Producers Valérie Schermann and Christophe Jancovic used their clients' work in Fear(s) of the Dark, including the fuzzy charcoalish drawings of Blutch (above). All images © Prima Linea Productions.

Fear(s) of the Dark (Peur(s) du noir) is a feature film that was initiated by French producers Valérie Schermann and Christophe Jancovic. At first, the duo wanted to develop an animated TV series based on the frightening creations of Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London and Edgar Allen Poe, with children as the target market. However, they quickly came to realize that TV stations were not quite ready to finance such a project. The concept evolved. By bringing together several short films from gifted comics artists, it grew into a feature film aimed at a more adult audience.

Valérie and Christophe began by sharing their idea with the writers and graphic artists they were already representing under their Prima Linea agency banner. Several of them were particularly seduced by the prospect of animating their creations. They got back to the producers with striking black-and-white pencil sketches. Says Valerie: "When we discovered these first images, it became instantly obvious that the film simply had to be done in black and white in order to preserve its visual impact."

"Black and white is kind of the Holy Grail," adds Christophe. "Although a black-and-white film is hard to finance, it's the essence of the art of drawing in all its purity."

Six Different Stories
At the beginning, many writers and artists were considered for the project, including Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), who was interested but couldn't commit due to scheduling problems. At the same time, by trading thoughts and ideas with the artists, the producers managed to eliminate similar storylines until a team of six comic artists was assembled and work began in earnest.

The six films explore the theme of fear though black-and-white illustrations, but with very different styles and pacing: there are the very graphical and somewhat abstract images of designer Pierre di Sciullo; the fuzzy charcoalish drawings of Blutch that tell the tale of a sadistic marquis; the very manga-like story of a little girl's nightmarish possession, created by Marie Caillou; Charles Burns' sharp drawings of a young man harassed by a preying-mantis woman; a graphically stunning haunted house story from Richard McGuire; and the very poetic images of Lorenzo Mattotti, which recount the vanishing of his best friend.

Charles Burns' segment was done entirely in 3D. A dedicated rendering tool that applied his brush stroke to fully 3D-animated scenes was specifically developed for the project.

For a feature animated film, it is already quite a large task to create a powerful graphic style. For Fear(s) of the Dark, the producers had to help the artists define six distinct styles, as well as find the best way for each of them to animate their still images. Transposing the still drawings of a comic book to a fully animated motion picture is a pathway full of pitfalls, particularly considering that some of the artists were experimenting with animation and directing for the first time. Overall, two years were needed to develop these six different worlds. Most of this development work by skilled graphic artists, animators and set designers was done in Angoulême, the French capital of comic book art, although parts of the Marie Caillou film were done in Belgium, some of Mattotti's in China, and the entire Burns film in Paris by Def2Shoot.

Animation Challenges
Each film was animated according to the needs of the story and the preferences of its creators. Pierre di Sciullo had worked as a vector artist and was naturally inclined to animate in Flash. Charlie Burns' segment was done entirely in 3D: Def2Shoot specifically developed a dedicated rendering tool that applied the Burns brush stroke to fully 3D-animated scenes.

But each film presented its own challenges. "Some of the films we thought would be easy turned out to be much more complicated than we had anticipated," relates Christophe. "McGuire's, for example, forced us to develop a technique halfway between traditional and digital animation." In fact, most of his film is black on black, so much so that onscreen all that can be seen is the hand and face of a character, and not the rest of their shape. Many set elements are often invisible as well. And yet, even when only one hand was in the shot, it was nevertheless necessary to animate the character's entire body to maintain a coherent sense of movement.

It was also not obvious what technique to use. McGuire had worked with Flash for a previous film, but the 2D tool was not a good fit for this project. Several 3D techniques were considered, including motion capture. But, in the end, they proved to be too expensive and not to McGuire's liking, although the main character's head was modelled in 3D to test lighting and shadows on its face. Some of the backgrounds and props were also made in 3D, but most of the animation was made by hand, then cleaned up and finalized with Flash. All these elements were then composited in After Effects.