If you have seen today’s CG short which features a new animation called RISING, you may like to find out more about the artists involved. Here we interview Jean-Yves about his and Michaël’s background, skills and inspiration.
3D World: How did you break into the industry?
JYP: We met during our studies at Valenciennes. After we graduated, we started as junior graphists dealing with basic rotoscopy tasks and assisting on various projects. We learned a lot and gradually got on board on bigger projects with more responsibilities (supervision, lead, AD) until one day RISING came up…
3D World: What do you do now? At what point in your life did you make the decision that that’s what you were going to do?
JYP: We are frequently approached for creative projects, some of which we just add a special touch to and others which we deal with from concept to design or execution. From the beginning, our passion is the image. We started at Mikros Image with an artistic background and from there we developed our technical knowledge and expertise.
3D World: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
JYP: We feed our thoughts with the things we see around us. I mean either commercials, feature films, photography, design or architecture. Personally, I would say that, coming from an artistic background, I am affected by any form of art or art display. Personal culture is the strongest influence that anyone has: it prevents people from copying each other or doing something already done by others..
3D World: What is the most enjoyable project you have worked on so far in your career and why?
JYP: RISING remains the most enjoyable experience. We had control over the whole project and had the pleasure of working on images that suited us without having a client’s cut. We were lucky enough to work with 2D and 3D artists that were absolutely psyched on the project, which allowed us to go even further …
Of course, we had previously worked on projects at Mikros Image that enabled us evolve. I would like to mention Madonna’s video clip ‘Four minutes to save the world’ as it was my very first project as a 2D Supervisor and lead graphist, and it was an unforgettable project. Michaël experienced the same thing with ENBW project.
3D World: What 3D tools and techniques do you use on a day-to-day basis?
JYP: The tools used for CG are the same as those listed by Stéphane in your Friday Animation Fun interview. We also used some custom exports from the CG team: the CG cameras enabled us to add particles and flares; the CG renders were split in passes for compositing; the Z-Depth pass was used for depth of field; and we also made use of other passes like specular, reflection, refraction, sub-surface scattering and the like to finetune the final result.
3D World: What’s your favourite 3D package and why?
JYP: I would echo pretty much what Stéphane said as far as projects like RISING are concerned… Now that we are starting to develop motion graphics, we’re using Cinema 4D. I am finding this tool intuitive and efficient to use when creating animations for motion design. It’s easy to use and interacts well with After Effects.
3D World: What’s your favourite film?
JYP: Without a doubt it’s Willow!
3D World: What’s your favourite animation?
JYP: Most works coming from Pixar: they kind of rock!
3D World: What advice can you give for aspiring 3D artists looking to break into the industry?
JYP: Endurance, resistance, tolerance, think out of the box, know the boss;) I would say in general that if you’re passionate enough, you’ll get through.
3D World: Please could you share a technical ‘secret’ or top tip with us on how you work?
JYP: Use After Effects for compositing and then add Starglow at the end. It always works:)
Posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2012 at 2:56 pm under Shorts, Showcase. You can subscribe to comments. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: Animated short, artist
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