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Slimtime
Slimtime, a short animated film released in 2010. It is produced by Supinfocom Arles, which is a well-known computer graphics (CG) animation school located in France. Students who study in Supinfacom will be offered four years professional training in the area of computer graphics. “Areas such as font design, composition, textures, clay sculpting, and more are the basic utilities for 3D modelling and animation program.” The theme of Slimtime revolves around thinness and in a tone of homour and offbeat.

Slimtime is an eight-minute animation directed by Bertrand Avril, Daivd Dangin, Pierre Chomarat, and Thea Matland, four students who graduated from Supinfocom Arles. They are the screenwriters as well. Other departments such as music is mainly produced by Julien Deparis; Etienne Curchod is responsible for running the sound (mix sound, recording sound, etc.). Slimtime is a graduation animation by Bertrand Avril, Pierre Chomarat, Daivd Dangin and Thea Matland from Supinfocom Arles. The students show their animation projects at the annual SIGGRAPH Animation Festival and other theatres, for instance, the Electronic Theatre and the Animation Theatre.

The idea of creating Slimtime by Bertrand Avril, Pierre Chomarat, Daivd Dangin and Thea Matland is enlightened by two films and one famous designer. The first one is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a scientific film based on a novel. Secondly, a comedy film produced in 1967 by Jacques Tati, it is a French-Italian film called Playtime. Andre Courreges, a french fashion designer, influences Bertrand Avril, Pierre Chomarat, Daivd Dangin and Thea Matland a lot while making the animation.

Plot
Plot refers as the line drawn audience into the story, it is usually demonstrated as a series of events. A well-prepared story will attract audience from the opening shot, middle to the end. The theme of Slimtime is to reveal the true meaning of love, which is no matter to a personal's appearance.

One day, Andre and his wife are waiting outside for a slim treatment. Andre’s wife is an obese woman and she wants to be slim by receiving some therapies. The story happens after Andre’s wife goes into the clinic. Andre feels boring while waiting for his wife, he is also curious about the unusual treatment, therefore, he walks around and undergoes a specific journey.

When he enters into the therapy centre, a brand-new word is showing in front of him. The inside of the clinic is running systematically and well-regulated. He looks around and finds all the women looks the same after treatment. Several obese women are waiting for the therapy includes his wife. They are talking to each other and looking forward to being beautiful and slim. When Andre takes the elevator down into the lobby, women are surprised about him because there is no male inside. Andre finds the women walk in an elegant way but behave exactly the same.

Andre observe through a window and he finds that there is a slim beauty standing in front of a group of obese women and telling them the instructions to follow. The women look excited about the treatment. They are going to experience a series of treatment in the following process. During this time, there is a woman cannot control herself and she eat a cake secretly. Finally, all the women are getting prettier and slimmer except Andre’s wife. However, Andre and his wife are not upset about this accidental result. They leave the beauty salon happily.

Slimtime Animation

 * Andre (primary character):

The husband who accompanies his wife to accept the slim treatment


 * Andre’s wife (primary character):

An obese woman who wants to be slimmer so that she wants to accept some treatments in a beauty salon.

Slimtime Team

 * Bertrand Avril:

The director of Slimtime. Bertrand takes part in the rigging and light-board section when they make the animation. Besides, he works on the textures and compositions of Slimtime with Pierre.


 * Pierre Chomara

The director of Slimtime. Pierre participates in the creation of comic scenes and sets. He is inspired by Jacques Tati. Pierre also focuses on the modelling the sets and the textures, the lighting and the compositing.


 * David Dangin

The director of Slimtime. Besides, David is responsible for the original concept and the aesthetic/colour codes of Slimtime. Mainly he works on designing the character and co-work with Pierre and the team on the design of the sets, especially focus on the storyboard and the layout in Slimtime.


 * Thea Matland

The director of Slimtime. Thea is responsible for the realization in the animation, especially the sound-design, 3D animation and the layout. She attends the model of characters in a visual world.

Short animation
A letter was written from John Tarnoff to the animated short film directors indicated that short films are the same as feature films, but more than films, which means short films have to concentrate the essence into a shorter time period when the storyteller structures the story. Filmmakers choose different concepts of technologies to express their idea in their animation, in order to take concerted action with the central inspiration. It is essential for a producer to engage into an animation. They need to find the advantages and the weakness of their project. Screenwriter Karl Iglesias suggests that three key elements construct a well-formed animation: characters, goals, and conflicts. Main characters are Andre and his wife in which they are also identified as primary actors. Incidental actors, the same as secondary characters are the rest of the beauties in the animated short. Slimtime illustrates the meaning of life lessons in which that true love is no matter with any appearance. People who loves you will continue love you even if you are fat or not.

Pre-production and production
It is a surface level of creating an animation. Building a bridge between the project and groups like lighting, texturing, sound design, ideas, scripts, etc. should be prepared well before filming and recording. Bertrand was responsible for rigging, texturing, lighting, compositing and designing sound. Pierre’s job was to construct the environment, texture, light, and design sound. David is responsible for the concept and character design, the character modelling, animation and the sound designing. Thea’s work is to model the characters, plan the animation, and design sound.


 * Brief development

The details of an animation are needed to be set in the progress. For example, the directors design how to make Andre take the elevator and shift down to the lobby, how Andre and his wife interact with each other. Besides, the directors should have a broad overview about the outline of their project. They can decide the nature of an animation, the budget, or the way of filming it. Herein, Slimtime is a non-commercial animated short, it is used for graduating exhibition. Students work as a group to fulfil this project.


 * Background

The background environment refers as the places or sets of the story taken place. For instance, Slimtime happens in a beauty salon, therefore, there are many slim beauties and machines in the broad background. Key frames such as characters’ motions should be created at the first time, for example, Andre and his wife's walking poses. Slimtime was not designed as a weight lose center at first, it is a trip to the factory controlled by the hostesses of slimming. The women in Slimtime (both the wife and the hostesses) are in orange, in order to fit the development of the scenario, the graphics such as orange fruits, scooters and towers are all designed in orange. The problem at the beginning of the animation is the way of travelling of the center, which means, the directors are confused about how to show the center to the audience. Then they use the glance of Andre to show around the center.


 * Research

Before making the animation, the directors need to collect more information than they have already known. In order to present a better effect, they have to transfer their research into own expressions.


 * Script and Storyboard

The use of script is to express what is the original interpretation of an animation. It will be written over and over until all they agree it. It is similar to a written statement but in the form of images. It can help directors to set the sequence before filming. The students can be beneficial from the well-regulated template.


 * Design and direction

Visual style is the main part herein, including the colour of a scene, the style of a word… the nature of a project should match its visual style. The lightboard design herein is so important that the directors make lots of efforts in the direction of light of the graphic effect in pre-production. The impressive perspectives and the main lines of the decoration are decided by the purity of the centre and the texture of the architecture. The lightboard plays an essential role during the analyzation of the phase of textures, lighting and composition.

Post-production
Post-production can be determined as the well-prepared animation in which that the animated short is ready to present. However, post-production animation is not the final project which can be expressed to the audience. It lacks some details such as special effects, colour correction, titles and etc. The directors finally use numerous ways such as facebook page, Twitter to promote Slimtime, while it is different from the normal promotion. They want to attract a wider audience than the animation enthusiasts only. The target market of Slimtime is the cinema media. The directors want to use the social media to interact with the people who have seen Slimtime directly.

Music
Sound design includes a lot, such as music, special effects and etc. they are used to make the animation vivid and fascinating. Sound can be collected from the special material or created. Music in Slimtime are mainly created by Julien Deparis and sound department is Etienne Curchod. Jacques Tati has influenced the directors a lot about making Slimtime. The directors start to design the sound in turn. They show the actions and moods of Slimtime by using the sound of a movie, which is known as Playtime. They are going to create a crowd atmosphere sound by mixing the dialogues based on places and actions. To illustrate different characteristics of each place, the directors recreate the music to make it sound as the real elements happen in the real place.

Critical Responses
Animation can deliver everyday life to audience and communicate with the audience in a future way to understand the shape of our life. “We live in story all of the time. We all have stories to tell every day.” said by John Tarnoff. Obesity is a widespread phenomenon in the contemporary society. Kelly insists in a recent research that 95 percent of obese people are willing to attend medical programs to lose weight, such as using drugs, diet, behavioural modification, which is actually harmful to their bodies. As shown in the Slimtime, the emotions and the message carried by the film are inspired. The change of Andre’s wife in psychology is difficult to express to the audience. The wife focused only on the slim body, which specifically is her appearance, however, she accepted herself in the end. Fortunately, people who loves her before still love her in the end.

Festivals
* All the festivals' information come from the official website of Slimtime. See external link below.