For this seminar, we had the honor of inviting Fabrice Faivre and Kim Keukeleire to share the process of stop-motion animation production.The lecture covered character design, armature construction, the application of 3D printing, collaboration among various departments, and post-production VFX composition. With the help of photos and videos, they provided the audience with a deeper understanding of the production of stop-motion animation.

Fabrice took the stage first and introduced his professional experience working in Switzerland: He signed a contract for a stop-motion animation production that was supposed to last only two weeks but ended up extending for two years. It was during this opportunity that he crossed paths with Kim Keukeleire. Following that, Kim mentioned her educational background in Belgium and her journey to becoming a lead stop-motion animator. Both speakers shared their involvement in various productions, including "Isle of Dogs," "Asteroid City," "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio," and "My Life as a Zucchini."

The first part of the lecture was hosted by Kim Keukeleire, who shared the development and production of stop-motion animation with us.

Regarding character design, the speaker emphasized the importance of scaling. By presenting the scaling design of all the characters from "The Inventor," Kim explained that when creating stop-motion characters, it is essential to determine their size and proportions in advance because this will affect the scale of the set for the animation. Kim stressed the critical nature of these preliminary tasks, stating that having these scale sizes determined in advance can significantly reduce potential issues that may arise during production.

In the segment on armature production, Kim shared the character armature diagrams from "The Inventor" and discussed how the budget could affect the construction of armatures. For example, in cases where the budget is lower, they might use wire to create arms as a cost-effective alternative to more intricate and expensive materials.

Kim also mentioned that during the armature production stage, the effects of clothing on the characters must be taken into account. Some clothing items may restrict the character's movements, and in such cases, adjustments need to be made to the armature or the attire. For instance, when creating a character with a long dress, Kim and her team would modify the puppet's legs to a single piece to reduce the complexity of animating.

When discussing the usage of 3D printing in stop-motion animation, the speaker used characters from "My Life as a Zucchini" as an example to explain that selectively using 3D printing can save production time. However, a complete reliance on 3D printing throughout the process is not feasible. Making the armature is just the initial step, and the other productions such as clothing, tests the durability of the armature. This often requires adjustments during the later stages of production.

Before moving on to the final stage of creating the puppet, it's essential to conduct tests for the puppets' dynamic performances. This is done to prevent objects designed from becoming hindrances during the animating stage.

After completing the puppet, the next stage is animating the character performance, which focuses on how to convey emotions and bring personality to the characters through their movements. Kim mentioned that typically, they start by having an animator draw key poses as guidance. During the actual animating process, they strive to experiment with movements to see how far they can push the character's performance.

During this stage, Kim also shared a common technique for creating character movements, which is using live-action references. The speaker shared clips from their previous works that featured live-action references and mentioned that this technique can be used to record the timing of the performance, resulting in a more authentic portrayal of movements.

Following the conclusion of the first part, Fabrice Faivre began the second part of the presentation, where he discussed the post-production stage of stop-motion animation.

In a humorous opening, Fabrice explained that stop-motion animation requires a significant amount of time for shooting, and he also showcased his team's time-lapse footage of shooting and animating puppets. This part can be broken down into three main processes: Main Animation, Clean Plate, and Composite. The Main Animation phase focuses on capturing the movements themselves. Clean Plate involves adjusting or removing foreground objects that might block the view. The Composite stage is where all the elements are combined to create the final film.

In the VFX aspect, Fabrice shared the use of 3D modeling, such as simulating softness on clothing fabric, and creating special effects like flames.

As the engaging presentations came to an end, we transitioned into a Q&A segment.

Q: Why did both of you decide to get into animation?

Kim Keukeleire: I think it started as an accident, but over time, I gradually developed a real love for creating animations, especially stop-motion animation because I enjoy the process of making things myself.

Fabrice Faivre: I initially started in science and engineering, but I found it boring, so I switched to literature, which didn't engage me either. It was then, when I got into film and media production ,that I realized that this is what I wanted to do.

In the end, the host invited both speakers for a group photo with the audience, marking a perfect closing to this lecture.

Kim Keukeleire

After finishing her Masters degree in Animation.

Cinematography in La Cambre in Brussels in 1992, she worked locally and abroad for several companies.

Amongst others, she animated on the first Chicken Run (Peter Lord and Nick Park), Frankenweenie (Tim Burton), and Forbidden to dogs and Italians (Alain Ughetto), Fantastic Mister Fox, Isle of Dogs and the Alien for Asteroid City (Wes Anderson), Pinocchio (Guillermo Del Torro and Mark Gustafson) She was the animation director the film My Life as a Zucchini (Claude Barras) and The Inventor (Jim Capiobianco and Pierre-Luc Granjon)

Kim has served as a Jury member many International festivals and she presented lectures, master classes and workshops around the world.

Fabrice Faivre

I’m a French VFX / Post-Production Supervisor and a Technical Director.

About twenty years ago I was working at Mikros Image, at this time one of the finest post production studio in Paris as a VFX and post production generalist on live action feature films, mostly french films, french comedies you do never heard of. One day in 2006 they send me in Switzerland working on Max&Co. You do not have heard of this one too but that was one of the very early stop-motion movie to be shot not on film but with a fully digital pipeline. I discovered the crazy world of stop-motion and I really enjoyed it !

Since then I do mostly stop motion and I’ve been very lucky working with crazy talented people, including Kim, on some successful projects like my Life as Courgette, Isle of Dogs, Pinocchio, The Inventor and lately Asteroid City.