Artist Profile – Sylvain Chomet

3-D Animation is currently big business in Hollywood. If it was ever considered to be a novelty, it certainly isn’t now.

A new release from a studio such as Pixar or Dreamworks can be expected to easily dominate the box office for weeks on end. Not only are these films creatively driven, they are also at the forefront of technology with the 3-D animation software used to create these films also resulting in a multimillion dollar industry in itself. Computer software plays a largely dominant role in their production and that is something that shows no sign of changing in the near or far off future.

While this is certainly no bad thing and has resulted in many stunning cinematic features over the last few years, it is perhaps refreshing to learn that the craft of hand drawn, two dimensional animation has also been represented in a passionate and dedicated way during this time period.

In terms of preserving this beautiful and potentially endangered art form I suggest that few have been more dedicated to this than film maker Sylvain Chomet.

Early Career

Born near Paris, Sylvain Chomet was drawn to art from a very young age and studied it at high school, graduating in 1982. He then went on to gain a diploma in animation after studying at art school in Angoulême, France.

Writing Comics
On his path to becoming an accomplished animator and film maker Chomet took a slight detour to work in the field of sequential art, creating many titles including the “Secrets of the Dragonfly”. He also wrote the script for The “Bridge in Mud”, a science fiction title that was published in 1992. He won much recognition for his work in this field including the René Goscinny award for his writing skills on the comic book “Léon-la-Came”. Despite being credited only as the writer, the artwork is reminiscent of the animating style that Sylvain Chomet would eventually become known for.

Artwork from the graphic novel, Léon-la-Came.

On to Animation
Starting his animation career in 1988, he went to work at the Richard Purdum Studio in London. During that period, he also embarked on a freelance service, creating many commercial features for companies such a Renault and Swissair. Despite a reasonable amount of commercial success with his freelance services, Chomet would continue his quest to write and create his own animated features and soon embarked on a project of his own.

The Old Lady and the Pigeons

In 1991, Chomet began work on his first animated film The Old Lady and the Pigeons. As well as the finely executed animation and the memorable characters, another stand out aspect of the film is the background art that was created by artist Nicolas de Crécy. Chomet’s debut won eight awards in total including the award for Best Animated Short Film at the British Academy Awards. A black comedy of sorts, it tells the tale of a greedy policeman who dresses up as a pigeon in order to fool an-apparently-unsuspecting old lady into feeding him. It would probably be quite accurate to describe this as one of Chomet’s darker films with an undoubtedly surreal flavor.

Still from “The Old Lady and the Pigeons”

Did I mention that it was surreal?

Full Film

The Triplets of Belleville

His best known film to date, “The Triplets of Belleville” was released to widespread critical acclaim receiving numerous awards including two nominations at the Oscars (Best Animated Feature and Best Song).

Like its predecessor “the Old Lady and the Pigeons”, The Triplets of Belleville displays the trademark of an imaginative and unusual style that Chomet was now renowned for.

However, at the heart of the film is a touching story of an old woman and her desire to protect and care for her young grandson as she raises him to adulthood.

Although still classed as traditoinal animation it is also worthy to note that this was the first time that Chomet chose to integrate computer animation into some of the scenes during the movie.

The Triplets in Full Swing

‘Champion’ tackles the Tour de France

Sylvain Chomet is a long time collaborator with artist Evgeni Tomov

Opening Scene

The Illusionist

The Illusionist is perhaps his finest work to date. Chomet sets much of this film in the city of Edinburgh. It’s a must see for anybody familiar with the city and it’s streets.

The film tells the tale of a struggling magician as he tries to survive in the world of entertainment which has been changed forever following the post-television era and the emergence of pop culture. After seeing his employment opportunities dry up in his native home of Paris, he tries his luck on the shores of Britain eventually finding himself in Edinburgh, Scotland. Much of the story revolves around the magician’s father-daughter relationship that he develops with a young girl that he meets in the highlands of Scotland.

The film and it’s story is a beautiful experience to behold but also achingly sad.

The majority of the film takes place in Scotland

Scenes from The Illusionist

Development Drawings and Line Art

Official Trailer(wonderful music)

Django Films

While developing and researching ideas for the Illusionist, Chomet actually spent much of his time living in Edinburgh and even went as far as to open his own animation studio, the ill-fated Django Films which would experience many funding and production difficulties.
The animator initially had very ambitious plans for the project and hoped that it would be the start of something special but unfortunately it proved to be a highly frustrating experience. Sylvain Chomet was also reported to be hugely disappointed with the standard of British Animation. The studio would eventually close.

Future Projects

Despite my opening words about Sylvain Chomet being a champion of hand drawn, traditional animation, it appears that he now has ambitions to move away from the medium in order to concentrate on 3-D animation or live action films. In 2013, he released his first non-animated film, Attila Marcel.

I keep an open mind but I reserve the right to hope that this will merely be a temporary flirtation and we’ll see him return to traditional animation in the future.

If you enjoyed this post then you’ll no doubt be interested in an earlier one where I posted footage of a short documentary featuring Sylvain Chomet at work in his studio.

Update: Sylvain Chomet versus The Simpsons
This is amazing! Just watch…