Synopsis
10-year-old Angelo dreams of being an adventurer and explorer. Until one day, in the car with his family on their way to visit his beloved Granny, who is very ill, he is suddenly forced to show the extent of his bravery: he is left behind by mistake at the motorway services. Angelo decides to take a shortcut through the forest to reach his Granny’s house. He finds himself in a mysterious land inhabited by strange beings threatened by an enemy even worse than the local ogre.
Film credits
Directors: Vincent Paronnaud and Alexis Ducord
Scriptwriter: Vincent Paronnaud (adaptation from Into the Wonderwoods by Vincent Paronnaud)
Main Producers: Marc Jousset (Je Suis Bien Content, France), Arnauld Boulard (Gao Shan Pictures, France), and Laurent Witz (ZEILT Productions, Luxembourg)
Co-Producers: Mathieu Rolin (Amopix, France), Florent Steiner (EV.L prod, France), Guillaume Natas (EV.L prod, France), and Jean Labadie (Le Pacte, France), and Amélie Terrier (FRANCE 3 CINÉMA, France)
Artistic director: Luciano Lepinay
Music: Olivier Bernet
Techniques: 2D digital and 3D digital
Running time: 80 minutes
Into the Wonderwoods is one of the animated films nominated for the official competition of feature films at the Annecy International Animation Film Festial 2024. It guides you through a fantasy forest where a boy makes his adventurous journey to see his grandmother.
The film is impressive with its well-balanced story structure, consisting of a well-paced main narrative for children, with a variety of adventurous events and a lot of humorous elements. The visual contrast between the 3D animation parts and the exaggerated, comical 2D animation parts also add good accents to the story to make it into an attractive children’s film.
We interview the core three people of the film project, Vincent Paronnaud (the author and co-director), Alexis Ducord (co-director), and Marc Jousset (one of the main producers).
You can also read our previous interview article that reveals the story behind the film in detail, here.
Interview with Vincent Paronnaud, Alexis Ducord, and Marc Jousset
Hideki Nagaishi (HN): Could you please let us know some messages for the people, who are awaiting the theatrical release of this film, on the attractive points of the film, and the aspect or part of the film you want them to pay special attention to when they see the film?
Vincent Paronnaud: Life is complex and so are individuals. We live in a terribly dogmatic age. You have to be ‘for’ or ‘against’; it’s black or white. We deny a whole range of colours in the name of ideology. Some of the characters in the film are searching for themselves.
They try, fail and try again. There’s definitely a message of tolerance that hangs over the whole project.
The film is also about death and the difficulty of accepting it.
And then there’s the idea of resistance, of the unity needed to defeat the madmen who fill this world (and there are many of them). Finally, it’s an ecological fable, a subject to which children are very sensitive.
Marc Jousset: Into the wonderwoods was designed for a young audience, with its fast pace and visual quality. Through this adventure in a mysterious forest, we tackle themes such as ecology, tolerance and love, without being moralistic. We wanted adults accompanying their children to enjoy the film too. Thanks to the different levels of interpretation and the many references to the history of animation, everyone will be able to identify with the adventures of Angelo, the hero of the story.
When Angelo projects himself as an Indiana Jones-style adventurer, we switch to 2D, and when he returns to reality we find him in 3D. This mix of 2D/3D techniques illustrates the spirit of the film, with its blend of adventure, humour and strong themes.
HN: Vincent, how did Alexis join the film project as a co-director? What creative benefits in working with Alexis were the most impressive for you?
Vincent Paronnaud: I’ve known Alexis for a long time. We’ve spent a lot of nights together in the Je Suis Bien Content studio, beer in hand. When the idea for the film came up, we thought of him, along with Marc Jousset. I knew I needed someone to work with on this project.
I didn’t know anything about 3D and Alexis had just finished the 3D production of Zombilenium (2017).
What’s more, we share the same spirit. It was a very good idea to co-direct this film with him; he has a very sharp artistic sense, he never gives up and always remains zen.
If I had to sum it up, I’d say I couldn’t have made this film without him.
HN: What made you decide to join this film project? And what aspects of the original comic are especially attractive for you?
Alexis Ducord: I’ve been working with the Je Suis Bien Content studio for a number of years and I was happy to move into 3D with them. I met Vincent there, whose work I follow and appreciate. It’s what you find in comics and it was exciting to bring it to life on the screen.
HN: What was it like co-directing with Vincent? What was the most important role for you, and how did you maximize your and Vincent’s creativity to achieve your creative goal for the film?
Alexis Ducord: It was a very good co-direction, which is not easy. Vincent is the author of the comic strip, but on the film we found a common vision for telling the story. Trust is essential, each of us must be able to finish with the teams what the other has started. Generally a disagreement reflects a weakness rather than the inclinations of one or the other.
HN: There are many humorous moments throughout the film that adults can enjoy, without breaking the younger audience’s immersion in the film’s world. What did you take care in the most when putting those fun scenes during scriptwriting?
Vincent Paronnaud: It’s all about balance and rhythm. For example, there were situations or gags that worked outside the film that we preferred not to include in order to maintain a certain fluidity. The priority is to have a solid skeleton and then make choices throughout the project. It’s a balancing act.
HN: The film is filled with many more adventures in it than I had expected and exceeds my expectations in a good way. How did you manage to put so many adventurous sequences into 80 minutes, and yet maintain good story pacing and clear storytelling?
Vincent Paronnaud: The hardest thing about making a film like this is keeping the energy up and having fun. It’s important to maintain that kind of honesty while having fun. But making a film also means respecting narrative imperatives. So, you have to constantly alternate between creative joy and the frustration imposed by technology.
HN: Alexis, what were the memorable creative challenges for you throughout this film project?
Alexis Ducord: There’s no doubt about the adaptation, the album has a very strong graphic style, but for the film we wanted to get closer to a classic 3D fiction look, a more cinematographic approach, in terms of framing and lighting, for example, while still retaining the energy of the comic, thanks to the sustained direction and regular graphic digressions.
HN: What were the things you’ve experienced in your journey through this film project that were especially impressive for you as the main producer?
Marc Jousset: Five French studios (Je Suis Bien Content, Gao Shan Pictures, Zeilt Productions, Amopix, Tchack) worked on the film. The commitment and enthusiasm of all the teams was impressive. This kind of motivation is essential for a film made in different studios.
HN: Marc, what was the most difficult mission for you in this film project, and how did you deal with that?
Marc Jousset: Unlike American or Japanese productions, in Europe and particularly in France, each film has a different graphic style and techniques. They’re one-shots. It’s more complicated for viewers to spontaneously embrace these productions. When a Pixar or a Miyazaki comes out, people know what they’re going to see. With French productions, it requires a greater effort of curiosity. Fortunately, we have solid, imaginative international distributors and sales agents like Le Pacte and Urban Sales, who are totally committed to promoting our film.
HN: What are the creative and personal strengths of Vincent and Alexis as film directors from your point of view as a producer? And how do you think those excellent skills and human qualities of theirs are reflected in this film?
Marc Jousset: The close working relationship between Vincent Paronnaud and Alexis Ducord helped bring the teams together. They complemented each other. The film is adapted from Vincent’s (A.K.A. Winshluss) comic strip, which gave us a great deal of freedom to adapt, as did the choice to use 3D. Vincent wrote the script, but then our two partners took part in the creative process, from character design to storyboarding. With Luciano Lepinay, the art director, they formed a formidable team, both humanly and artistically, which gave the film its visual quality and human dimension. The co-directors managed the production together.
HN: It is a very difficult mission to realize an animated feature film project. On the other hand, you have been successfully producing several feature-length animation films.
Among the various processes and elements of a feature-length film project, what do you pay the most attention to or work the hardest on as a producer in order to realize the project?
Marc Jousset: With our feature films we try to match the quality of international productions. The difficulty is that we don’t have the same budgets. So we have to compensate by being creative, both technically and artistically. When we made Persepolis, which was nominated for an Oscar and won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, we went against everything that was being done at the time, making a black and white film for adults. For Into the Wonderwoods, the mix of techniques and animation styles enabled us to keep costs under control without compromising the quality of the film.
The directors paid particular attention to the lighting of the 3D scenes. They created atmospheres that are rarely found in 3D films, with specific light and shadow effects. To achieve these shots we needed a real-time rendering engine. Into the wonderwoods is one of the first feature films to use Epic’s Unreal Engine, a real-time rendering engine. Gao Shan Pictures, the managing co-producer with Zeilt Production, oversaw the development to make it compatible with the film’s production processes. It was a big challenge, but one that enabled us to optimise rendering times.
