A Monster In Paris animatics

I found some old animatics of my boards from 'A Monster In Paris' (2011). There are enough clips online to compare them to the final film. It's pretty lose to what I conceived but it's interesting to see where the film departs. Back when I did these I was working on paper with pencil and ink, scanning elements to composite them and heightening tone in Photoshop.

Here is sequence 3350 - the big musical number with Vanessa Paradis and Matthieu Chedid's song 'La Seine'.





I remeber Bibo had staged a workshop with dancers who worked out a routine for the animators to reference. Rightly the film focuses on the characters' motions and dropped the stage elements with cut-out 'flats' I proposed (background elements by Sasek!). Once they step off the stage and enter the fantasy realm then the decor becomes flat- smart decision.

End of another year

This is the end of another year- here are the highlights of 2015 from my Instagram feed . . .

Becoming A Successful Illustrator

A couple of years ago I helped out the AOI's Derek Brazell with a chapter on Ronald Searle for his book Making Great Illustration.  Derek's new book is a guide for graduates entering the field and he just sent me the proof pages featuring my work!
The book will be published 28th June in the UK and 1st July in the USA.

'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 . . .

A Monster in the UK!

'A Monster In Paris' is unleashed today in the UK.  Big Picture Studios, the promo company handling its UK release, featured me on their blog.

The French Oscars, the Césars, have just nominated 'Un Monstre a Paris' for Best Animated FIlm and Best Song.  Here's a good resolution clip from the film . . .

Enfin!

The Galerie Arludik in Paris has a special UN MONSTRE A PARIS exhibition running. For a taste of the incredible artwork created for the film check out the online gallery


I'm so excited that the release of A MONSTER IN PARIS is imminent! It hits cinemas in France on October 12th. I'll miss the crew screening although I hope to see it soon after.

Here's the first interview with Bibo (en francais) with some new footage, behind-the-scenes work and some of my storyboards. I hope to post more boards once the film is releasd on dvd, until then I'll post officially released artwork on English and French blogs dedicated to the project.

Un monstre à Paris - Interview de Bibo Bergeron Vidéo Excessif sélectionnée dans Animation

A new clip has surfaced online too . . .

One of my old favourite Parisian haunts, Galerie Arludik, will soon be hosting an exhibition of some of the amazing artwork that went into the making of the film. The poster features one of Aurelian Predal's superb colour keys painted over a Story sketch by moi!