Sing 2, a rich experience for three former ESMA alumni

THE RETURN OF BUSTER AND HIS TROUPE OF ANIMALS

We had to wait almost 5 years to see the Buster Moon troupe, still composed of monkeys, pigs, koalas and porcupines, on stage and on the big screen.

Clearly, Sing 2 is the continuation of the adventures of Buster and his troupe of singing animals. The pitch: Buster dreams of playing in a prestigious venue. He tries to convince a retired rock star, the lion Clay Calloway, to get back on stage and join them…

“Despite the circumstances, in the first film there were a hundred animals for the final concert, in the second, there are 10,000”, declared the English writer and director Garth Jennings, who has overcome the difficulties caused by the health crisis.

Thibault Stoyanov, Simon Puculek and Anthony Martinet, three former ESMA students, all graduates of the CG Animation & FX Master Degree, took part in this large-scale, long-term adventure.

THIBAULT STOYANOV: “SERVING A PROJECT BIGGER THAN OURSELVES

After graduating from ESMA in 2010, Thibault Stoyanov held important multipurpose positions in the design of the new saga. “Officially, I was a character rigging supervisor (making character rigs by working upstream on the needs for layout, anim and rendering). These needs are then transferred to the graphic designers who apply them to the characters. The idea is to keep a homogeneity on all the characters of the production. I also had a management role with a team of 5-6 people. Unofficially, I was also a bit in charge of the character workflow. In fact, the rig is a big funnel, various departments give us a lot of data (hair, cfx, surfacing, modeling). Overall, we make sure that everything works. We have an eye on everything that comes in.

It was a real challenge for Thibault, “It was my first supervision, so there was pressure but also enthusiasm. It was very motivating! It’s a lot of work. It was my first time managing a team. The pressure to deliver quality had to be there. The challenge was to anticipate the problems with the characters and certain costumes. Throughout the production, you gain confidence! It’s easier to get a message across. You can see the evolution of your team. There is a training aspect which is very interesting. It’s cool. I was lucky enough to choose my team. I told them: “I can go to war with you”. I could trust them. If there was a rush, I could count on them. We were at the service of a project bigger than ourselves. Everyone gave it their all. You can see it when you watch the film.

The former ESMA student had not yet tried his hand at Tous en Scène. “Sing 1, I was a graphic designer. Some of the characters from the first show can be found in the second. We stayed in the same vein as in 1.

And to take up some particular technical challenges! “For example, we collaborated with two fashion designers from Los Angeles who work for fashion shows with top models. Except that our film is a lot of dancing, we had to adapt a costume made for someone who only walks to a totally virtual 3D character who is potentially going to do a triple jump. It’s a real work of adaptation. The result is there.

SIMON PUCULEK: “IT’S GREAT TO SEE THE PROJECT COMPLETED

Having graduated from ESMA in 2016, Simon Puculek is a regular at Illumation Mac Guff. “Since the end of 2016, I’ve been with the company. It was my second production, it allowed me to do more developed things. I was Thibault’s graphic designer on this production. As a graphic designer, I apply what I’m told to do and then from time to time, I propose things. As a graphic designer, you also get work from other departments. We are often asked to do tasks other than rig.

Simon particularly enjoyed working on Sing 2, as well as his collaboration with Thibault Stoyanov. “It is one of the most accomplished scripts. There is a tragic side to it that I really liked. It seemed to me the right choice to continue by choosing this production, it spoke to me. I wasn’t disappointed, especially as I hadn’t worked on the first one. What was interesting was to have the characters from the first one back, it’s interesting to see how the approaches have evolved. It’s nice. Until then, Thibault had never been my supervisor and I was happy because he let me do things that I hadn’t done before, take certain risks on issues.

What I like is imagining how such and such a character will deform, it’s a challenge! I liked working on a cartoonish side with these animals. The rigour is to push the deformation as far as possible, and to see that it works.

I’ve had a good time during these two years. I like my job. I’ve had two years of having a good laugh while doing the job. The team was just right. Fun and serious when we had to be. We didn’t give up. Everyone was there to do the job. For me, it was a real pleasure. It was cool.

Like his college, Simon had to face some technical challenges. “We had to customise the scripts, display elements and cheat a bit. We’re happy when it works. I didn’t have too many problems except for the time constraint which is omnipresent. Sometimes we have to explain why we take longer.

Beyond the intense, creative and extremely professional work, and the constraints due to the pandemic, Thibault Stoyanov and Simon Puculek also experienced some good moments and anachronistic situations in the context. “For example, the English director regaled us with Zoom DJ sets on his balcony in the morning. Once he found himself in the rain with his umbrella! He also does lithography and for the end of the year celebrations he made a greeting card and a numbered collector’s poster for each person who participated in the production.

ANTHONY MARTINET: “I SAY TO MYSELF: I HOPE THAT EXPECTATIONS WILL BE FULLY MET”.

Anthony Martinet, also an ESMA alumnus (Class of 2016) worked on Sing 2 after starting at Illumination Mac Guff on the production of the film The Grinch. “At the time of the creation of Tous en Scène 1, I was still at ESMA,” he explains. “At the time, I didn’t really realise the hype surrounding Tous en Scène. The big star productions were ‘Despicable Me’. But personally Sing 1 was my favourite Illumination film. So I was extremely happy to work on the sequel!

He adds: “Sing 2, I was a character rigger as a simple graphic designer (no lead, no sup, I mean). My main tasks consisted in setting up the rig of the tertiary characters and some secondary characters. In secondary tasks of script and debug. Sing 2 being my second production at illum (sic) and having acquired the basics to work properly, I was able to touch a secondary character at the beginning of the production: the expectations are more advanced than on tertiaries (who usually stay in the background and are used to give life to the setting and the background) and the designs/challenge in general more interesting. This was a character I had with me the entire length of the production because he had a LOT of costumes. The costumes are different “clothes” on a single body, kind of like a variation. There were a lot of questions surrounding this character both in terms of script and technically in terms of rig, so it was a lot of work and a lot of updates, but very instructive and interesting to do. When this second part came out, I realised that the Sing fan base was quite substantial. When I see the result of the film, I say to myself and I hope that the expectations will be entirely fulfilled!”

Like his fellow students Thibault Stoyanov and Simon Puculek, Anthony Martinet had to deal with the demands of the job in terms of time. “We sometimes had to deal with big rush periods where deadlines were short and expectations were high but I wanted to prove myself! Most productions have similar periods, but I felt it more on this one.” Furthermore, he particularly liked the working methodology.

“What I appreciated the most was the discovery of the story and its evolution because we had access to a video of the film constantly updated with the latest validated plans (story board, layout, anim, rendering, etc.). At the beginning, we have the whole film in storyboard which gives in the end a magnificent cartoon to watch, because the drawings are particularly beautiful. As 3D progresses, the drawings are replaced by their most accomplished version. So we have a melting pot of renderings and evolutions that make this video come alive almost day by day. I think it’s really great that anyone who works in the company can have access to the results of everyone’s work.

With one constant, “it was always in a good atmosphere because the rig team is at the top and very supportive when it comes to problems. That’s one of the coolest things about working at Mac Guff. Everyone helps each other and the atmosphere is warm, while remaining professional to make things evolve technically. For relaxation, every year (before the covid…) Illum organises a HUGE party at Christmas where they invite the whole company and their companions to a big place that changes every year where everything is available. It’s usually a memorable time! The EC also organises regular events such as the game night where people get together to play once a week.

All in all, it was a very enriching experience for Anthony Martinet who, throughout the production, felt an ambivalent feeling of “frustration and privilege” inherent in the mystery of producing a highly anticipated animated feature film. “Frustration because we want to react to what people are saying on the net, or to show our work to our relatives, but we can’t. Privilege because we have information about the project and we can’t. Privilege because we have information and files that many people would like to have.