The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson) title sequence animated with TVPaint

[D.T. Nethery]

I noticed this in the recent edition of Animation Magazine:

https://www.animationmagazine.net/featu ... -dispatch/

Germain says the animation was produced in Angoulême, which is where the live-action shoot also took place. “The animation team comprised a maximum of 15 people,” he notes. “We used a variety of software: TVPaint for animation, Fusion for compositing and Blender for a 3D object (the car) — these days in 2D animation, when there is an object that has to remain consistent, we use 3D software.”

The animation director says the main inspirations for the piece were two classic Belgian comics, Tintin and Blake & Mortimer. “The animated sequence had to have a singular look, but with light references to these popular comics,” he notes. “But the challenge was to adapt and mix the two different references. We also had to produce simple visuals which were dense at the same time.”

“The whole process of animation took about seven months,” he tells us. “Two months of pre-production work and five months of full production. All throughout the movie there are many short comic-style static sequences that tell the story. So, it made sense to have an animated sequence, as if we were inside the comic.”

The title sequence was also released as a "music video" to promote the film:

https://youtu.be/aJGMmXdyhoA





*EDIT:
I finally saw the film tonight and I was mistaken about what I wrote. The music video above is a stand-alone promotional piece that does not appear in the film. I was told it was the part of the title sequence of the film (and indeed, does feature the names of the actors appearing in the film) but it is not the title sequence of the film.


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[schwarzgrau]

While I felt the sequence a bit to stiff (even for the chosen style, which proabably should be a bit stiffer) It's really interesting TVPaint was chosen. I didn't expect this.

[D.T. Nethery]

Here is the the complete animation sequence that appears in Wes Anderson's film The French Dispatch. This animation for The French Dispatch was done in TVPaint. (as was the hand-drawn animation parts of Anderson's stop-motion animated film The Isle of Dogs .) TVPaint was used for animation, Fusion for compositing and Blender for a 3D object (the car).

https://youtu.be/7TLPrxqx5e8



This is a video essay analyzing the animated inserts in The French Dispatch -

https://youtu.be/fMbmiOHkvo8

[slowtiger]

Looks strange ... I feel the staging is off, it might work in life action but in animation I would've chosen different shots. Also speed and perspective of backgrounds sometimes work, sometimes not.

[o0Ampy0o]

I know this is going to go a bit off topic but the video highlighted something significant.

There is a striking contrast between everything done in that video and the brief clips of Disney classic animation. My heart warmed when I saw those brief shots. It wasn't so much recognition of classics. I am well past that having seen them countless times. It was the quality of art and motion.

I am not a fan of highly stylized animation and even less a fan of highly stylized cinematography based on stylized animation, even worse is when it is based on comic book art (i.e. Hitchcock). I instantly comprehend what is depicted in the Disney classics. I am freed to get absorbed into the characters and story. I do not have to figure out an alter-reality which frequently is not well thought out. The principles of animation are based on our reality, provided we are average healthy beings. A lot of stylized animation is oblivious to the what, how and why things are so effective when they align with the principles. I know it takes so much more time but I do miss indispensable elements like fluid motion when they are skipped, whether it is hand drawn or 3D.

It seems as though many times a style is imposed for its own sake. I grew up on Disney. I did not have anything to compare it to. I watched cartoons on Saturdays and some after school but they were not tasked with holding my attention and grabbing my emotions in a feature length film. How many of us cried when Bambi's mother was caught in the fire or when Dumbo reunited with his mother twisting trunks as she was locked in a circus wagon? I doubt half the percentage would feel similarly if depicted in an awkwardly stylized animated sequence.

I can't take a lot of contemporary cartoons. It is mostly a lot of noise and nodding heads. Many characters are voiced by people who do not have the ability to produce a cartoon character voice. A good cartoon voice, Jack McBrayer's regular voice?, was Wander of Wander Over Yonder. But the other characters sounded like me or average Joe trying to do a cartoon character voice. The Simpsons is also an exception. They must take special care with the sound. So much of the humor would be lost if the voices were mud and stepped on one another in the mix.

In contrast Gravity Falls, I am sorry if anyone here is friends with people there but the main guy, Alex Hirsch, does the voices of multiple characters and he sounds like anyone you went to school with doing a cartoon voice. (There is a video on YT of him doing all the characters he voices and they all sound too close to the same. He is the antithesis of Mel Blanc.). Gravity Falls's is heavily plot driven with a series long story arc. You really benefit by being able to catch clues and follow along but the audio is a muddy and loud mess.