2012

"A Monster in Paris" early drawings

Back in 2006 Bibo asked me to join the "A Monster in Paris" concept team as production designer.
At this time Zébé was ending some great main chara designs, each of them bringing a bouncy attractive burlesque touch at Bibo's romantic 1910 comedy, blending zests of terror silent films, crazy inventors, and showtime songs.
Michel Guillemin was sitting near Zébé, bringing the life of his drawings into fantastic modeled face shapes, hot ingredients was boiling and the smell of fine acting and great animation was pushing the teams...
800 kilometers away on the french riviera, Bibo was on stage with the storyboarders building heartfull sequences on the walls, timing and sounding with Pascal Chevé in their secret lab.
At this time I was in great "1910 immersion", looking at Paris roofs around me, flicking through thousands of dusty pages, falling in love with bowler hats and tin boxes, with Anouck, my archivist detective, reporting surrealistic dialogues at the Paris police archives, dançing joyfully when she brought back an obscure illustrated "traité" about the hydrolic cable railway of Monmartre.
Hard to find time to draw with a CG team counting on you to achieve a 1 minute trailer for a film market but at this time I felt in love with the project, just as the many artists that came aboard in the next five years....