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Fabrice O.Joubert talks about French Toast |
In a fancy Parisian Cafe, an uptight businessman is about to pay the cheque when he finds out that he has lost his wallet. To save time he decides to order more coffee.
French Roast is a character driven short film about appearances. Without any dialouge, the story is told through character animation, music and sound. |
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Fabrice O.Joubert bought this story to life with beautiful visual appeal and simplicity. Fabrice has worked as a traditional and CG animator from 1997 to 2006, at DreamWorks on
* The Prince of Egypt (1998),
* The Road to El Dorado (2000),
* Spirit : Stallion of the Cimarron (2002),
* Sinbad, Legend of the Seven Seas (2003),
* Sharktale (2004) and
* Flushed Away (2006).
In 2005, he animated on the stop-motion feature Wallace & Gromit : Curse of the Were-Rabbit » directed by Nick Park (Aardman Studios).
Fabrice talks to CGTantra talking about his experience in bringing the brilliant film to life. |
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Q. Hi Fabrice, Thanks for talking to CGTantra, Could you tell us about your early days in the field of animation and the times at DreamWorks?
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share with your community. I went to an animation school in Paris called "Les Gobelins", after a master's degree in Cinema (realizing that I could combine my passions of drawing and film making in one medium). Then I was hired as a traditional animator by DreamWorks when I graduated in 1997. It was a very exciting time for me. DreamWorks was just starting their first animated feature "The Prince of Egypt" and this was the best place to learn my skills and get inspired.
Q. You have worked on various mediums like 2D, 3D and clay. How different was the experience working with these mediums?
In 1997, "Toy Story" had already been released and I was very impressed by it but, strangely enough, I didn't think that I could work in CG. I had been taught to use a pencil to give life to those characters and the idea to use a computer instead was not obvious for me. |
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As I was working on DreamWorks' third feature called "Spirit", one of the producers asked me if I would accept to be trained in CG to see if a traditional animator could easily transfer his skills to this new medium. It might sound senseless today, but at the time producers were not convinced that it could work... somehow I was used as a guinea pig, but it was a good thing. I really enjoyed learning CG and, most important, this experience helped me realize that the medium, whether it is pencil, CG or clay, is just the tool that allows you to express yourself as an artist.
I had always been fascinated by Stop-Motion animation and I even tried this technique at school. That's when I heard that Nick Park was preparing his first "Wallace and Gromit" feature that I decided to go for it. I went to Aardman for a week for a test and was then hired as an animator on the film. This has been a wonderful experience and maybe the best in my career as an animator. I think that the act of literally giving life to some real (but inanimate) objects makes this medium the closest to what I think is the essence of animation... although it's also the most challenging and difficult technique to master.
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Q. How long did the project take to complete?
First there was a stage of development which consisted of me writing and story-boarding, and Nicolas Marlet creating the designs of the characters. Then it took a full year to make the film, with a team of 65 artists and technicians.
Q. Is there a particular stylization that you have used for the film in the character modeling and the animation? If yes, any specific reasons for the same?
I really wanted to go for a stylized look. I love animation because it's a medium that gives you the freedom to create characters and environments that don't exist in reality and then to make them believable for the audience. Realism was never a goal in the creation of the film's look... on the contrary. Visually, I was aiming for a very graphic style and a painterly look. Nicolas Marlet created those amazing character designs and they became the reference for the rest of the film. The backgrounds had then to be developed so they would appear to belong to the same "world" than the characters. We used 2D matte paintings to get a more painterly feel in the backgrounds and we followed the same direction for the characters' textures. |
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Q. Do you believe it's all about telling your story, and the medium chosen for it should always be the one that helps tell the story the best?
Definitely. I decided to make "French Roast" in CG because I knew that this medium was going to help me tell the story the way I had story-boarded it. For example, the use of a mirror behind the characters, to create the equivalent of a reverse shot during the whole film, would have been difficult to achieve with another technique. Also, from a visual aspect, CG helped us tremendously to translate the intricate and stylized original designs done by Nicolas Marlet.
Q. Where did the Idea of the French Roast originate? How important to you was the music for the film?
The idea of FRENCH ROAST came with a certain nostalgia of my native town... I grew up in Paris and I am really attached to its atmosphere, architecture and culture. The traditional parisian Café is a confined space where people from different social classes can come together, and this was ideal to set up the encounter between the businessman and the tramp from French Roast.. As an animator, I also wanted to find a plot that would allow me to work on characterization and use essentially pantomime to tell the story. With that in mind, I started to play with the idea of the rich guy not being able to pay the bill in a restaurant and having to find a way out... and this without any dialogue.
Since the characters weren't really speaking, just saying a few words, the music had to play an important part in the story. With Olivier Lliboutry, the music composer, we decided to use a single musical theme that would evolve as the story unfolds, becoming more dramatic towards the climax. Because "French Roast" takes place in the 1960's, I also wanted the music to evoke the mood of the french comedies of that period. |
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Q. Could you share a few best practices for aspirants to be good character animators owing to your experience? How helpful is it working with various mediums?
The job of an animator is closest to the one of an actor. For that reason, I would say that observation skills and character building techniques are the things that any aspiring animator should be working on first. Mastering the animation technique is crucial too but this is the easiest part. When you are alone in front of your computer, your stop-motion puppet or your blank sheet of paper, the only questions that you need to answer are "who is my character?", "what does he think?", "what does he want?", and so on... the same questions that an actor would have to ask himself to be able to play his part.
Q. What do you feel is the importance of online communities and online presence for an artist?
The internet seems to have given exposure to a new generation of artists. It's great to see all those blogs on the web and I think that creates an emulation which raises the level. As a first time director, the internet has been for me a great tool to communicate about my film and it is also a great way to get feedback from the audience. |
Q. What is your message to the CGTantra community and all the young aspirants?
Whether you're an illustrator, an animator or a modeler, it's all about breathing life into your characters and make them believable. As I said before, the technical skills can be learned and honed with time and practice, but the hard (and most interesting) part will always be to convey human emotions!
Rishabh Shrivastav
Team CGTantra
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