The production began in Mexico with filming live action plates featuring real actors and locations. Then our Paris and Montreal studios took over the footage to replace selected characters and city elements with 2D designs, mixing live action, 3D device and animation. Main softwares used were TVpaint for the animation, Nuke, Maya and Flame for the VFX.

One key challenge from the beginning was how to differentiate the 2D version of the main character from the rest of the animation happening in the city. To address that, the director pushed to combine the drawing styles of two very different artists: Alva Skog for the main character, Myrzk and Moriceau for everything else. This allowed the main character and the device to pop while still sharing the stage with a city filled with quirkiness in all shades of Yellow.

The Happy Fellow designed by Alva Skog.

The device was 3D rendered and lit on Maya then composited with Flame and Nuke.