Nov 13, 2019

Ubisoft Unveils New "Rabbids" Short Film, Expands Animation Slate (Exclusive)

Eight years after launching its film division, Ubisoft is getting serious about animation. The French video game giant is expanding its production slate. As a sign of its new direction, the company has produced a new short film based on the hugely popular Rabbids brand.

The Rabbids are a kind of manic, incoherent, troublemaking rabbits that originated in Ubisoft's "Rayman" franchise and have since surpassed that franchise. There's a Minions vibe to it, but the Rabbids came first. It's a game, a comic book, the TV series Rabbids Invasion (now in its fourth season on Netflix), and now this short film. There are 10 films in total, each two minutes long. You can watch them all in the following videos:

The short films are produced by partner studios large and small around the world (one is an in-house production). While they share a common social theme and satirical tone, stylistically they are diverse, ranging from 2D and CG to pixel art and stop-motion. nominated for this year's Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

With these films, Ubisoft has shown a willingness to experiment with its established brand. Hugo Levon, Director of Animated Series Development at Ubisoft Film & Television, stated.

To date, the company's animation studio has only released "Rabbids Invasion," but has recently announced a series of series based on the company's games (details provided by The Hollywood Reporter). Meanwhile, the company has announced that it is abandoning its own software in favor of Blender, which is part of its development fund.

Levon outlined Ubisoft's animation plans in an email. His response has been edited for length.

Cartoon Brew: How did you choose the studios to partner with on these shorts?

Hugo Revon: The idea for these shorts was to play with Rabbids characters. Therefore, we wanted to find diverse and fresh voices with a visual twist. For the most part, we reached out to fan studios. This also allowed us to find and test new talent to work with in the future.

We expanded our reach to studios around the world, partly because we knew that cultural differences would suit the Rabbids well and provide great interpretations of common themes such as divorce and video games. In addition, the creators also brought in local topics, such as hikikomori in Kanaban Graphics' short films. [Editor's note: Hikikomori is the Japanese term for the phenomenon of refusing to leave one's home and engage with society.]

What was your brief to your partners -

We came to our partners with a few guidelines about the Rabbits themselves: height, number of teeth, themes, etc.: "Human society told through the eyes of the Rabbits. Other than that, we wanted to reflect the voice of the creators, so we gave each team free reign. We validated pitches, animations, and final episodes.

We extended our partnership with one of these studios, Mostapes in Korea. We have long been fans of theirs and were impressed with their style and tone. Our collaboration with them on the "Rabbids" short worked so well that we asked them to develop a 2D animated children's comedy "Hungry Shark Squad" inspired by our "Hungry Shark" game. We have just started pitching this show on Mipcom.

You recently announced a slate of new series inspired by video games.27]

"Inspired by games" is really important to us. Our players are very close to our games, their worlds, and their heroes. Therefore, we try to find talented creators who understand video game culture and are interested in playing in our worldview, but who can also suggest the unexpected.

Thus, we developed [the upcoming series] Captain Laserhawk: Blood Dragon Vibe with Adi Shankar, an anime-style take on Ubisoft's Multiverse, and Rayman, a Comedy Adventure Animation is another.

Will all future series be produced with different partner studios -

On a case-by-case basis. Story and creation are at the heart of our strategy. Depending on the visual style, tone, and creators, the series may be produced in a Parisian studio or by an independent outside studio.

You have established an in-house incubator. 8]

We have been working on this for several months now. It is to be at the forefront of storytelling and visual style. Having talent and experts in each area of animation on our team allows us to be more creative and agile in our projects. We come from a constantly evolving industry, and the incubator provides the perfect environment for talent to generate creativity and ideas.

Do you envision creating original intellectual property in the film/animation sector in the future -

We are trying to bring genre, sharp visual style, original stories and characters to our programming. So we are already developing original IP inspired by video games. We also draw inspiration from the entire gaming culture to tell original stories that are relevant to everyone who loves video games as much as we do.

Your in-house studio recently committed to replacing its in-house tools with Blender; what are the advantages of using Blender? Why have you made this decision now? Instead of focusing on keeping our in-house software at market level, our R&D team can now focus on features that allow our artists to iterate and innovate.

Blender has already been on Ubisoft's radar for a long time. Version 2.8, released this summer, convinced us with game-changing features like Grease Pencil and the real-time renderer Eevee. The revamped user interface also makes it easier to join a team and integrate Blender into your pipeline.

Will you use other open source software in the future? We have been using USD and Alembic for years, which are great examples of what open source can bring to the animation industry.

For more information on the "Rabbids" short, visit the Ubisoft website.