Yuck! | Q&A with Loïc Espuche
© IKKI Films and Miyu Productions
In a mostly adult-focused category, Yuck! stands out as one of two Oscar-nominated animated shorts to follow children. It’s a charming, innocent look into a kid’s first experience with romantic feelings, and the urge to express those feelings through kissing, something found utterly repulsive by his peers. The minimal 2D animation uses block colours to communicate the simplicity of this pivotal moment in this child’s life.
Directing the short is Loïc Espuche helming his fourth short film after contributing animation and art to projects like I Lost My Body and Mariona’s Fantastic Tale. Skwigly caught up with Espuche to discuss some of the challenges facing children today, depicting innocence through animation and taking part in a prison film festival.
How did you come up with the idea for the film?
It was during a screening of my previous short in a theater full of kids. That film was about a soldier who goes off to war, and at some point at the beginning of the film, he said goodbye to his fiance by giving her a little kiss. And at this moment, all the kids in the audience said, ‘It’s so disgusting I cannot watch.’ It made me laugh a lot and I said to myself, I have to make a movie about this and the reaction it can provoke to children. So I needed to find a concept, and I came up with this idea to symbolize the desire to kiss someone where the lips light up, and contrast this with the sound of the dialog saying ‘yuck!’ I started with the contrast between sound and image, the two components of cinema. I knew that it could be a funny movie, but also a movie that could speak about themes like the beginning of having feelings for another and the fear of other people’s gaze.
Did you go in trying to make something for children or was the aim more universal?
I tried to be more universal because I knew the subject would connect with kids, but I wanted to make a movie that everyone can watch. For me, it’s really important to make cinema that’s not only for a single category of people. I like the idea that we share cinema together.
How did you come up with the characters and the setting?
It was a super long process to find the characters. I knew that I wanted to have kids be the protagonists, but the first idea was really abstract and so the characters evolved during the three and a half year process of writing the script. I’d say the main character is inspired by the kid I was because I was shy and was also really observant, which means you discover a lot of details, and you think everyone’s looking at you and finding all your details. So I was really shy and the story is about being shy and being afraid of the gaze of other people. It was unconscious but it connected.
© IKKI Films and Miyu Productions
Do you think it’s hard for kids today to make genuine connections?
It’s probably more difficult now because of social media, but I know people who feel really comfortable with it, and so I think even when they’re young, some kids are probably not so oppressed by the other people’s gaze. The contrast is just higher, because when we were kids our lives were only in the range of the school, or maybe in our neighborhood, or something like that.
How did you decide on 2D animation for this project?
I don’t consider myself specifically as a 2D animator because I have also developed 3D shows. I studied 3D at school, but I think I’m more comfortable with 2D because 3D is way more technical. I’ve drawn since I was a kid so I’m comfortable with the whole process. So if at some point we run out of money, for example, for the backgrounds, I could do all the backgrounds by myself. In 3D, if I have to modelize, create the texture, set the light, the render, and all that, it would be too much just for me. Ultimately, I choose to go 2D for this film because it’s allowed me to sensitise the graphic style. I wanted to focus the attention of the audience on the lips, and this way I could make graphics that are all in solid colors, and have them contrast with the shiny and glittery effect on the lips. Also that allows me to remove a lot of details which helps the viewer to use their imagination and forget about the technique.
© IKKI Films and Miyu Productions
My favourite shot is near the end where you see all these tents lit up by people’s glowing lips. How difficult was that to achieve?
What was difficult about this shot is that it’s also a pan, so the background was super large and to light all the tents, we had to separate everything because the light of the tents lights the bushes in front of it as well. It took a long time for the computer to calculate it so it was a technical problem. The lighting of this shot was done by Nicolas Trotignon who prepared an algorithm to control the tent light and everything was connected. Also it was difficult to preview this scene and with that algorithm we could have a render and I could adjust the timing, because we needed to find the timing of the camera movement, but also of the light, and to create a rhythm.
How does it feel to get that Oscar nomination?
It’s crazy. At first, it was an explosion of joy, and I was with a part of the team and it was so cool and we were not expecting it. After that I received thousands of messages, it took me five or six hours to answer everyone. And then there is a rush, because you have to organize to go to Los Angeles and plan all that. For example, today, before we came [to LA], we didn’t know where we would sleep. There was a big contrast, because you have some crazy stuff with all these red carpets but the week after the nomination, I had planned to go to a jail to present the movie to the prisoners. There is a festival and they gave Yuck! the grand prize. Such a big contrast.
The 97th Academy Awards take place on March 2nd 2025 at 7pm ET/4pm ET (March 3rd at 12 am GMT)