Time with the Filmmakers: SIGGRAPH Winners in Depth
SIGGRAPH's Computer Animation Festival ran from Monday, August 11 to Friday, August 15 as part of the massive computer graphics conference, which was held this year in Los Angeles. In the festival's new expanded form, juried awards were presented to the best films and we were fortunate enough to catch up with the creators of three of the four winning entries. Student films -- especially French student films -- were the overwhelming favorites.
Mauvais Rôle, a student film from France's École Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle in Bretagne, won the Jury Award. Directed by ten students, the film is filled with pop-culture gaming references and tells the story of a put-upon "bad guy," who breaks out of his traditional video game role to find a new way of life. The jury also gave a special "Best Well-Told Fable Award" to Our Wonderful Nature. Directed by Tomer Eshed at Germany's Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen, Potsdam-Babelsberg, this seemingly innocent piece reveals the true mating habits of the European water shrew. Parodying over-the-top action films like The Matrix and Kill Bill, Eshed takes survival of the fittest to a whole new level as these water shrews' quest for love takes on epic kung fu proportions. The big hit, however, was Oktapodi, which won not only the Audience Prize, but also Best of Show. Six of Gobelins' best teamed up to create this adorable film depicting two octopi in love.
Mauvais Rôle Heather Kenyon: Congratulations on winning!
Dorian: Thanks! It was already a great honor for us to have been selected, especially in two categories! I must say that, at first, after seeing the work of our competitors (whom I congratulate), I told myself, "Forget it."
Camille: The Jury Award... so unexpected. It's amazing for us!
Frédéric: Saturday morning I woke up very early and the first thing I did was switch on the computer to see the results. And what a surprise! When we started our studies, SIGGRAPH was just a dream. We would never have imagined that three years later our short was going to be awarded. I think this is a hope for every student. If I could give any advice, I would say that you need to work, work and work more on each part of the project (screenplay, drawings, animation, rendering...). This is the key for success.
HK: Ten people are listed as creating this film. How did that work? How did you divide up the jobs?
Frédéric: The organization was not so problematic. One of our big advantages was our complementary skills. Two people were better in animation, two or three others in rendering... As there are a lot of sequences in this film, with very different environments, each of us found something very interesting to do.
HK: The film does break into very specific sequences…
Frédéric: Yes, however, we did have to break up the team for specific parts. Only four of us wrote the story. Every Monday, we told the others our new ideas so they could criticize or give their own ideas. We also had a screenplay teacher who was an incredible help! After we were all happy with the story, other people joined the team to draw the storyboard. I think this kind of organization worked pretty well.
Dorian: I think that although we were all students, each was aware of the fact that we could not make the film without having decided who was going to make decisions! Giving posts to different people on the team following their skill made it possible to "frame" the work for everyone. Plus, we all had one thing in mind: doing something coherent!
Alan: We tried to respect the wishes of everyone.
Camille: Fortunately, we already knew each other well since we had been together for two years. Plus, having fun is most important to doing a good job!
Emmanuel: Our team is the merger between our technical skills and friendship.
HK: Is this your final thesis film? How long did you have to work on it? It is so ambitious.
Emmanuel: Mauvais Rôle is our final thesis film.
Mauvais Rôle was created by Alan Barbier, Camille Campion, Dorian Fevrier, Frédéric Fourier, Frédéric Lafay, Min Ma, Jean-François Mace, Emmanuel Reperant, Jeremie Rousseau and Olivier Sicot.
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