'A Monster In Paris' Opening pt.1

I was lucky that director Bibo Bergeron assigned me several juicy action and musical sequences to storyboard including the opening of the film. It went through several incarnations but was always structured around a giant monster chasing the films' protagonist Emile and the object of his affections Maud.
I'll come back to the early versions but for now here are the almost final storyboards before editorial & layout made their revisions.

In this clip (en Francais) from the final film you'll see it begins with newsreel footage of the 1910 Paris flood segueing into Emile's footage of his stroll with Maud. It sets up the world of the film and the interests and desires of one of the main characters very economically.

Un Monstre A Paris from Brandee Soard on Vimeo.

A Monster In Paris- finally released in the US!

Next week sees the Stateside release of a film I had the pleasure of storyboarding on FIVE years ago! These things take too long . . .  European backers EuropaCorp failed to find US distribution theatrically but fortunately Shout Factory have picked it up for dvd & blu-ray release.
Like the European and UK editions the Region 1 disk has precious few extras and an 'art of' book doesn't exist so I thought I'd finally share some of the work that went into this mini-masterpiece.
Over the next few weeks I'll post storyboards and links to some of the great artwork that made this film unique. Oh, and if you're living in the States and want to show your kids something special please support independent European animation and buy it!

I'll be posting concept art here and here with LOTS more storyboards to come . . .

SFO ZOO

I haven't drawn at a zoo since I lived in France-too long. Watching 'The Croods' left me fired up to sketch some exotic wildlife and the next day I made the long streetcar ride out to the San Francisco zoo.

I found my simian relatives at the gorilla enclosure !

Winter Sketchcrawl SFO

The mild winter here allows location sketching through the winter months. Sometimes it's too cold or windy/rainy to draw outside but most weekends are bright enough. Here's a collection of sketches from the past few months made on drawing trips with sketch-buddies.

The DogPatch is a gentrifying neighbourhood close to the San Francisco docks. Lots of shuttered warehouses, cranes and tankers to draw.

These old cranes are DogPatch landmarks-within the two months I drew them you can see graffiti artists have scaled them and changed the decor.

Nearby is a pleasant water-side pub called The Ramp, its garden a perfect spot for lunch outside while drawing the boats . . . 

This old house seemed to be dipping its toe in the water while the lurching little boat was escaping the freezing Bay waters!

Onto the Mission District . . .

The defunct movie theatres along Mission are great subjects to draw

The back alleys of the Mission offer interesting scenes of crazy wiring, graffiti covered walls, textures and hanging shoe displays.

There are a couple of bar/cafes in the Mission where you can sit outside and draw the locals in safety. A friendly rastafarian shared some tasty cookies he had baked that morning and curiously my sketches came out in Technicolour!

See Stef's sketches on his blog Stef's Sketches!

Crookie's Missionary Position

The Big Island

This years' Hawaiian trip was to Hawaiʻi, The Big Island.  The island has very contrasting regions-rainforest, dry lava beds, active volcano craters!  The two biggest towns, Kona and Hilo, are populated by magnificent ancient banyan trees-which are all related apparently.

This giant banyan hangs over the north end of the beach at Kona on the west coast.

Of course huge hotels still dominate the shoreline.  The tourists stand out in their floral shirts.

We stayed further up the coast in Puako where the secluded beaches allow sea turtles to nest and interesting driftwood and tsunami debris form natural sculpture.

 Sea turtles are really tough to draw but endlessly fascinating-every evening I'd go down to the shore-line to sketch them resting after struggling to come ashore and drag themselves up the beach.

Flocks of wild turkeys ranged around the neighborhood. This guy was chasing them off the immaculate lawn of his beach front property one morning!

This beach house was in the shade of these twisted, sea-bleached trees and palms. Doesn't that hammock look inviting?

Aloha!