A Market In Exponential Growth
A New Breed Z.A. Productions, an independent company, originally received recognition for
producing The Quarks, one of the first television series produced using 3D computer
graphics, 35mm film and High Definition Video. Since then the company has enlarged
to include projects for special events and the application of virtual reality
technology to the fine arts field. In this area, they have been involved with
preparing Maurice Benayoun's art installations, notably Is God Flat? Is the
Devil Curved? and Tunnel Beneath the Atlantic (a tele-virtual event connecting
the Centre Pompidou in Paris with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal
for five days in September, 1995), then for The Paris-New Dehli Tunnel (connecting
the NINR Exposition of the City of Sciences to the Virtual Gallery in India
in January, 1998). In the area of advertising, some of their best credits stem
from Japanese commissions, such as a spot for the launching of DVD, "Panasonic
DVD Dream," for Matsushita which was based on Kurosawa's film Dream. However,
the great majority of their time is devoted to creating their own production
tools, in particular real-time programs and motion-capture.
Between 1987 and 1989, three other production companies saw
the light of day, namely MacGuff Ligne, Z.A. Productions, and Ex Machina. MacGuff
Ligne owes its name to the celebrated director Alfred Hitchcock, who cited the
MacGuffin, the thing which propels the plot, but which is ultimately not very
important, as the origin of each of his suspense films. MacGuff's areas of expertise
include advertising, special effects for features, music videos, CD-Roms, rides
and virtual installations. Their most recent credits are an advertising spot
for "Evian" directed by Jean-Pierre Roux, and the feature film Dobermann
by Jan Kounen. The "Evian" spot was inspired by the aquatic ballets
in American 1940s films, and pictures a swarm of jolly babies with hilarious
realism. As for the feature, it scares one stiff! Five months of work yielded
107 scenes, divided into 19 sequences, utilizing a dozen specialists to make
multiple, seamless special effects.
Ex Machina has mainly been active in the fields of advertising, rides (dynamic
cinema), and some other big projects, like for example stereoscopic films. Recognized
for the quality of their digital 3D images, the company can claim a special
expertise in animating characters. "For almost three years, we have turned
out ad after ad. That has permitted our animators and graphic designers to master
the array of tools better and better for the creation of advertising films:
storyboard, shooting, animation and post-production," declares Lionel Fages.
"For this reason, we are frequently commissioned to direct the entire production,
rather than just be involved with effects or post-production at the end. Pierre
Coffin has over time nurtured a graphic style all of his own, which has led
little by little toward the making of film in which the character animation
is predominant. Today he directs not only ads like that for Vichy lozenges,
or most recently Electrolux for the British agency BBH, but also some series,
like Pings, which Canal + is quite interested in." Pascal Vuong, Herve
Loizeau, Dominique Pochat and Tanguy de Kermel are also artists who follow the
same path making commercials for products like Seat (Lara Croft), Vahine, Yoco
and MacDonald's.
"In 90% of cases, it is the production companies to whom we have regularly
sent our demo reels that contact us to offer us the artistic direction of films,
or the creation and animation of characters. In the other 10% of cases, the
agency bypasses an intermediary and orders a spot made entirely in 3D directly
from us. Thanks to our acquired experience, we always start with an animatic
without going through a storyboard stage, which saves us considerable time and
gives us consequently an ease in producing the final animations."
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