Shooom’s Odyssey, the animated short with a heartfelt story and beautiful visuals that we came across at Cartoon Forum 2017, became the winner of the Cristal for TV Production at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2020. To follow up on our previous interview on the TV film back in 2017, we heard back from the two core people of the project, the director Julien Bisaro and the producer Claire Paoletti. We hope this article and our previous interview could give you more insight into this fascinating animation and attain useful knowledge for developing a great animation.
Interview with Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti
Animationweek (AW): First of all, congratulations on completing the film and winning the prize at Annecy Festival this year. Could you please summarize what you think is the attractiveness of the film?
Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti: As Shooom’s Odyssey is aiming for young audiences (starting from 3 years old), we did our best to make a sweet and emotional film told from the point of view of the animals, who are the main characters. The surprising part is that it seems adults have also found interest in it!
AW: If you list the three biggest difficulties during the whole journey of developing the film, what are they?
Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti:
- Built an interesting story for a very young audience.
- Keep the camera as close as possible to the characters using immersive staging.
- Maintain high standards for 2D animation.
AW: To finish writing the script, what did you take care of the most and why?
Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti: To tell an interesting story for young audiences.
AW: Could you please let us know the story behind composing the music?
Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti: We’ve always wanted to have classical music. At the beginning of the production, we met David Reyes, a Belgian composer with former work for cinema that we liked. We started to work with him at an early stage of the film as he was able to work on the animatic that was already finished at the time. He worked sequence by sequence and elaborated on the recurrent theme of Shooom.
Afterwards, we were lucky enough to have a small orchestra (20 musicians) and recorded the music in the well-known studio of Flagey in Brussels. Éliane Reyes, David’s sister who is a famous pianist, played the piano in the score and David, who is also a conductor, directed the orchestra. It was such a fantastic moment for all of us!
AW: If you have any, could you please share some advice to young creators or producers who have passionate ideas for animation projects and wishes to accomplish them?
Julien Bisaro and Claire Paoletti: Never lose sight of the first idea you had!
