One of many extra hotly anticipated work-in-progress classes at this 12 months’s Annecy Animation Competition was for “Viva Carmen,” a brand new characteristic from director Sébastien Laudenbach.

 On the 2023 version of the competition, his characteristic “Hen for Linda!”—which he co-directed along with his accomplice Chiara Malta—took high honors, and for good cause. It was a ravishing, vibrantly coloured, light-hearted movie that trusted its younger viewers to interact with reflections not simply on dying and grief but in addition on proletarian solidarity (the youngsters go on strike and throw sweets at a bumbling police officer).

Laudenbach’s new movie “Viva Carmen” has an identical mission: to translate Georges Bizet’s well-known opera to a youthful viewers with out compromising the themes and music which have contributed to its longevity.

The movie is “an adaptation of ‘Carmen,’ but in addition a spin-off,” as a lot of the angle comes from Salva, a 13-year-old avenue child in 1840s Andalusia who is aware of Carmen (age 20) goes to die and tries all the things he can to cease it. This method to the opera is, within the staff’s eyes, all about discovering a unique approach on the oft-adapted story to make it their very own—and a option to join with a brand new younger viewers (round eight years previous, Laudenbach says).

The director famous that he’s additionally within the journey of constructing the movie, not simply the consequence. The session opened with a behind-the-scenes video of the staff working on-site. Actors carried out actions matching characters on the web page, and the footage ended on a playful notice with actress and singer Camélia Jordana (who voices Carmen) shrinking away after yelling loud sufficient to disturb neighbors.

This mirrors the method utilized in “Hen for Linda!” the place Laudenbach and Malta recorded all sound and dialogue collectively in actual areas. That naturalistic methodology contrasts with the expressive and closely stylized linework and shade of each options. As Laudenbach defined, his “damaged line” fashion of drawing feels spontaneous and in-the-moment. He prefers to “draw much less,” believing the work turns into extra expressive that means.

The work-in-progress session featured Laudenbach alongside head of posing Éléa Gobbé-Mévellec (“The Swallows of Kabul”) and composers Amine Bouhafa and Isabelle Laudenbach, the director’s sister—“we’ve identified one another for some time,” he joked. The tone was jovial, with the composers bringing musical devices to carry out as Laudenbach sang a fast verse concerning the movie. In discussing design and visible growth, the staff highlighted screenwriter Santiago Otheguy, artwork director Cyril Pedrosa and head of backgrounds Élodie Rémy, who beforehand labored on “Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary.”

Gobbé-Mévellec mentioned constructing on Pedrosa’s preliminary character designs. She targeted on paper and crayon textures, dynamic motion, and the chance to make use of loads of shade whereas evolving Pedrosa’s preliminary sketches. This grew from what Gobbé-Mévellec described as a “geometric and formal” method to character form and morphology, whereas balancing the look of Laudenbach’s previous work, just like the brushstroke gaps in “Hen for Linda!” or “The Lady With out Palms.”

As in that earlier movie, “Viva Carmen” takes an “emotional” method to paint, which, Laudenbach famous, shifts always all through. Gobbé-Mévellec added that Pedrosa’s technical finesse displays his work with Disney, however “Viva Carmen” is looser and extra free-flowing. “This movie is animated however with restricted drawings,” stated Laudenbach. Gobbé-Mévellec added, “…which leaves area for the viewers to fill within the gaps, to take possession of the characters of their minds.”

For the character of Carmen, every staff member developed their very own model, then labored collectively to discover a steadiness between the visible imperfections Laudenbach finds charming, the sensuality of Pedrosa’s interpretation and Gobbé-Mévellec’s need for a youthful, much less gendered illustration. Pedrosa’s visible bible “allowed flexibility,” enabling various tones with out straying too removed from Laudenbach’s visible id.

As an opera adaptation, music is simply as very important to “Viva Carmen” as its brushwork and vibrant shade palette. A lot of the session targeted on course of, with Isabelle Laudenbach and Amine Bouhafa utilizing a guitar and keyboard to reveal how they tailored Bizet’s motifs into “an authentic rating that could be a descendant of the opera reasonably than a direct elevate.”

The composers labored on the rating all through manufacturing, drawing inspiration from each animatics and shade boards.

“Like a shade palette, we took a few of these colours […] we picked and selected motifs from all around the work […] we sculpt and stretch them, identical to the animation,” Isabelle defined. Given the story’s standpoint—avenue youngsters like Salva and his buddy Belén—the staff aimed for a extra spontaneous sound. They included intentional imperfections and used modern devices, some impressed by Laudenbach’s background in flamenco and experimental music, in addition to devices from Nineteenth-century Spain. Laudenbach stated he needed to “benefit from all of the musical wealth in Andalusia.”

Bouhafa summed up their musical method with a private notice: “How can I communicate via the language of music to my 8-year-old son?” That mission—to hold a storied legacy, visually, musically and narratively, into the minds of youthful audiences with out dumbing it down is one thing “Hen for Linda!” achieved with grace. It appears to be like like “Viva Carmen” might effectively do the identical.