Fantôme Animation, based in Paris, has found considerable success of late with its 3-D computer animated TV series, Insektors, which went on the air shortly after ReBoot started airing in the U.S. and Canada. While ABC network has canceled ReBoot, Insektors continues to be shown on France's Canal + cable network and on France 3; it is also broadcast in 20 other countries around the world, including Japan, Korea, Australia, Great Britain and Italy. It also won an International Emmy Award in 1994, in the "Children and Young People" category-the first for a French animated show.

Insektors© Fantôme

"Fantôme," company co-founder Georges Lacroix points out, actually consists of two companies. One is Fantôme Animation, a production house which creates projects and raises the money; the other is Fantôme, a production facility, that also works for others on TV commercials.

"From the very first," Lacroix recalled, "we declared that Fantôme was a creative studio specializing in 3-D computer animation. We also started it with the dream of eventually making a full-length animated feature film, just like Toy Story."

At the time, such dreams seemed far away, not only for Fantôme, but for other computer animation studios around the world, who were hampered by an expensive and often limited technology. "Back then," Lacroix jokingly points out, "it was only possible to animate a few spheres and cubes. Today, the way is very open."

Fantôme initially concentrated on what Lacroix calls the "reality market" -- special effects, commercials, corporate logos, etc. "Step-by-step, though, we started to do character animation" and started making its own films in 1987, with Sio Benbor, a parody of a Japanese movie; this was followed by Sio Benbor II, which spoofed John Lasseter's computer animation classic, Luxo Jr.

Geometric Fables
These led to Les Fables Geometriques (Geometric Fables), a series of 50 two minute shorts made for TV over a period of 3 years (1989-92). These shows, featuring songs and narration by Pierre Perret, were freely adapted from Jean De La Fontaine's and Aesop's Fables. Though not a full-blown show, Les Fables Geometriques lays claim to being the first 3-D computer animated TV series.

The show's geometry is reflected in the familiar characters, who are rendered in basic geometric forms of three-dimensional squares, spheres and triangles, enlivened with highly saturated primary colors. In this, Fantôme made the best of a low budget and limited technology.

The show also served as a shakedown cruise for more ambitious projects to come. As Lacroix points out, it was a learning experience. "We were learning how to animate, to use the software and the hardware; and most importantly, learning how to instill a sense of teamwork in our staff.

"Animation has a long history and," he notes, "we didn't want to reinvent the wheel, because a lot of companies did [conventional] animation and we didn't want to do that. But our tools were new. It was like when the saxophone was first introduced into the orchestra. When that happened, they didn't throw away the pianos, violins and the other instruments. But still, you have to know how to play the saxophone and it took us three years to learn it."