to 30-minute OVA and putting it on Kickstarter to raise money.
- What are your thoughts on this completed trailer now?
U: I'm quite happy with this short film! It's a pleasure to be able to work with you, and I'm very grateful to you all for agreeing to use this story as our studio's first official project. They all have their own short film plans at the moment, and I'm going to be fully committed to them, just like they did for this short film of mine before.
O: Yes. La Cachette is designed to produce projects for each of us. Each of us is an author, a director, and our respective styles are different. The films made by this studio will have the same tone, the level of technology, but they will never be too similar. Everyone is exposed to different fields and has their own strengths.
- So the next film could be completely different?
J: The style and concept design will change somewhat, but the quality of the animation, the style of the animation, and the spirit of our production will be maintained.
- Will there be any plans for feature animation after that?
J: At the moment everyone has some ideas that are still in the script stage. However, it is difficult to come up with original feature film projects, especially two-dimensional animation, which requires a lot of money. Large companies and large enterprises will not easily invest in such original two-dimensional animation projects.
O: The problem is that if we look to these producers for investment, most likely, we're going to modify and adjust the story according to their wishes, and we want to try to avoid that.
- I agree. At present, there are fewer and fewer two-dimensional animations, and film animations are basically occupied by three-dimensional animations. Are you considering doing 3D animation, or are you sticking with 2D animation?
O: Continuing to be two-dimensional, we still prefer two-dimensional.
N: 3D is more of a tool for us. What we want to do most is the story, the film. The reason why it is two-dimensional is because we have mastered most of the techniques of two-dimensional animation. We prefer direct painting rather than modeling and tuning joints all day. We love to draw.
- I would like to ask about comics. How does the French comic book industry work?
U: Europe is probably the best place for comic book authors to create. In recent years, a large number of comics have been produced in France. Comics were accepted by the public as an art form. The comics industry is still divided between big publishing houses and independent publishing houses. But the gap between the two has been greatly shortened, for example, some independent cartoonists from 10 years ago, such as Joann Sfar, author of the comic book Le Chat du Rabbin , are now well known as well-known cartoonists.
In contrast, the situation in China is slightly different, some cartoonists draw commercial cartoons according to market requirements, serialize or regularly publish books, and become part of the industrial system, and some cartoonists draw fandoms according to their hobbies and publish themselves. There are also cartoonists who publish comics overseas, and their income is not bad at home, but it is medium in euros. What do you think of this market environment?
U: The situation in China is somewhat similar to that of the United States and Japan, where publishers have a lot of rights over the author's work. Therefore, the only way to avoid interference from commercial publishers is to publish independently. The most interesting and unique comics are often published independently, and the author is free to play. Unfortunately, the current public perception of comics is still a means of entertainment for the common people, not an art form.
Before leaving, I asked the last question, "What do you think is most important about a studio?" They almost uttered the same answer, communicating. Classmates, partners, and colleagues who have been working together since Goblane graduated have been sticking to the 2D animation front for more than two years, so I must have felt a lot about this. As a team, communication and tacit understanding are essential.
Julien told me that I was lucky enough to meet a few people in the animation circle who could work together happily, and that it was more important to understand each other and promote each other than anything else. They met at the same school, did animation together, and were lucky enough to be together all the time. If you see a like-minded companion, don't let the opportunity slip away! ◆
The content of the interview is reproduced from - "24 Grids"
——To our once favorite animation magazine
Screenshot of the movie
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