Animation film set in Africa, conceived in France, made in Vietnam
HO CHI MINH CITY - Amply endowed semi-naked women and a tiny hero with a prominent belly, arched shoulders and huge round eyes may not be the sort of figures everyone associates with Vietnam.
But a group of artists in this southern Vietnamese business hub has helped create just such characters for a full length animation film that is opening in 50 countries on December 7.
"Kirikou and the Savage Beasts" is set in Africa, was conceived in the French western city of Angouleme, noted for its annual International Comics Festival, and has been brought to life by Vietnamese animators.
The animation film was finished in July after a year's exhaustive work, with dozens of Vietnamese artists drawing and crayoning each little move on a separate sheet.
"At first we found the physical features of these characters to be strange, but later we began to detect magnificent grace in them," says Nguyen Thanh Liem, chief artist at the French-funded Armada TMT studio in Ho Chi Minh City.
"Giving life to Kirikou turned out to be a real adventure for the 50 odd employees who worked on the project," says Armada's general manager, Christine Gamonal.
Her studio had previously worked only on animated television shorts and a movie short, one of the few companies working in the communist country's fledgling animation industry.
The latest work, directed by Michel Ocelot and Benedicte Galup, is a sequel to "Kirikou and the Sorceress", which was animated in Latvia and Hungary and came out five years ago.
That film cost 3.8 million euros (4.45 billion dollars) and was set in an undetermined place in Africa. It featured a young boy who learns that all the men in his village have been devoured by a terrible sorceress and sets out to put things right.
Even with a 4.8 million euro budget this time round "it would have been impossible to make it in France", says Olivier Reynal, animation supervisor at Les Armateurs production company in Vietnam, which worked on the sequel.
Armada TMT in Ho Chi Minh City won against competition from many other studios because of its reputation from having done a short animation feature in 2003, called "Loulou", the number of artists in its stable and its price, which has not been disclosed.
"Think about it: The French asked the Vietnamese to draw Africa, a continent about which each person had a different perception," Reynal says.
Painstaking process
Some artists at Armada are products of Ho Chi Minh City's Fine Arts Institute and are in their 30s. Others just showed talent in drawing and learned the job while working.
Clutching crayons in one hand and a cup of iced coffee or a water bottle in the other, they calmly stare at transparent sheets placed on a round well-lit table.
They rapidly flip the sheets to make sure there is a smooth flow of movement. Later, other technicians scan each sheet separately on to digital, to eventually make one continuous film narrative.
The company they work for, Armada, sprang from an initiative of a group of French artists who created a structure linking an animation film studio and a school. After some twists and turns, it has evolved into a firm of about 150 employees.
Liem says the Kirikou project was a mammoth ordeal.
"It was our first full-length work and we had never faced such a huge challenge in drawing. (Our problems) went to such an extent as to require discussions on the thickness of a crayon mark denoting the pupil of an eye," Liem says.
Not only were the artists tested by the length, but also by having to recreate Africa, having had little exposure to the continent and being almost ignorant of animals such as hyenas and ostriches.
"We therefore looked at television documentaries and books on the culture and the fauna of Africa," says Huynh Cong Van, a senior artist.
Although the broad brushstrokes of the people in the story as well the whole script were sent from Angouleme, according to Reynal, Kirikou has acquired "a little Vietnamese touch as things went along, like in the way he arches his shoulders or moves his head when he looks at a butterfly."
Ly Thi Thu Thuy, a translator at Armada recalls for her part: "When some ideas were too subtle to be expressed in words, people took recourse to drawing them to be better understood."
And some used their own bodies and voices to make their point.
"Sometimes, the French supervisors even got down to imitating animals to explain things," says Van. "At first we thought they were crazy."
After the "Kirikou" project, the company is now taking stock of its talents and resources for getting other big assignments, including an American project.
While some artists use up well-earned holidays, others are taking refresher courses and upgrading skills. "Some artists got so immersed in it that their view of the profession has changed, they want to take on more full-length works," says co-director Galup.
For Armada's Gamonal, there is no doubting the sea change "Kirikou" wrought in the company's prospects.
"Kirikou and the Savage Beasts should allow our studio to join the ranks of the big ones," she says.
Agence France Presse - December 4, 2005.
|