Animation

Bang Bang!

Bang Bang! is a 12-minute French animated short directed by Julien Bisaro and co-written by Claire Paoletti (Long Way North). The psychological film follows Éda, a young girl who feels confined to her father’s overbearing shadow. A car accident leaves her wandering the woods, where her father is out hunting. Lost, Éda comes face-to-face with an enigmatic pink dog and the opportunity to start a new path. Layered with metaphors, Bang Bang! leaves the viewer enough room to form their own interpretation.

The film was backed by Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, a French association that provides funding and subsidies to finance cinema and short films. It was produced by Caïmans Productions and co-produced by the french channel Arte. Bang Bang! has won numerous film awards, including Best film at the Tokyo Anime Award festival and at the Picor VII festival. It has been screened at more than 80 festivals and broadcasted on French, German, Spanish, Polish and Japanese television.

Julien Bisaro started his career as a fine artist, before making the decision to study filmmaking at La Poudrière, a film school in Valence, France. After graduating he worked as an animator and background artist on feature films including Ernest & Celestine (2012), Le tableau (2011) and The Secret of Kells (2009). With experience behind him, Bisaro set out to make his first short film, Bang Bang!

The film’s starting point came from the film Mon oncle d’Amérique (1980), by French director Alain Resnais, as well as the writings of neurobiologist Professor Henri Laborit. In a graphical choice to heighten atmosphere Bisaro took inspiration from the nineteenth-century European photogravure. Combining a minimal use of colour with a strong use of light and shadows. The characters are drawn without outlines and their expression and conveyed using just a few marks.

The animation was drawn frame by frame without any interpolation software. Some of the animated backgrounds are 3D but the majority of the backgrounds were made in the 2D traditional way using different layers. You can find out more about the film and the process in this interview on Skwigly. You can also find some concept art and character design on Julien Bisaro’s website.

Credits

Written: Julien Bisaro, Claire Paoletti
Directed: Julien Bisaro
Production: Caïmans Productions, Arte France
Produced: Jérôme Barthélemy, Daniel Sauvage
Voices: Andréa Brusque, Féodor Atkine, Éric Herson-Macarel
Music: Jean-Christophe Onno

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