Oeil pour Oeil : a bunch of pirates from ESMA nominated for the upcoming VES Awards

This article is also available in: French

3DVF : Sound and music play an important role : how did you approach this point ?

The directors : We knew we wanted our music to sound like a videogame, but not too much. We were able to find the right style with the music composer.
As for the voices, we were lucky enough to work with a former ESMA student. We thought we were just going to record him for some tests and as a draft, but he was so good that we kept everything. He plays both the captain and the whole crew.
The tavern manager is played by a friend.

3DVF : Can you tell us about the rendering and the way you used RenderMan ?

We began learning RenderMan during our second year at ESMA, therefore we were used to using it even though we had a few issues along the way, just like any other software. We were lucky enough to have a teacher that was close to the RenderMan team and community on the official RenderMan forum : as soon as there was an issue it was quickly fixed.
To sum it up, using RenderMan during our studios has been very helpful for this short film. Besides, our texturing workflow was quite simple and we didn’t have to tweak things a lot. There wasn’t any issue to go from Substance Painter to RenderMan.
Our render times were about 1 hours or 1.5 hour per frame. We were actually surprised it didn’t take longer. This was very useful, since we were able to do lots of retakes.
We were well organized. We quickly targeted the shots we would have to render first : the shots that would likely be very long to render.

3DVF : In the end, what were the main technical challenges ?

The two main challenges were rigging and FX.

3DVF : How helpful were the teachers at ESMA while creating the short ?

We had an animation teacher that would come twice a week, she would go and see each team. She would then watch our work closely and give us some feedback.
We also had a very good rendering teacher, who was very friendly.
Since we were using ftrack as a production management tool, our teachers we able to give us some feedback all day long, sometimes even during the night ! In fact, the teachers were as involved as we were in our short films. Some of them even came to the school during their free time, during the weekend ! Looking back at this experience, our teachers acted as supervisors and really helped us go forward.

Every month or every couple of months, we would also show our work to a jury, and they would tell us wether we were going in the right direction or not.

3DVF : How does it feel to be nominated for the VES Awards ?

The short won the first prize at the ESMA Graduation show 2019, therefore we expected the short to be picked up by some festivals. Getting positive feedback from people outside our school and families was also very pleasing, after one year of work.
Being nominated for the VES Awards was much more surprising : 6 months ago we were behind our computer screens, making jokes, and we are about to show our work to one of the most prestigious awards ceremony in the world, this hard to grasp, this is surreal !

3DVF : You left school a few months ago. Which companies did you join afterwards ?

Alan Guimont and Malcolm Hunt work at DNEG London, François Briantais works as a character animator at Illumination Mac Guff, Robin Courtoise is a rigger at Ubisoft Montpellier,
Thomas Boileau is about to join Mikros Animation Montréal and Mathieu Lecroq is looking for a job in France.

We also interviewed a member of the teaching staff of ESMA, Anthony Voisin.

3DVF : Your former students have been nominated at the upcoming VES Awards : what’s your reaction ?

Anthony Voisin – head of the CG Animation & FX Master Degree at ESMA Nantes : This is a huge surprise and a great honnor to be involved in this ceremony. As a school, this is the first time one of our student films is nominated, and as a teacher I am very proud, this proves the teaching staff did some good work. I especially appreciate this nomination since this is the first year group I’ve been able to follow from start to finish.

3DVF : The directors explained that they wanted to avoid creating something too generic, that they wanted to get out of their comfort zone and that you supported them ?

Yes. Each one of them has his own universe and we tried to push that. We wanted to step aside from the usual style of student films, from the character design to everything else, in order to achieve something a little bit quirky.
They already had this within them, but we pushed them in that direction, we exchanged a lot to tweak everything according to their skills and our abilities.

3DVF : How do you choose which softwares are taught to the students ?

Our main priority is to choose tools widely used within the industry, so that our students can be ready to work in a studio as soon as they leave the school.

Another factor that we consider is the student films themselves : we can choose on software or another depending on the needs of each movie.

For example we have been teaching Houdini for a few years. As for the render engine, we chose a physical engine, RenderMan. We chose this renderer because it is powerful, but also because we wanted to use a single tool : a few years ago we were using several renderers, and we then decided to choose only one. This way the students can learn and master a single renderer during their studies.

3DVF : What is your role, as teachers, during the production of those short films ? Are you there as supervisors, or just to support ?

The teachers are acting as supervisors, each in its own domain of expertise, from the writing to the editing and final compositing. We oversee the technical and visual aspects from A to Z.

There are validation steps throughout the year, about every two months and with a jury. We follow our students regularly, we guide them, we help them staying organized and on schedule. And if there is an issue, or if there are too many retakes, we sometimes help them directly.

Broadly speaking, we try to help them using our own experience, since we all come from the industry. We try to work just like in a real studio.

3DVF : During the production of these shorts, as teachers, are you able to guess which shorts will gather awards and be featured in festivals ?

That’s hard ! We would like everyone to be rewarded.

We can’t really guess which movies will be selected at festivals or receive awards, but as the year goes on we might realize that a specific short works really well and will probably receive positive feedback, especially if the whole teaching staff has the same feeling. We can then hope it will receive some awards !

Regarding Œil pour Œil, during the jury day there is a first screening in the morning. It is usually quiet : the jury members take notes, don’t talk. But for Œil pour Œil, for the first time in 25 years, every jury member applauded !

3DVF : What are the strength of ESMA as a school ?

Our teachers are tied to the school for the whole duration of the training course. For example, I spent 4 years with those students. This is really helpful for work : we know each other quite well, and we create better teams for the student shorts.

Our willingness to work like a real studio is another strength.

We listen to our students, we are not afraid to question the contents of the training course or to change the exercices, every year or as soon as something is off.
Year after year, we make our training course stronger.

For more information

– The Facebook page of the short film ;
– The official website of ESMA – CG School, VFX and animation – 3D training ;
– The LinkedIn profiles of the directors : Thomas Boileau, Alan Guimont, Robin Courtoise, Mathieu Lecroq, Malcolm Hunt, François Briantais ;
– The VES Awards will take place on January 29th in Beverly Hills, California.

1 commentaire

charlyman61 20 January 2020 at 9 h 30 min
Film d animation réalisé a ESMA de Nantes , faut le précisé car il y a de bon prof ;)

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