Bubbleman Superstar: message in a bubble

BUBBLEMAN SUPERSTAR: MESSAGE IN A BUBBLE
Interview with Alban Gily and Thierry Bonneau, directors of "Bubbleman Superstar Mission El Cobra".

You won a major award for best editing and received numerous nominations. How did you feel when you found out you'd won?

Alban Gily : First of all, thanks to Moonlight! Winning an award in the technical categories is always very satisfying. For me, as an editor by training, it's all the more important to receive this encouragement. The editing of Mission El Cobra was done by four hands, so I think Thierry is also very happy. Paradoxically perhaps, it was the nominations for the screenplay and especially the music that touched me the most. Benoît Giffard “Gif” did a fabulous job of composing and performing the music, so thank you for pointing that out, especially as we worked on references to Italian composers, from Morricone to Calibro 35. Finally, the recognition of the animation and visual style is also very touching. Especially coming from Italy - where I'm very fond of the work of Mario Bava and the Giussani sisters (Diabolik) - where the film has had a great career.

Thierry Bonneau : What's extremely pleasing about these nominations and awards is to see that this film has an international resonance. It's not a film made by the French for the French - that was never the objective anyway. Whether the film is rewarded here in Italy, in Mexico, in India or in the United States, it's great to see that it transcends borders and cultures... the freedom of peoples in the face of tyranny speaks to everyone!

There's a perceptible synergy within your entire team. What's the secret to this success?

A.G : Thierry and I have known each other and worked together for about fifteen years. We're also roommates and share a common cinematic affinity. Our storyboarder, Thomas Sabatié, is someone I've worked with for some time. Atom Cyber, our concept artist, is Thierry's brother. Our producer, Florent Guimberteau (Melting Productions) co-produced a previous Bubbleman (Hitler contre Frankenstein). Pals from our old collective (spanKidz) are always on hand to help out, from script reading to post-production, including Guillaume Gravier... These first elements give us an idea of the possible solidity of the project. We did a very detailed animatic. Then we chose other collaborators, graphic designers, colorists and animators (2D and 3D), and production teamed up with Tchak, an excellent 2D animation studio. The team was small (see credits), but they hit it off right away on this fun, punkish film.

T.B : Given our very tight budget, we knew it would be very complicated to make this film under ideal conditions. We were lucky enough to work with a great animation studio (Tchak) and a Lead Animator, Roxane Loisy, who quickly understood our references and inspirations, and we obliged ourselves to produce the most precise animatics possible, based on the storyboard which was really well detailed, to avoid any problems or misunderstandings during the production of the animation, which had to be done without layout, for budget and time reasons.

How did you manage to create such a frenetic, well-worked editing rhythm in your animated short? What was your approach to making the rhythm so dynamic?

T.B : What's funny now, but much less so at the time, is that our producer asked us to cut out half the script, because it was too long, and therefore too expensive to produce! (laughs). As a result, we ended up with the structure of a classic feature film in three acts, but compressed into 14 minutes! Which isn't necessarily the smartest thing to do for a short film, but after storyboarding and animating the film, we decided that it would work, with a very steady pace that doesn't detract from understanding the story. We wanted to make a generous film, with lots of different settings and characters. It can be quite risky in a short film to want to do too much, but that's also what we were looking for.

What was the main inspiration behind Bubbleman Superstar Mission El Cobra?

T.B :  Go ahead, Grandpa, you're Bubbleman's dad after all!

A.G : As with all episodes of Bubbleman's adventures, our inspiration comes mainly from current events. Mission El Cobra is the third opus in the saga. I could expand on this, perhaps another time. Here's the link: https://vimeo.com/user46908202. For the record, the second one, Hitler vs Frankenstein, co-directed with Julien Vray, we finished, with Thierry on compositing, at the end of summer 2017, just as Trump had begun his term as President of the United States. Mission El Cobra looks at border walls between peoples, and here at the one separating Mexico and the USA. With Trump, the task of finishing the job was a colossal and aggressive one, and at the time we had an image of this unbridled capitalism in the guise of a great cannibal. And then the media were full of images and news of people who had disappeared at the border, or of migrants who had travelled thousands of kilometers, often on foot, only to be turned away or die. There was also this idea that the USA might be running towards its own collapse with a personality like Trump in power. There was also the very inspiring satyrical short film M.A.M.O.N (Mexico, Uruguay - 2016). Much later, Trump tweeted that he was considering putting alligators on the Mexican border. Too late, we had already written our version of this cannibalistic border! Finally, I had read somewhere in a Mayan prophecy that “everything that is buried will come to light one day”. I had enough reference points to sketch out a story seen through the prism of Bubbleman's dystopian universe. At the end of 2018, I pitched the project to Thierry, who agreed to co-write and co-direct this short film. As we're also roommates, the apartment has become a veritable laboratory!

T.B : I was already familiar with the character and his zany universe. I thought it was really cool because we had a lot of freedom to write, and we could go all out with the action, the fantasy, not forgetting the humor. And then, for my first film as a director, I found animation really interesting, because it allows us to do a lot of things that live action doesn't, like a giant creature at the foot of a gigantic pyramid.

Tell us about the genesis of this work. The visual style is one of the strong points of this short film. The direction and animation evolve in perfect synergy. How did you create this winning combination?

A.G : The story's structure is simple and classic, based on three acts. Exposure of the villainous entity in a hostile context, presentation of the hero and his mission. Fall of the hero. Initiation and rebirth of the victorious hero in his new role. Finally, an unexpected finale. For the visual style, we based ourselves on the second episode of the Bubbleman saga: 2D animation in 3D settings. The difference is that we opted for more realistic settings inspired by video games.

T.B : For the visual aspect, we had initially considered scanning models to have the sets in 3D, coupled with 2D characters, but we finally settled on Unreal Engine, which gave us total control over our sets, our atmospheres, in short the overall artistic direction of the film. The most complicated part was to set up a viable workflow integrating 2D characters into our 3D sets. This is something that has rarely, if ever (?), been done on Unreal Engine. I had to do a lot of integration and rendering tests to make sure it worked for all the shots.

A.G :This level of 2D-3D integration in UE had never been achieved before. Epic Games backed ten projects for the FICG (Guadalajara - Mexico) in 2022, two of which went in this direction but were, without malice, bullshit. Time was of the essence when it came to finalizing the short films, given the tight deadline between the call for projects and the festival submissions. As a result, the light work impacting on the 2D animations and the resulting projected shadows on the 3D sets was not completed.

What was the most satisfying part of creating the short film?

T.B : Without hesitation, I'd say the sound. Sound design, vocals, mixing... We were very well supported by Studio Titra, who were in charge of all this and who enabled us to work with some truly exceptional French dubbers. Studio recording of the music, composed by Benoit Giffard, was also a real pleasure.

A.G : For me, all the moments are interesting and gripping, alone or as part of a team. Even those that could be described as tedious or at least repetitive. The constant reworking, layer after layer, sculpting of the project is always gratifying. And yes, the apotheosis was working with the Titra Film teams and those fabulous dubbers, it was magical! The film's reception was incredible, with everyone congratulating us on the direction, dialogue writing and sound-intelligence work accomplished to date. Everyone seems to have really enjoyed the project. As for us, we can still talk fondly of those three incredible days at Titra.

What are your future projects? Do you plan to expand this short into a longer film or another form?

A.G: For Bubbleman, we have a project for a tournament series based on some of the principles of Mission El Cobra, but the animation would be in 3D with 2D rendering in a japanime style.

T.B: As far as I'm concerned, I'd love to make a short film using the same technique and workflow as Bubbleman Mission El Cobra, but going a little further with the sets and character animation... As the project is a horrific fantasy tale based on a French legend, we're going to have to fight hard to get this film made... it's a long shot, but I'm not giving up hope!