Interview with Animators
Sebastien Wojda and Laure Retif
Music Video for Radiohead In Rainbows Song
"Jigsaw Falling Into Place"
Watch it now!
A lot of people entered their video concepts to compete in the
In Rainbows Animated Music Video Contest judged by Radiohead. Inspired by their love for Radiohead's music and both the possibility of winning $10,000 and the chance to have the band view their work, creators gave it their best shot.
But now, long after the contest has concluded, we received this beautiful animated video from Sebastien Wojda and his girlfriend Laure Retif. They spent the last 6 months finishing it, long after the contest was over, simply for their love of Radiohead.
We're pretty darn impressed.
Watch "Jigsaw"
THE BEGINNING:
Sebastien: I started being interested in animation when I saw the TV series "Dragon Ball" as a child. I became a fan of Japanese animation at that time. Then I began trying to figure out how to make animated films, and decided it was what I wanted to do as a job.
What I like in animation is the possibility of creating anything that goes through my head. Eveything I can imagine, I can create it with just paper and a pencil - that's cool !
At first, I started learning on my own, looking for animation techniques on the Internet. This helped me enter a school for animation afterwards, first the EMCA and then the Gobelins in Paris, where I co-directed the short film "Voodoo". In those schools I mainly learned animation, but I also had life drawing classes, storyboard lessons, and everything related to animation.
Watch "Jigsaw"
Laure: Since I was a child, I've always wanted to have a job like an illustrator, painter, or comics drawer. Inch by inch, I became more and more interested in animation, as I watched and loved Disney films, and then Pixar films. So I started to learn animation by myself. I bought books about animation techniques and tried to make films. Then I entered a school for 2d animation in Angouleme, France, and another year learning 3d techniques.
What I love about animation is seeing my own still drawings come to life, and being able to do whatever I want.
Influences:
Sebastien: I have so many influences - so many artists that I admire, that I don't know where to begin! Well, I love Japanese animation for its dynamism and stories, like "Fuli Culi", "Dead Leaves", "One Piece". I like animator Hiroyuki Imaishi the most, because of the dynamism he puts in his drawings. I also love the classic Disney animated films, artists like Brad Bird with "The Iron Giant" or "The Incredibles", and Glen Keane of course, for the force of his animations.
Watch "Jigsaw"
Also, the Gorillaz for its great character designs. Don Hertzfeld because he makes me laugh so much, Pixar for the quality they put in all their movies... there are so many great things that I can't list them all :)
Laure: Well, my first influences were Disney films, such as the "Lion King", "Aladdin", "Beauty and the Beast", and all the other ones I saw when I was a child. Then Pixar, especially the last ones, "Ratatouille" and "Walle", and their shorts: "For the Birds", "Presto and One Man Band".
Some of the Japanese animations, especially "Tekkon Kinkreet", "Spirited Away" and "Princess Mononoke", and others with weird stories like "Mind Game", "Memories", or "Tokyo Godfathers". And I also love artists with a strong graphic world, like Tim Burton for example.
Watch "Jigsaw"
How They Chose the Song:
A friend of ours and also a colleague, Josselin AZORIN-LARA (who we already collaborated with on some animation projects) is a big fan of Radiohead, maybe the ultimate ;) and suggested this song to us. He thought it would fit well with our graphic world and we just loved this song, and when we listened to it for the first time, we already had an idea of what we could do for it. We tried to mix images we liked with the music we liked. Josselin helped us and gave us some advice about the montage in order to create a coherent world between our graphics and the music.
Technique:We used 2d and 3d, because we like working with both techniques; so we tried to create a world that could mix both of them. The main characters are in 3D, with a cell shading rendering, and the backgrounds are in 2D.
Time Required: From the storyboard to the final cut, it took us about 6 months, interrupted sometimes by professional work :)
Challenges:The biggest challenge was to create something coherent, mixing 2D and 3D and especially to create something graphic. Mostly we tried to enjoy ourselves.
Watch "Jigsaw"
Why They Still Made Their Video: Radiohead is a band that I love but unfortunatly, we heard about the contest too late, plus at that time we had too much other work! Though it was too late, we still tried to do something. At first a little storyboard, and finally, we had done a lot, working in the evenings after work.
We were happy to try out new techniques, and were very motivated to create our first music video. So we took days off, and we finished it, hoping to be able to show it to Radiohead, even if we weren't in the competition.
Go to Sebastien's Portfolio
Watch "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"