03. “Beautiful Men”: Interview with Nicolas Keppens

Synopsis
Three bald brothers travel to Istanbul to have a hair transplant. Stuck with each other in a hotel far from home, their insecurities grow faster than their hair.

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Beautiful Men is a stop-motion short film that depicts the drama among three balding brothers overcoming their common insecurities, with a balanced sense of humour. Their anxiety and warmth are impressively depicted with stop-motion, made with great attention to detail.

It has been nominated for many international animation film festivals including the “International Competition” category at the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (ITFS) 2024, the “Official Selection” at Animafest Zagreb 2024, and “Short Films Official Selection” at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2024.

We interviewed Nicolas Keppens, the director of the film, on the story behind Beautiful Men.

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Interview with Nicolas Keppens

Hideki Nagaishi (HN): What did you most want to portray or deliver to the audience through the film?

Nicolas Keppens: The vulnerability of us, humans. I have the feeling that our worldview is strongly influenced by the stories we tell and the images we make. Sometimes this could prevent people from looking for strength in less common feelings that are closer to themselves like tenderness and openness. The three brothers struggle with such emotions. They are not able to push things forward, to open themselves up because of insecurities, or images they want to fulfil.

HN: Where did the initial idea of the film story and the characters come from?

Nicolas Keppens: A few years ago, I was in Istanbul for work. We arrived in the late afternoon, went to our job, and got to the hotel rather late, without really seeing other hotel guests. The next morning, in the breakfast room, my colleagues and I were struck by the image of all these lonely balding heads, eating scrambled eggs and toast. Some of them already had the surgery, which looks really painful, others were waiting for their moment. This moment, I immediately knew I wanted to do something one day as it was a really touching sight to me.

HN: What did you take care in the most while you were developing the film’s story from the initial idea?

Nicolas Keppens: There were two main concerns: the characters must feel vulnerable, and I wanted to do the opposite of movies where men are always resolute in their decisions, but I didn’t want it to be a parody.

HN: In addition to the previous question, what kind of process did you go through and what kind of things did you pay attention to for creating the characters’ inner lives in order to have them feel alive in the story?

Nicolas Keppens: I don’t write backstories and I don’t determine the characters too much before starting. I have several people in mind but the beautiful thing to me is that, although we know people well, they can still surprise us.

The few times I really invented a backstory or wrote down what kind of person someone is, they became too flat for me. Probably because I don’t know how to do this. It’s easier for me to base a character on my brother, or an uncle. Then, when this character faces a situation, I start to think about similar problems these people had in real life. It often surprises me how different they reacted depending on small parameters. This is a much more organic way for me.

So basically, I don’t write backstories, I use the backstory of a real relative.

HN: Why did you decide to develop the film with stop-motion?

Nicolas Keppens: During the whole development, the film was meant to be a 2D animated film with 3D backgrounds. When I finally rewrote the script, some months before production, the film was much more about tactility and loneliness. These two feelings are possible to animate in 2D, but it’s more effective in stop-motion because of the physical characteristics of the technique.

HN: It is very impressive that the inner lives of each character are depicted so delicately. What do you think were the creative keys to achieve that? And what did you take care in the most when you communicate with puppet and set creators and animators for sharing and achieving your creative goals?

Nicolas Keppens: I didn’t have any experience in stop-motion, so for the animation, I listened very closely to Iris Alexandre. She was the head of animation and her efforts to express small, very human gestures was so important to the film. It was important to me not to give reference videos to the animators as I wanted the puppets to have there own language, of course resembling real human movements but not imitating.

I’m fascinated by dioramas and it was always surprising to me how touching these still scenes with a puppet, just sitting, staring, taking a moment to itself, could be. This made me wanting to create this feeling. The more time you have with a character, just silently moving, the more you project possible thoughts on it. So there it was important to find a balance in giving this time without it getting boring.

HN: Could you please let us know the story behind the music and sound of the film?

Nicolas Keppens: The music and sound were made by Nicolas Snyder. He works for a lot of productions by Joe Bennett, such as the HBO series Scavengers Reign. He also makes really beautiful, dreamlike music. One day I saw a short by Joe Bennett called Iggy and I was really touched by the sound on this short. I gave a lot of freedom to Nicolas because he’s such an amazing artist. He worked really fast and preferred to work on an almost finished image.

I’m sorry for this superficial answer but he really surprised me in a really short time and everything I would share about the process itself would feel unfair as I was just in the luxurious position of picking between sketches, which were all amazing.

HN: What was the biggest challenge or difficulty for the non-creative parts of the film project for you?

Nicolas Keppens: Money was a little bit of an issue as I switched very late from 2D to the more expensive stop-motion technique. We had to embark on an adventure where I had to lean on people with experience, such as Iris and Paul from Pedri Animation, but also on people closer to me.

I live in a small city and I believe for myself in the value of a local network, outside the animation industry, instead of knowing people worldwide in the industry. So I mentioned the problem that I needed a place to animate to some people around and finally we ended up, really cheap, in the conference room from the local government. We felt so welcome.

Making the film was a really creative quest as we had to go with the flow and tried to see the possibilities while facing a problem. Therefore I don’t really believe in a separation between the non-creative and creative parts in a film production. Maybe also because the producer, Brecht Van Elslande, is very transparent and open minded to change.