Mahalo!

Painted 'thank you' cards for friends

'A Monster In Paris' Opening pt.2

The opening was initially conceived as a picnic at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. It's a beautiful, man-made park constructed in 1867.  The Temple de la Sibylle is perched 30 meteres above the lake.   Living in the city at the time I was familiar with the spot and knew exactly how to exploit the location to create an exciting opening sequence.

Key Location art by Production Designer Francois Moret 

We had Emile & Maud enjoying their pic-nic on the waters' edge before the nightmarish alligator emerges and chases Maude up to the Temple.  To figure out the camera angles I made a plan

I roughed out a design of the alligator and made a couple of story sketches as beat boards.  (The one above of the pic-nic is based on a similar set up by Zebe but with the characters' positions switched)

I had a good amount of time to fully explore the possibilities in this sequence-I thoroughly thumb-nailed out all the staging possibilities that excited me.

I made this long pan to lead the viewer into the 'world' and introduce Emile and Maude. As soon as I finished drawing the sequence was reconceived as taking place in the Jardin des Plantes.

Here's an early pass on the storyboard for the opening sequence.  It has essentially the same shape-Emile wooing Maude, interrupted by the alligator, the chase, Emile vanquishes the beast, the 'world' disintegrates, Emile wakes from his dream . . . 

'A Monster In Paris' Opening pt.1

I was lucky that director Bibo Bergeron assigned me several juicy action and musical sequences to storyboard including the opening of the film. It went through several incarnations but was always structured around a giant monster chasing the films' protagonist Emile and the object of his affections Maud.
I'll come back to the early versions but for now here are the almost final storyboards before editorial & layout made their revisions.

In this clip (en Francais) from the final film you'll see it begins with newsreel footage of the 1910 Paris flood segueing into Emile's footage of his stroll with Maud. It sets up the world of the film and the interests and desires of one of the main characters very economically.

Un Monstre A Paris from Brandee Soard on Vimeo.

A Monster In Paris- finally released in the US!

Next week sees the Stateside release of a film I had the pleasure of storyboarding on FIVE years ago! These things take too long . . .  European backers EuropaCorp failed to find US distribution theatrically but fortunately Shout Factory have picked it up for dvd & blu-ray release.
Like the European and UK editions the Region 1 disk has precious few extras and an 'art of' book doesn't exist so I thought I'd finally share some of the work that went into this mini-masterpiece.
Over the next few weeks I'll post storyboards and links to some of the great artwork that made this film unique. Oh, and if you're living in the States and want to show your kids something special please support independent European animation and buy it!

I'll be posting concept art here and here with LOTS more storyboards to come . . .

SFO ZOO

I haven't drawn at a zoo since I lived in France-too long. Watching 'The Croods' left me fired up to sketch some exotic wildlife and the next day I made the long streetcar ride out to the San Francisco zoo.

I found my simian relatives at the gorilla enclosure !

Winter Sketchcrawl SFO

The mild winter here allows location sketching through the winter months. Sometimes it's too cold or windy/rainy to draw outside but most weekends are bright enough. Here's a collection of sketches from the past few months made on drawing trips with sketch-buddies.

The DogPatch is a gentrifying neighbourhood close to the San Francisco docks. Lots of shuttered warehouses, cranes and tankers to draw.

These old cranes are DogPatch landmarks-within the two months I drew them you can see graffiti artists have scaled them and changed the decor.

Nearby is a pleasant water-side pub called The Ramp, its garden a perfect spot for lunch outside while drawing the boats . . . 

This old house seemed to be dipping its toe in the water while the lurching little boat was escaping the freezing Bay waters!

Onto the Mission District . . .

The defunct movie theatres along Mission are great subjects to draw

The back alleys of the Mission offer interesting scenes of crazy wiring, graffiti covered walls, textures and hanging shoe displays.

There are a couple of bar/cafes in the Mission where you can sit outside and draw the locals in safety. A friendly rastafarian shared some tasty cookies he had baked that morning and curiously my sketches came out in Technicolour!

See Stef's sketches on his blog Stef's Sketches!

Crookie's Missionary Position