What is the film about?

What if you made an improvised animated film one week at a time for one year starting only with the concept of a character pushing a big cube in the desert. Where would this story go?

M52 is a 10 minutes animated short film made during one year as a creative challenge. The result is a surprising unexpected science fiction adventure into a distant future of mankind.

What influenced it?

The ”Mythical Mondays” from Gregg Gunn and ”30 Days of Animation” from Geoff King influenced me to try a long term creative challenge of animation.

Other artists that had a part of influence in this film by their strong narrative and visual style were:
– Charles Huettner & Joseph Bennett (Scavengers)
– Jonathan DJOB NKONDO (Geometrical abstract characters)
– Benjy Brooke (Power Hungry)

A little background information...

When I left my hometown Montreal to go live to Germany, I decided to reconnect with my passion for making animated film and developing creative universe. ” M52 ” was a first attempt in this direction.

I decided to start this project in order to bring myself to explore new ways of creating a film and animate on a regular basis. I would have never thought I could make a 10-minute animated film myself in one year while working as a freelancer at the same time. This film proved me that going out of your comfort zone and experiment with different creative methods can help push your limits and discover new artistic horizons.

How was the film made?

M52 was made as a creative challenge and improvised on week at a time during 52 weeks. It started without a script, storyboard or any design. Only with one simple and a bit abstract idea: a character pushing a big cube in the desert. The rest of the story and visuals were developed at the same time than the 52 sequences of the film were animated weekly. I used mainly after effects to create the visual starting always from small hand drawn thumbnails and going straight to clean from them. This method allowed me spend less time on the weekly development of a sequence and more on its production.

The film’s scenario evolved during the year and was greatly influenced by daily reflections on the impact of humans on the environment and the rapid technological transformation of our civilization. The unexpected result of this project became a graphic science fiction adventure into a distant future of humanity.