Julien Gauthier

A look back at your years at ESMA

WHAT WAS YOUR CURRICULUM BEFORE JOINING ESMA? AND YOUR COURSE AT ESMA?

I took a scientific baccalaureate with a major in mechanics and electricity. I applied too late to enter ESMA directly. They suggested I do a year of MANAA at IPESAA. I don’t regret it! It was an opportunity to learn a bit about different fields such as architecture or graphic design. I then entered the first year of CG animation at ESMA Montpellier.

HOW DID YOU FEEL DURING YOUR CG STUDIES?

The studies were exciting! I really enjoyed learning about a lot of different areas of CG. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I was most interested in. I think it’s always good to have a sense of what’s going on in other departments. Other schools offer shorter, more specialized courses that don’t necessarily offer the vision that students have when they leave. When creating the graduation film, the groups are formed in such a way that our skills are used to the fullest.

The teachers were overall very good at what they do. It was a pleasure to learn from them. There are things that come back to me from time to time, especially in drawing, that take on a whole new meaning now that I have a little more experience.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO INTEGRATE A CG ANIMATION CINEMA TRAINING?

I went through a phase where I wanted to do robotics. But I had the pleasure of drawing, the pleasure of computers, the pleasure of cinema. CG allowed me to combine all that and to be able to put into images what I had in mind and to see them come to life.

HOW DID YOUR PROFESSIONAL IMMERSION GO AFTER GRADUATING FROM ESMA? AND WHAT WERE YOU HOPING FOR AFTER GRADUATION?

My first interview at MPC was a disaster! Too much stress combined with having to speak English made me nervous. I did two months in a small company before they called me back (MPC) because a friend had already been hired by them and had reminded them of my existence.

During the Annecy festival the year before, while studying, I had left my student demo at Illumination Mac Guff. Two years later, I received an e-mail saying that they were interested in hiring me. Later, they told me that my profile stood out because I was not only doing CG but also painting. I show an interest in art more than others, apparently.

Your professional career

CAN YOU PRESENT US YOUR PASSAGES IN THE DIFFERENT STUDIOS WHERE YOU HAVE WORKED ? WHAT DID IT BRING YOU ?

So, I spent six or seven months at MPC London before going to Paris to work on the movie The Minions at Illumination Mac Guff. It lasted a little over a year. After my time at these two companies, my interest in concept art was growing. I saw what the art department was doing, whether it was VFX at MPC or cartooning at Illumination. As my interest in the craft grew, I took advantage of my work in lighting TD to develop my drawing and painting skills in my spare time. I went back to MPC but this time to Vancouver for a few months and finally to Singapore. From that moment on, I thought I could take the risk of going back to France, without a job, just to focus on improving myself and looking for a job in concept art. In the end, it only took a month, I was offered a job as a Junior Concept Artist at ILM London. It was mainly because I was working at the company just before. I had sent my current work to one of the art directors (Yannick Dusseault) and he passed it on to the managers. I owe everything to him!

TELL US ABOUT THE DIFFERENT PROJECTS YOU HAVE WORKED ON IN THE DIFFERENT STUDIOS WHERE YOU HAVE WORKED?

As a lighting TD, I was able to work on Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman v Superman, The Great Wall and The Minions. I really enjoyed working on the latter. The team was great and animated films give you the feeling of having a little more artistic freedom.

In concept art, my first job was the realization of a childhood dream, Jurassic World. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to draw dinosaurs. The feeling continued when I was assigned work on Star Wars Rogue One and The Last Jedi. My career continued at ILM’s Vancouver studio where I worked on Aquaman, Aladdin, Space Jam 2 and Jungle Cruise as an art director. My last big project before leaving ILM was the Lord of the Rings series. I spent a little over two years on that. It was the project I was most involved with and proud of.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOUR JOB? WHAT DOES IT CONSIST OF AND WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT IT?

The job of a concept artist allows you to intervene at several stages of a production. That’s what I like the most! It’s versatile (sic). We can be at the very beginning of a project, when the film is just an idea and the director wants to put images on it and present it to production companies. We help with the visual development at the beginning, to inspire and get an idea of what the final result will be. We make drawings and paintings to define the designs, which are then given to the technicians who draw the sets to be built. We take care of the scenery, such as characters, creatures or vehicles. It can be simple sketches that give the big ideas or entire illustrations.

At ILM, we were involved in the pre-production stages (e.g. deciding on the creature designs in Fantastic Beasts) but also in the post-production stage. That is, everything that is special effects, which is done after the scenes are shot. We help the CG teams to go faster by providing visuals and indications of what they should do. We can paint directly on their renderings to suggest alternatives and improvements. The advantage is that we work faster which allows more iterations. We are outside the constraints of the pipeline, which allows us to be more creative. The question of how to do it usually comes up later, but we always try to be reasonable in what we propose.

As an art director, you become the point of reference for all questions of design and image. How to improve such or such scene when the artists block? We draw a lot on the renders to propose solutions. We are also in charge of a team of concept artists to whom we assign tasks, which we direct and help to develop. For the Lord of the Rings series, I wrote a whole artistic bible on what to do and what not to do to keep the elements of a city consistent. Providing drawings and reference photos.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW?

After being at ILM for six years, I decided to go freelance which will allow me to work from any location and for any client (who wants me, haha). I like to have the choice in the tasks and I would like to try to do concept art or art direction for video games for example. Or work on more personal projects.

WAS IT A CHOICE TO GO TO SEVERAL COUNTRIES OR DID YOU RESPOND TO OPPORTUNITIES?

Yes, it was a choice! I wanted to take advantage of still being young and a little more free in terms of family to have multiple experiences and enrich my imagination. Now I speak much better English than I did at my first job interview.

HOW HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED THE EVOLUTION OF CG / FX SINCE YOUR GRADUATION ? AND HOW DO YOU SEE IT EVOLVING IN THE YEARS TO COME ?

The tools are more and more powerful and easy to use to get decent results. I think it’s great! It will help designers. For big companies, I think it’s a problem because more and more people have access to techniques and small companies are less limited by their number of employees. The big companies are slow to integrate the techniques that appear. There are a lot of employees, everyone has an opinion, there are veterans who are too proud, it’s hard to change.

To conclude

IN YOUR VARIOUS JOBS, HAVE YOU WORKED WITH ESMA ALUMNI?

In my job, I have not directly worked with alumni of the school. However, I often come across them, they are everywhere! I’m glad I went to ESMA. Not all students have the opportunity to make a short film during their studies.

AND IN 5 YEARS, WHERE WILL YOU BE? IS THIS YOUR ULTIMATE AMBITION IN THE MEDIUM OR LONG TERM?

My fiancée is Japanese, so we’ll probably move there to work remotely some day. But I would love to direct my own film or just be a production designer.

Image credit: Julien Gauthier.

Visit his ArtStation.