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We had the chance to talk with Pierre Michel about his latest work, AVP, Polar and Fire Flower and decided to do a interview about it. Enjoy.
To start over tell us a little about
yourself? when did you get started in this business?
Ok i m 27 year old designer and I'm currently
living in Paris. It has been almost 7 years that i began to work in
this "business" as you say. But as i really do not consider it as a
business world but an artistic one, i m always excited by a project. So 7 years
compositing films and since 2006 i m also directing "motion graphics"
films...
Are you currently working for a
company or doing your own stuff?
I m freelance but i only work with
MIKROS IMAGE, a big VFX company in paris. I started there and i consider it
really as a family. After doing some stufs for video clip and advertising, I m
now compositing films for 4 or 5 years with them as a lead artist. Being
freelance allows me also to be a Director.I m working with paranoid projects, a
production company also in paris. For now i did all the vfx of my films.
What software did you use to achieve
the stunning look on your Fire Flower, Polar and AVP set?
All the 3 films were made only with
After effects. I love this software. I realized that people sometimes can t
imagine what you can do with it. May be because there isn't a lot of people
that use it in a professional way.Nuke is a very good system too (for the 3d
part mostly), and there are big possibilities that for upcoming projects i use
both... We will see !
Tell us something we don't know
about the project?
Mmmmm... May be that even if i like
the spectator to project his own story when he watchs my films, there is a
story behind the "polar" that people sometimes don't see...
When She opens her eye, you can hear
a sound that is from a firearm indeed... She is dying in front of a man (if you
look closely in her eye in the HD version) and falling in the next shots...
Where did you get your ideas to
develop such great set?
I don't really know. It is a part of
me, i have a lot of images coming in my head and now i have the tools to show
it to "the world". It is a fantasm vision of the world we are
living in... Very metaphoric in fact... And pictural... But there is always a
meaning behind them.
What were the most difficult things to achieve while creating them?
For polar i would say to acheive in
3 weeks all the compositing... It is as simple as that. I had a storyboard, and
i didn t realized that it would be very difficult to acheive a piece like this
alone. And how can you create a rain that look like real but with a little
thing more. And how create 3d clouds on after effetcs?....Thanks to Red Giant's
Trapcode software, all of this was possible...
For AVP there were no difficulty at
all, the only one was to show the rain in a different way in each shot... And
for Fire Flower, it was to create a continuity between all the shots...Very
complicated... I m not sure i succeed on doing it but when i see some responses
of spectators, i realized that it was worth trying to do so...
What part of the production phase you enjoyed the most?
When i m putting the grain process.
Because it means that it is finish... No... Of course I love the compositing
process but also the sound design one. Because you see your films having a
saoul. It is magical. The shooting part is not the one i prefer, because you
don't have time...It is very stressful. And it is complicated to explain to the
crew that what we shoot is a very small part of the process. But I have a lot
of things to learn for the shooting part. I realized that a good director of
photography can save you a lot of time in the post production process...it is
really a team work while filming...
How long did it take to finish such creative set from start to end?
polar: 3 weeks, avp: 4 and Fire
Flower 5. I always composite much more shot that you see at the end.... Because
i like editing such piece as if we really shoot those shots. I can do a fire
flower 2 and AVP 2 with all the shot i created...
What are your plans for the future?
Any plans on starting your own studio?
My plans for the future is to
composite a lot of films with Mikros image because i love that, certainly do
some advertising as director (with those 3 films i have a lot of demand) but
especially i will do an other "carte blanche". A short film. It will
take me around 1 year to do it but i hope it will worth doing it. It will
be as pictural as the others but more realistic. I m very excited to
begin.
What have you been working on
lately? If any, care to show us some stuff?
lately i have finish compositing for
a french film call "Faubourg 36" on after effects and nuke with
mikros image... and I took some vacation.. For the directing part, i wait the
good project. I really chose them because i put my heart on them. Wait and
See....
NOTE: This films contains mildly erotic imagery and may not be
suitable for viewing on a safe for work enviroment.
