We made the short film Bigoudenn Migration during the course of animation school “Les Gobelins” from March 2004 to July 2004. For the final exams our teachers set some constraints: three characters maximum, simple background, oneminute, and a certain quality of animation. In the beginning, everyone entered the propositions in “box ideas” called the “dali book”.

For example: guardian in an inaccessible tower watching the world’s evolution, dancing with the shadow sold to the devil, gangsta old woman with long legs saving peasants from a flood… family food competition …

We were very attracted to graphic culture and 2D animation: research into the universe of design like Koji Morimoto, work with paper cuts and motifs with after-effects, the culture of filmmakers like Gondry, Cunnigham or Wong Kar Wai. Eric’s brother, Alexandre Castaing, is a musician and sound designer, so there was a desire to work toward a musical and emotional crescendo.

After brainstorming we took the direction of “bigoudenn crèpes”: mysterious folklore, old mammy, funny and elegant action… The initial work of writing and the final story board were done with a kind of “ping pong effect” with help from external professionals like Christophe Bourdelet from Bibo Film.

Everyone specialized in a particular aspect of pre-production: Fafah in design and Flash testing, Alexandre in color research, but all the final decisions were made by the three of us together. We used some references like the movie Chinese Cooking or motion capture executed by Eric and his friend, a hiphop dancer. The 3D production was shared equally: 3D layout, modeling, animation with help from a professional in production like Stefan Kosinsky.

Every two weeks we looked at one test of all the edited scenes and the last music sent by the musicians via the Internet. The final touch was very important for the light, shadow and light figure and color made mainly in After Effect by Alexandre. Then everyone took a different direction: storyboarder, 3d or 2d animator, dancer…

We hope we will be able to relive an inspiration like this together again.

Alexandre Heboyan (FR) studied graphics at Visual Communication School in Paris before studying animation at Gobelin l’Ecole de l’image. He co-directed Snack-Time, an Annecy film festival trailer. At present, he works as animator on Michel Ocelot’s next movie Azur and Azmar.

Fafah Togora (FR) went to “Gobelins l’école de l’image”, where he learned 2d animation for two years, then 3d for a year. He is currently working as a storyboarder at Sip Animation.

Eric Castaing (FR) initially studied chemistry. Later he worked as a character designer for series like Stargate, Marmitoon, Sabrina and joined the contemporary hip hop company Compagny Mood. In 2003-2004 he studied 3D animation at “Les Gobelins”.