New Directors Dive Into Marine-Machine Short

Hybrids, a 3D animated short which highlights the potentially devastating effects of marine pollution, has been making serious waves on the film festival circuit. 

Co-directed by five students at French animation college MoPA, the documentary-style film explores a dystopian underwater world where sea creatures have fused with rubbish, producing monstrous flesh-and-metal hybrids. 

After triumphing at film festivals around the world, the short got its online premiere last week, so shots took the plunge with co-directors Florian Brauch, Matthieu Pujol, Kim Tailhades, Yohan Thireau and Romain Thirion to find out what a shark has in common with a Ford Mustang, the comic potential of crabs, and why we need to wake up to the environmental impact of our everyday lives. 

Clockwise from left: co-directors Yohan Thireau; Kim Tailhades; Matthieu Pujol; Florian Brauch; and Romain Thirion

When did you first come up with the idea/inspiration for the film?

The idea came from Romain, who’s from Cannes in the south of France. He used to dive to gaze at the underwater animals. As time went by, though, he noticed that there were less and less fish and more and more trash. Once, he spotted something shiny buried in the sand and thought it was some interesting form of life, but it turned out to be a bottle cap instead, igniting the first spark which inspired the film. He shared this experience with the rest of the team and it drove us to create a short film to denounce this change.

Hybrids was your graduate film; what sort of budget and time frame were you working to?

We had nine months to do it all, from pre-production to the final version. Due to the fact it was done at school, we were freed from the constraints of budgets, however we had to deliver the film 12 months later.

Five of you co-directed the film; how did that work in practice?

It might seem strange to have five co-directors on one short, but actually, it was very enriching, we each had our own specialities in 3D and it was very easy to divide the tasks between the five of us. As for the script and the direction, we often were on the same page but if we ever disagreed we always resolved it through debates and exchanging our ideas. It was incredibly beneficial to bounce our ideas off the other four, and a lot of new ideas came out of those debates. If it had just been one of us, the film would not have been as impactful.

 "It was very important that the hybridisation of the creature matched its personality. The shark had to be very aggressive, which is why we chose the front of a Ford Mustang."

The film is part drama, part nature documentary - to what extent were you inspired by docs like David Attenborough's Blue Planet? Any other inspirations?

We used a lot of references at the beginning to create a whole animal and plant ecosystem, we were inspired by documentaries like Yann Arthus Bertrand and Michael Pitiot's Planet Ocean, but also some National Geographic documentaries, which helped us to understand the underwater world, how you have to For the more dramatic parts, we also learned about the making of Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings-type of movies, to discover effects and camera movements that would make the action more cinematic. We wanted to send the message to a large audience, so we were looking at blockbusters.

The design of the hybrid sea-creatures is incredibly imaginative and detailed, from the bottle-cap crabs to the oil-can fish to the half ship, half whale. How did you approach design and which was the most complicated 'character' to bring to life?

The main challenge was to create a whole ecosystem, with marine animals of all sizes. Right from the beginning we wanted to play with the shapes and the scale of the animals. It was also very important that the hybridisation of the creature matched its personality. The shark had to be very aggressive, which is why we chose the front of a Ford Mustang. The crabs had to have a more comical side, the grouper had to appear more clumsy and the squid had to have the capacity to hide itself, hence a plane wreck. It was also important for the viewer to be able to identify everyday objects, things we use in daily life, in each element of pollution. 

"Watching the live footage references, we discovered the crabs had huge comical potential, so we tried to incorporate that into the characters."

Some characters were more complicated than others to set up, for different reasons. The crabs took a lot of time, because we had to create a lot of variations, no two crabs could be the same. The squid was also a real challenge, it was the biggest character of the film, and we had to be able to see it up close as well as far away.

The level of craft in the animation is impressive. Tell us a bit about the process and what the most challenging aspects were?

Because of the nature of our animals, the metallic parts can't really bend, otherwise you will not believe that the car [attached to the shark] is a car. We wanted something quite realistic, so we had to cheat sometimes so you don’t see those rigid parts moving too much.

"Even if we're not yet diving with shark-cars, we have to keep in mind that we are the last generation to be able to initiate a change before it’s too late."

For the references, we were lucky, we found a lot of documentaries or videos online, about the different animals, so we were able to analyse how each one moved. For example, if you look really carefully at the crabs, you can see in the background that a lot of them are doing some secondary action (falling when they climb on the grouper or fighting for a piece of meat). Watching the live footage references, we discovered the crabs had huge comical potential, so we tried to incorporate that into the characters.

What message do you hope people will take away from the film?

People need to think carefully about their everyday environmental impact. A lot of countries just throw all their trash into the sea, consumption of goods is higher than ever and the changes are clearly visible today. We initially thought we were talking about some future event, however the dramatic scenario is already playing out now. Even if we're not yet diving with shark-cars, we have to keep in mind that we are the last generation to be able to initiate a change before it’s too late.