French Roast - The Blog

French Roast is now available on iTunes!

2010-05-02T07:06:00.001-07:00

Oscar Nominee!

2010-02-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

French Roast is nominated for an Academy Award® in the Animated Short Film category... Thanks to the wonderful team who made it possible!

Audience Award!

2009-12-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

The audience has voted for French Roast at the Leeds International Film Festival (UK) last week!

Shortlisted!

2009-11-21T11:50:00.000-08:00

French Roast is now one of the ten films shortlisted for an Academy Award !
The final 5 nominees will be announced on February 2, 2010.

3 new awards!

2009-11-20T23:39:00.000-08:00

A quick update on the latest prizes won by French Roast last month...

Best Professional Film - Bradford Animation Festival (UK)
Prix José Abel / Best Animation - Cinanima (Portugal)
Best 3D Character Design - ViewFest Digital Movie Festival (Italy)

Cheers!

Anima Còrdoba

2009-10-15T12:15:00.000-07:00

French Roast just won the Best Animation Prize in the "Animated Stories" category at the Anima Còrdoba Festival in Argentina last week! Muchas Gracias!

Anima Mundi

2009-09-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

The film has just won the Best Art Direction Award at Anima Mundi in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)!

Moreover, French Roast has also received an Honorary Mention in the "Computer Animation / Film / VFX" section of the Prix Ars Electronica that took place this month in Austria!

Animation Magazine

2009-08-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

French Roast is the top story of the Animation Magazine website today!

www.animationmagazine.net

French Roast wins SIGGRAPH’s Best in Show!

2009-08-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

What a reward this is for me and the team! Thank you all...and thanks to Siggraph!

Olivier Lliboutry

2009-06-07T06:03:00.000-07:00

French Roast Original Music Composer

Olivier Lliboutry's website is out!
A very nice way to discover the work of the composer who has created the beautiful score of French Roast (which I'm very proud of!). You can listen to some extracts of it in the "audio" section.
I've known Olivier for the last 15 years and when I started to think about the film's music, I immediately thought of him. He is a great melodist and since I wanted the music to give a real identity to French Roast, Olivier was the ideal choice. The story is taking place in the Paris of the sixties and so we wanted to evoke the music of the detective comedies from that period. We opted for a small orchestra and Olivier suggested an electric guitar, a double-bass, a bit of electronic organ, a flute, some percussions... and a güiro!

We had the chance to get a financial support for the music from Alcimé, which allowed us to record with live musicians in the studio Val d'Orge.

Again, a big thank you to Olivier Lliboutry, to all the musicians and to Lorène (the singer), to Jean Taxis (the sound engineer) and to Alcimé!

http://www.lliboutry.com/

Music composed and conducted by
Olivier Lliboutry

Sound Engineer
Jean Taxis (Studio Val d'Orge)

Guitars
Eric Lohrer

Basses
Philippe "Fifi" Chayeb

Flûte
Bobby Rangell

Drums
Thierry Chauvet-Peillex

Keyboards and Percussion
Olivier Lliboutry

Vocal
Lorène Devienne

Olivier (right) conducting Bobby Rangell at the flute

Character Design

2009-06-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

The visual development of French Roast has been an exciting and crucial stage during pre-production. I have answered some questions about that subject on http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/
(a blog entirely dedicated to artists working in animation and illustrators).

Character Design for Walter the Businessman by Nicolas Marlet

List of Nominations and Awards

2009-06-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

Awards

Audience Award / Festival Voix d'Etoiles, 2008

Best Animation / Foyle Film Festival, 2008

Best Animated Short Film / Atlanta Film Festival, 2009

Best Art Direction / Anima Mundi, 2009

Honorary Mention / Cinefiesta 2009

Best in Show Award / SIGGRAPH 2009

Honorary Mention / Prix Ars Electronica 2009

Best Animation / Animanima 2009

Best Animation Prize / Anima Còrdoba 2009

3D Futura Show 2nd Prize / Art Futura Show 2009

Best 3D Character Design / ViewFest Digital Movie Festival 2009

Best Animation - Prix José Abel / Cinanima 2009

Best Professional Film / Bradford Animation Festival 2009

Nominations

2008

Festival Voix d'Etoiles

30 Oct – 2 Nov | France

Foyle Film Festival

21 Nov – 29 Nov | United Kingdom

ZINEBI: International Festival of Documentary and Short Film

21 Nov – 29 Nov | Spain

2009

Festival de l'Alpe d'Huez

20 Jan – 25 Jan | France

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

22 Jan – 1 Feb | USA

IMAGINA: European Digital Content Creation Festival

4 Feb – 6 Feb | Monaco

International Festival of Cinema and Technology

7 Feb – 8 Feb | USA

Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth

20 Feb – 27 Feb | Canada

Anima: Brussels Animation Film Festival

20 Feb – 28 Feb | Belgium

The World of Comedy International Film Festival

25 Feb – 1 Mar | Canada

International Family Film Festival

26 Feb – 1 Mar | USA

Festival International du Film d'Aubagne

16 Mar – 21 Mar | France

Aspen Shortsfest

1 Apr – 5 Apr | USA

Cartoons on the Bay: International Festival on Television Animation

2 Apr – 5 Apr | Italy

Atlanta Film Festival

16 Apr – 25 Apr | USA

Nashville Film Festival

16 Apr – 23 Apr | USA

Anifest: Trebon International Festival of Animated Films

1 May – 4 May | Czech Republic

Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film

5 May – 10 May | Germany

Seattle International Film Festival

21 May – 14 Jun | USA

Melbourne International Animation Festival

20 Jun – 28 Jun | Australia

Palm Springs International ShortFest

23 Jun – 29 Jun | USA

Anima Mundi

10 Jul - 26 Jul | Brazil

Giffoni International Film Festival for Young People

15 Jul – 25 Jul | Italy

Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festival

22 Jul – 26 Jul | South Korea

Cinefiesta Puerto Rico International Short Film Festival

27 Jul - 2 Aug | Puerto Rico

Traverse City Film Festival

28 Jul - 2 Aug | USA

SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival

3 Aug – 7 Aug | USA

Ballston Spa Film Festival

7 Aug – 8 Aug | USA

Malibu International Film Festival

7 Aug – 9 Aug | USA

Odense Film Festival
17 Aug - 21 Aug | Denmark

San Joaquin French Cinema Day
30 Aug | USA

Prix Ars Electronica: International Competition for CyberArts
3 Sep – 8 Sep | Austria

1 Reel Film Festival
5 Sep - 7 Sep | USA

ANIMANIMA: International Animation Festival
9 Sep - 12 Sep | Serbia & Montenegro

KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival
17 Sep - 20 Sep | Netherlands

Krok: International Animated Film Festival
28 Sep - 7 Oct | Russia

Anim'est International Animation Festival
2 Oct - 10 Oct | Romania

Shnit Short Film Festival
7 Oct - 11 Oct | Switzerland

Anima: Cordoba International Animation Festival
8 Oct - 10 Oct | Argentina

Curtocircuito: International Short Film Festival

10 Oct - 17 Oct | Spain

Festival des Jeunes Réalisateurs de St-Jean-de-Luz
13 Oct - 17 Oct | France

Ottawa International Animation Festival
14 Oct - 18 Oct | Canada

Animatu: International Digital Animation Festival

14 Oct - 18 Oct | Portugal

Wiesbaden International Weekend of Animation
15 Oct - 18 Oct | Germany

Austin Film Festival
22 Oct - 29 Oct | USA

ViewFest Digital Movie Festival
30 Oct - 1 Nov | Italy

Animacor
2 Nov - 7 Nov | Spain

Interfilm: International Short Film Festival Berlin

3 Nov - 8 Nov | Germany

Leeds International Film Festival
4 Nov – 16 Nov | United Kingdom

Filmets: Badalona International Short Film Festival
6 Nov – 14 Nov | Spain

Bradford Animation Festival

10 Nov - 14 Nov | United Kingdom

Cinanima: International Animated Film Festival

9 Nov - 15 Nov | Portugal

Encounters Short Film Festival
17 Nov - 22 Nov | United Kingdom

to be continued...

Gaspard the Tramp: from the idea to 3D

2008-08-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

By Vincent Caudeville

Introduction

Gaspard is one of the five characters of "French Roast".

To design such a character one needs to follow several steps to the letter, as one follows a recipe, before reaching its final form and integrate it into the film. To achieve such a cake, ingredients (pre-production), preparation (modeling / rigging / animation) and cooking (rendering) are crucial before we can enjoy (integration / compositing) the latter.

1 / The Ingredients (pre-production)

Gaspard the Tramp: "But who is he?"

He's about sixty, has only three teeth, hundreds of flies around him, some fleas, and an astronomical amount of hairs. A former alcoholic, he has kept the traces of alcohol on his swollen red face. He wears an old raincoat, a long scarf, mittens, and shoes made up from newspapers... because his great passion is paper!

Armed with a pike, he walks along the streets with excitement picking up everything that seems to be about.

Below, the original design by Nicolas Marlet.

2 / The Preparation

Modeling

Take a modelsheet (preparatory drawing of the character)...

... turn on your computer, open your 3D software and start modeling / sculpting your character trying to keep the graphic style of the original 2D drawing.

Add a few hundred hairs (2825 to be exact) and you have your model... To reach the final result, the hairs were initially modeled and placed on the head in order to validate the look of the character.

Then a 3D hairdresser (in the person of Christophe Le Derout) took over to develop a simulation of the Hair. This version is lighter and has been designed from only a dozen of modeled hairs. These have indeed been replicated in large numbers for the Tramp's beard and hair.

Rigging

Now you're ready to use your 3D model, still hot from the oven, and garnish it with a skeleton and several deformers to get a beautiful 3D puppet (this step is called "set up" or "rigging"). This will allow you to give to the character all the postures and facial expressions you need for bringing him to life.

Regarding clothes, they were managed by a dynamic system called "cloth simulation". This was designed by the 3D Cloth expert Romain Privat de Fortunie.

Animation

Now you have a beautiful brand new 3D puppet ready to perform all the acrobatics necessary for the film. But beware... before animating the character, it is important to prepare, to "play" the part yourself in order to get the intentions right... and remember to wear a ridiculous disguise to better slip into the skin of the character!

The aim of filming oneself before starting the animation is absolutely not to copy the movement frame by frame. It's really about experimenting with the possibilities of acting, finding the little accidents that make the character more believable and the overall action more natural... It is also an opportunity to explore ideas of comedy (sometimes push a gag further) and adjust the timing especially when it involves the simultaneous action of several characters.

Grab your mouse and immerse yourself in the 3D environment to (finally!) animate your character.

3 / The Cooking

Texturing over-render

The tramp once modeled needs a few colors and some textures...

The first stage is to render the 3D model in occlusion* and to paint directly over this image (using a program like Photoshop) the intentions of colors and textures to get a clear idea of the final look of the character. The “texture over-render” was done by Jean-François Barthélémy. This step is very useful because it gives a quick visualization of how the character should look like in 3D.

occlusion pass

texturing over-render

Texturing

In a second stage, we conduct what is called a UV unfolding**, it means that we literally unfold the character's skin in order to paint the textures (mapping) of the skin, clothing and accessories.

The UV unfolding and the mapping of the face of the tramp

Shading

The final stage is to create the material of the different elements on the character, more commonly known as the shader. This step allows us to work on the various aspects of the skin (translucency...) and the different kinds of materials (matte fabric, shiny metal, etc...). The texturing on Gaspard was done by Stéphanie Baillod who created this dusty and dirty look (but not too much!) that we wanted...

* Rendered with shadows.

** The principle is to unfold the 3D model in order to paint the 2D textures.

4 / The Tasting

Lighting

To integrate Gaspard in a street of Paris of the 60s, it is necessary to create an atmosphere that harmonize the background with the characters. The final look of the film had to be painterly and therefore it was necessary to create a lighting that would preserve and enhance the 2D textures created for the characters and the Matte Paintings done by Julien Georgel for the background.

Compositing

To create the hundreds of images where the tramp will appear in the film, he's rendered in several passes consisting of a multitude of different layers (such as reflections, translucency, hair, shadows, etc...). At that point, we are ready to mix him into the background (consisting itself of several layers).

Finally, we add a pass of special effects (flies flying continuously above the bum, smoke of the cigar, falling snow, etc...).

Here are the various layers of an image and the final result:

Gaspard required a year of work to achieve the result you see in the film.