May 27, 2016

Valère Amirault's "Symphony of Two Hearts" (exclusive premiere)

Cartoon Brew is proud to present the exclusive Internet premiere of "Symphony of Two Minds," a new animated short by director Valère Amirault and French studio Mécanique Générale.

Watching the film, it may be difficult to pinpoint what exactly Symphony is about, as it begins with two unnamed aristocrats conversing over a meal, then one of the aristocrats begins to imagine elements of an animated cartoon, leading to a rather outlandish ending.

But what may seem like an odd mix is actually exactly what Amirault intended. The director told Cartoon Brew, "It's always been a great passion of mine to mix very different influences and try to make it work." That was the case with my last short film, "8BITS". This time I wanted to try a more natural, different style of direction."

"8BITS" is Amirault's 2010 graduation from the prestigious French 3D animation school Supinfocom. He then worked on commercials in London and New York before moving to Mécanique Générale, an animation studio founded in Paris in 2008.

One of the personal projects completed at Mécanique Générale, Symphony of Two Minds, was initially a much longer and perhaps even more daring film about two people traveling through time while running from a giant robot. At some point, however, Amirault and his collaborators realized that approach was too big to realize and focused on just one scene to explore a style with mixed influences.

See unused footage from the original script depicting time travel below:

It is clear that "Symphony of Two Minds" is heterogeneous, and Amirault's clear intention to move away from the cinematic style of Pixar and video games It's a very different film. These things work really well, but they lack the variety and audacity that you see in independent live-action films," the director said.

With this view of the current state of 3D cinema, Amirault began making films in a slightly different way. As an animator, the director was accustomed to roughing out scenes and finding interesting angles. This process, he noted, was akin to working with different takes of the same actor, which might result in using the footage in a different way than originally intended.

Furthermore, the main characters in this short film are clearly not human. This is Amirault's answer to the "uncanny valley" effect that arises when one attempts to achieve ultimate realism. Amirault also drew inspiration from other media, such as animation, especially in character design. He was impressed by how simply adding two small black dots to an object instantly transforms it into a character. For example, "if you remove the pupils, the figure looks really mysterious, giving the viewer the task of interpreting what the character is thinking."

Prior to animation, Amirault recorded himself saying the lines with various intentions, completing the previs in what he says was a clumsy and interpolative manner. As a result, subtle nuances were added to the final animation, such as head movements that might appear to be at the wrong time, or the cracking of hands. As he explained, "It's like a character starting to improvise on top of an animation."

Of course, once the animated elements begin to appear, the natural animation takes a turn toward something more extreme. Here, the idea was that the robots in the film would bring the world of traditional animation to life. Amirault suggests

that he wanted to show that the limitations of the medium he was dealing with would surely reappear at some point.

These 2D animations and cartoon-like elements used more traditional animation methods, such as dealing with keyframes without interpolation. Elements were still produced in 3D, but were simpler. Amirault thought that blocked animation would have a stronger impact, especially in action scenes. For example, the robot didn't have a rig," he said. It's just a collection of objects with keys on them. That way, we could deform them freely and add special effects designed frame by frame in 3D."

The more complex 3D animation techniques relied almost exclusively on commercially available software to take advantage of the detailed materials chosen to showcase the unusual characters. In other words, when lace or gold thread was added to a scene, just a few area lights would sell the material for what it was; Mécanique Générale also attempted to render in a beauty pass that required little or no compositing.

"Symphony of Two Minds" is certainly a unique film, and Amirault admits that the French filmmaker is working on more experimental work. Director Amirault believes that technology has facilitated the process of bringing together a handful of artists and simply trying different things

.

The French government agency, the Centre National de la Cinematographie et de l'Animation Films (CNC), has also helped by its generous support of animated film production. Says Amirault, "But there is little incentive to appeal to the general public, which favors more experimental work." Anything that comes out of that system tends to stay in a closed circuit."

Despite this, Amirault pursued English-speaking characters for his short film. The director chose this route because he realized that much of the film was dialogue and "doing it in French would ruin the flow of the film for many people." Versatile voice actor David Gassman played the final character.

Now that the short film has been released, Amirault and the team at Mechanic General, perhaps unsurprisingly, have no plans to distribute it specifically, screen it at festivals, or make it a feature film. They do, however, hope to spark a discussion on the subject of various influences in animation. Nevertheless, the directors have some words that suggest a broader scope." There is much more to that world, but it will mostly depend on the opportunities that may arise from this work. At the moment, we are not actively seeking funding. Making a feature film is a whole new level.