Every few years the Blender Foundation launches a new creative project to help drive Blender development forward in the environment of a real production system and to showcase the software’s capabilities. Due to the success of the first such project, Elephants Dream, which premiered in 2006, the Blender Institute was founded. Fast forward nine years and we find a film that shows how much Blender has progressed and matured as a 3D tool. We’ve seen the open source 3D software show up in the headlines much more often in recent years due to the quality of the work produced with it, as well as to the add-ons developed by a growing and enthusiastic user base.
In addition to its technical merit, Cosmos Laundromat also surprises due to its script and sense of humor. Resources have been invested in developing an elaborate, non-decaffeinated script, which implies taking risks but also results in an original film. Thanks to this it has received wide acclaim from the public and praise from artists from Pixar, Disney, Dreamworks and ILM, among others. The production team was invited to screen the movie for artists working at Dreamworks and Pixar, and the short has recently won the Jury’s Prize at the Animago Festival.
We had the pleasure to interview Mathieu Auvray, director of the film (known also for his “Babioles” TV series), who shared a detailed account of the production of Cosmos Laundromat.
Cosmos Laundromat is an ambitious project. Please tell us what were the basic guidelines set by Ton Roosendaal for the film and how you got to join as director.
Ton Roosendaal presenting the project to the online audience
I met Ton in 2011 for the first time, when the production
company I work with in France (Autour de Minuit) was searching for
people to make the “Babioles” series using Blender. Since that time we
kept exchanging emails. Two years later Ton invited me to the Blender
Conference. I was very pleased to finally go there !
Ton had already mentioned publicly that he wanted to make
something special for the next open movie project, and at the
conference he explained more in detail what he had in mind : “The
Gooseberry Project” : an open source feature film made by multiple
studios from around the world. The idea would be that each studio would
make 8-10 minutes of the whole movie, each with their own style and art
direction.
And on top of that, he asked me to direct it. Bam ! There was
no way I could let pass such an honor and opportunity ! He told me this
on the last day of the conference and I couldn’t sleep that night. All
kinds of questions crossed my mind.
I knew we had to make the constraints part of the story, that
I had to come up with an idea that would make every scene different
from an artistic direction point of view. But I also knew that to make
such a thing pleasant to watch, we should have a strong story and
something that provided continuity along the narrative (such as an
actor’s voice, the quality of the animation, performance from the
actors, etc.).
So I started thinking about the story, the core meaning of the
film, the main emotions and characters. We talked about it with Ton and
we agreed on a story that will not make a statement, to carry a
political message. What he wanted was an animated movie that was as
entertaining as possible. So we had to open wide the doors of
creativity !
A lot of work has been dedicated to the script. How was the process of working on it with Esther Wouda?
Mathieu Auvray, at a laundromat in Paris
First, I worked with a French scriptwriter I know well :
Regis Jaulin. Regis is a very talented scriptwriter but he was not very
comfortable with the “love story” idea… I loved Sintel’s script and
when I met Esther Wouda (she wrote it), we instantly felt connected. So
we talked a lot, and started developing ideas and stories almost from
scratch, again…
Since we had to make each scene very different, we thought of
a story in which the main character would appear every 5 minutes as
something or someone totally different like “Quantum Leap” but with the
drama and humor of “Groundhog Day”. The main character could become a
robot, a chair, a tree, a fish, a samurai wolf… Anything !
Having characters that change appearances in every scene could
be a wonderful support for a love story ! You get rid of the
“appearances” of someone through repetitions and focus on who they
really are and their personality will show up even more in the long
run. You’ll end up seeing only who he really is ! As we say in French :
“the outfit doesn’t make the priest”.
So we wrote a basic feature film complete beat sheet. What
happened to the main three characters, how they are connected and how
they will interact with each other and most importantly : why. Since
the crowdfunding didn’t reach its target, we focused on the first 17
minutes only.
Esther Wouda, author of the script, at a laundromat in Paris
Unfortunately, as the production started, we realized that 17
minutes was too much if we wanted to have good quality animation /
render / simulation / lighting… So we had to cut it down to 10-12
minutes. And by doing so, I had to remove what mattered the most for
the big story : the love story. Instead, we focused on having a strong
beginning that would lead to a “good” frustration feeling when the end
credits would appear : I want more of this ! And that’s what we were
aiming for mostly, for people to get interested in the project and to
support us to continue it.
The great thing was that Esther and I shared a common feeling
of what we wanted to put on screen. “Cosmos Laundromat” is about love,
and how complex it can be. We wanted to write a story that would
reflect the feeling of ‘letting go’ (without any annoying song !). When
someone you love doesn’t give this back to you, you have to let it go,
even if you don’t want to. That’s what motivated us at first, that’s
the key thing we were after. So I don’t want to spoil it (even if most
of it can be read online I think) but we wrote this movie focused on
this feeling, this emotion, and to make the audience care about this
sense of abandon, of sacrifice, that can tear you apart…
This is something I wanted to talk about from my personal love
life at the time. But also because it raised a very contemporary
question : doing what’s right. Making a good decision and acting like
you should is something that cannot be more important nowadays. Doing
what’s right for someone you love, making the right decision not for
you but for others. Putting your ego, yourself out of the equation and
stopping to be selfish or self-centered in order to make good things
for others, is really a concern I think. It’s not a black and white
thing, it leads to a lot of grey areas, to subtle things… It’s also a
story about stopping a curse, changing things that you think you
can’t…
