GOLDEN NICA
Maaz
Christian Volckman
Maaz - a piece which took quite a painterly approach in its effects. The results were captivating.
Christian Volckman has entered the “painterly phase” of his film. Let us call to mind that this involves a unique fiction project, the ninety scenes of which were created entirely with Flame, whereby the individual pictures were subsequently painted over by the artist and a friend. In his words, this procedure has become quite simple today: “We export the individual pictures to the hard disk as TIFFs and use JAZ to transport them home, where Lionel and I retouch them. This enables us to maintain the same resolution. After processing, I put them all back on the Flame computer, it is all transferred to a Digital Betacam and finally—after montage—brought to Eclair, in order to transfer it back to film.”
Before they reached this point, though, Christian Volckman and Lionel Richerand faced a full month of retouching work. Lionel, who will soon have completed an animation himself, cleverly chose the same path as his partner. According to Aton Soumache, the producer of the film, “it was not really easy to find someone, who could paint together with Christian— it is ultimately a very personal work. You have to be able to feel the movement, and Lionel understood that very well.” Lionel has been working on the project for several months. Many tests were made involving both artistic and technical aspects. “We went on step by step,” explains Lionel. “First we wanted to see whether the pictures were even suitable for a high resolution. A projection showed us that the transition could be made easily—so well that the retouching was not even visible in the scenes we had painted over. So we decided to take an even more radical course, deforming the persons even more. Since then, these distortions have become very important. Now we are spending an hour retouching each frame, or twelve hours for each second of film.”
Not all the pictures or scenes are necessarily processed. However, the famous ballroom scene has been strongly treated, in order to give the persons a ghostly flair. Lionel finds it exciting to have reached this phase in production: “There are so many effects for each scene that it really is interesting to think about what we could add to this gigantic work.” It is a matter of finding a balance; the retouching should not be seen, but rather sensed, full of nuances. “We arrived at extreme deformations, but they all remain within the dynamics of the movement.”
When tradition unites with technique...
Painting over the pictures was thus done by hand. From the start, Christian wanted to achieve the effect of traditional painting, and what may be seen in that respect is amazing—you could really think it was a painting. For Lionel, it was a matter of “doing more than just retouching or completion work, because we had to integrate ourselves into a movement, into the feeling. This is no longer really classical animation, because it is in between graphics and new techniques. And yet it has a lot to do with traditional computer animation, because if the dynamics of the pictures where these changes are involved are not really integrated, then the whole thing doesn’t work. It is strange to see how far you have to take a deformation, so that a picture finally appears in motion. With some practice, this is then refined step by step, and at this point, the montage starts to play its role, until everything merges together
Aton Soumache affirms the decisive role of montage: “The film is fairly realistic. We expected that painting over the pictures would change its essence. Yet it has a force of its own to begin with, so it was not a matter of changing the narration too by painting over the pictures—the narration is already a strong presence.”
Another problem that became apparent during the course of the last week is that working at different levels—conducted at Medialab—is a very precise task that tends to make one forget the film as a whole. “An initial montage was done very early based on blue box shots of the actors, but it was rather abstract,” explains Aton. “With the pictures processed in Flame, this initial montage was soon overtaken by the force of events: the pictures suggested something entirely different.”
Aton explains that he had not expected this first result at all: “I am pleasantly surprised. I had feared that we would fall into a pure graphics project, and as it went on, we thought this is going to be great, but very abstract. I am glad that the montage reassured us in this respect.”
Yet Christian insists that his film was thoroughly thought through from the beginning. “Nothing happened by chance here. It is true, though, that we concentrated for a time on the aesthetics of each level, and in the process, it is easy to lose sight of the whole. But when these levels are put together, they attain a special dimension.” And Alain adds: “Ultimately Christian was the only one who could keep an eye on the overall work. The Flame colleagues, Eve Ramboz and Bruno Maillard, concentrated primarily on the difficulties and artistic and technical perfection at this level. Christian had to maintain the balance.” The producer and the director of Maaz point out that this project is unique: “No one has ever filmed everything with blue screen before! Naturally, there was an exact script, but the uncertainties in the production are still there. This project is also a journey of exploration.” Painting was thus the topic of numerous discussions. Although it is planned out level for level, when the film is finally run as a whole, “the viewer has to know what he is supposed to see—because if there were something to see everywhere, that would distract the viewer from the actual film. So you have to be able to paint in the right places, and Christian was able to make these decisions after the cutting,” explains Aton.
Thus painting is used because and to the extent that it supports emotions. Maaz has been most strongly treated precisely in the most dramatic moments. Christian is currently working on a picture, in which he is trying to morph two Maaz. The persons are doubled. To achieve this, the artist works on a limited background to strengthen the illusion of the person dividing—a scene that is intended to convey the panic of the figure.
Painting over the pictures increases the unreal aspect of the film, but—as Aton says—“if everything were painted over, you would very quickly find yourself right back in a computer animation. And that is not what we wanted to do. It was a question of finding a balance between the real and the imaginary, so we had to define a hierarchy for retouching.”
(Emanuelle Achard)###
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