What is the film about?

An afternoon at the swimming pool.

What influenced it?

We have been inspired a lot by the paintings of Picasso’s classic painting, matisse, Ingres and Manet for both composition and forms.

David Hockney and his swimming pools were also a great source of inspiration.

We also wanted very sculptural characters, so we also turned to this art.

Finally, we were mainly inspired by the municipal swimming pools where we used to go regularly.

A little background information...

The idea came to us because some of the team members used to go to the pool and observe many fun and unique situations there.

This public place is fascinating, because you find yourself naked in front of lots of people you don’t know and yet everyone goes about their own activities.

We always found the same regulars: the two girlfriends who talk more than swimming and block the swimming line, the sportsman who splashes and passes everyone thinking he’s at the Olympic Games, those who hang out on the stands watching others, or those who are modest and don’t dare take off their towels…
All these little situations are specific to this place of daily life, where all these characters find themselves for a moment, in a bathing suit gathered in the same pool.

We also enjoyed the world of the swimming pool because it has a special atmosphere. It is a rather cold place, sanitized by its architectural geometric rigour, but also by the very recognizable sound atmosphere where all sounds are amplified. We found the contrast amusing, that this small microcosm of life can be found in a place that seems so refined.

We wanted to give life to these characters, by amplifying them, giving them body, amplifying them in the same way that sound amplifies our movements in the pool, representing those little moments of everyday life that we finally find poetic.

How was the film made?

We have all worked on the development of the story. But it is true that we had a fairly defined aesthetic, based on many illustrations and concepts (Heloise and Adele) inspired by the pool and its characters. Inspired by a lot of classical painting for framing, we developed a story from a situation based on observation. Chloé Plat worked on the storyboard and was able to stage the film’s progress while Victori worked on the transition from 2D to 3D illustration. It was clearly a challenge, because we wanted to find a balance in our image, to ultimately create a hybrid rendering.

When the lookdev was finished, we more or less all worked on the different stages of the film. Victori did the rendering, compositing and animation, Chloé did the storyboarding, mainly all the animation of the film, modeling and texturing. Adele of the concept, modeling and texturing as well as 2D fx, and Heloise of the concept, texturing modeling, 2D fx and 3D blendshape.

3D has been a real tool to put in volume the bodies, which we wanted imposing and graceful at the same time. The 3D volume information was very important to us, because we wanted to make the characters palpable by contrasting with the 2D backgrounds and sets.

The bodies were worked in the manner of sculpture, each pose and even each frame were resculpted using 3D blendshapes to give them the desired shape.

For water, we used 3D to be able to have character reflections, but also 2D effects for all waves, and other water movements.

Finally, 3D has been a real tool for animation management.