As in real life, many of the kids featured in director Loïc Espuche’s Oscar-shortlisted and Annie-nominated short Yuck! (Beurk!) believe that a kiss between grown-ups is a stomach-churning scene to witness. The talented French director, who was a storyboard artist on The Ollie & Moon Show and supervising animator on the 2017 feature Marona’s Fantastic Tale, was kind enough to answer a few of our burning questions about his César Award-nominated short and his own childhood experiences:
Aniamg: Can you tell us a it about the inspiration behind your short?
Loïc Espuche: I had the idea of making this film during a screening of my previous short film in a cinema full of children! At the start of the film, the main character was saying goodbye to his fiancée with a little kiss… At that moment, all the kids in the room started screaming: “Yuck! that’s so disgusting! they’re kissing!”
Their reaction both made me die laughing and took me back to my own childhood, when I too screamed in disgust at every kiss, while dying to kiss Sophie (my girlfriend at the time)… And I said to myself “Wow I absolutely have to make a film about kissing and all the reactions it can provoke for children”. That’s when the idea of the pink mouth came in, to symbolize the desire to give a kiss. This concept allowed me to tackle with humor themes like the beginning of feelings, the fear of other people’s gaze and also about the notion of your own “secret garden.”
What about your own summer camp experiences?
Espuche: Yes and no! To make this film I went back to my memories of camping during summer vacations, with a bunch of friends made on the spot. On one hand, the story never happened to me: I was really too shy to dare declare my love in just a week’s vacation, so I never had a summer romance. On the other hand, I was really inspired by the shy child I was and the fear of other people’s gaze.
Can you talk about your visual influences?
Espuche: I haven’t really tried to get close to any particular reference, but I’ve been told a lot that the characters look like the ones in Akira Toryama’s Dragon Ball. And I think people are right! When I was a kid, it was my favorite cartoon, and I spent hours and hours drawing San Goku, I think this subconsciously influenced my drawing, and that when it came to drawing the characters as a child and trying to make them expressive and accessible to all, my past as a Dragon Ball Z fan must have resurfaced!
More generally, I love Pixar and Ghibli animated films. Graphically, they’ve got personality, yet the drawing really serves the story, doesn’t try to steal the show and allows an extremely wide range of emotions to be expressed. The character’s design is not quite naturalistic, yet we believe they really exist. When I watch these films, I forget about the technique and get caught up in the universe. I think that graphically I’m trying to move towards this approach.
For Yuck!, some graphic choices have been made to specifically serve the story; the characters have no outlines to let the colors come alive. Moreover, all the designs are in solid colors to contrast the pink lips, which have a glitter texture to make them fascinating.
How long did it take to make this short and which animation tools were used to create it?
Espuche: I spent five and a half years on this project, from the first idea to the final mix — about three and half years writing and funding it, then two years making it. The animation took eight months. We worked with TVPaint software. I wanted the film to be hand-drawn because I find that drawing helps to summarize information, to remove anything that isn’t useful, so that we can focus on the essential.
It was very important to me that the characters’ actings were precise, fitting perfectly with the voices we recorded. That’s why working on computer was a real time-saver. Nevertheless, I’m very attached to hand-drawing, which allows the animators to deform the character in a very organic way. It also enables the audience to forget a little about the technique and immerse themselves in the story.
How big was your team?
Espuche: Around 60 people worked on the film, some coming in for just a few hours to record the adult voices for example. The animators all spent several months on the film. We were in residence at Ciclic animation (a truly unique institution) for the making of the film, and lived in a shared flat during the whole time. It was a magical time of life!
Looing back, what would you say were your toughest challenges?
Espuche: I think every step of the way has been a challenge! Even if the film looks very simple and uncluttered today, this result was the fruit of several years of hard work to put every element in the right place and keep only the essentials. Less is more!
The casting and the voices recording were also a crucial step for this film. Fortunately the children were extraordinary, which makes the voices recordings an incredible memory.
Finally, the biggest challenge was perhaps the layout stage: On my previous short films, I animated almost on my own, with only one animator to back me up for a week, so I never really had to do a layout. For Yuck!, I did not animate at all so we had to do a very precise layout stage. I did it together with Léo Schweitzer, one of the team’s animators. He’d never done a layout before either, so we had to learn by doing. We discovered a book on Studio Ghibli layouts and took inspiration from it, even though we’re a long way from their level! I think that on a future film, I’ll spend a lot more time on this stage, which is really essential!
What do you love most about the finished product?
Espuche: The audience’s reaction in the cinema is truly the best reward of all! What’s great is that the film really gets people of all ages, young and old, reacting. During school screenings, children react at the same time as the characters, shouting “Yuck!” Sometimes you can’t even hear the dialogue anymore! Adult viewers often laugh, not only at the film itself, but also at the reactions of the children in the room! What I find great about all these audience reactions is that they’re sharing the moment together. Seeing it in a cinema really adds value to the film.
During a Q&A with a school class following a screening, the moderator asked the children their opinion on the film. A kid raised his hand and finally when he had the microphone, he said, “No, I prefer not to say it actually!” At the end of the session, the teacher told me that just after the film, this boy had come to tell her that he loved it because during the whole screening, he’d been thinking of one his classmates with whom he was in love! There are a lot of reactions to the movie, but I think that one was the cutest.
What are you working on next?
Espuche: After Yuck! I developed a children’s series with Felicity Carpenter adapted from a book by Jean Gourounas (What’s Up Eesha?) for TeamTO and France Télévision. I have other ideas, but as you know, animation takes a long time, and I need to make sure they’re good ideas that I like enough to be ready to devote several years to them. I think I’d also like to work for other directors, because I think you learn a lot by working for others!
What was the biggest lesson you learned from the making of the short?
Espuche: It’s something I already knew, but after finishing the film, I really value the importance of the team! As we all know, making an animated film takes a long time! And in my case, the five and a half years I spent working on the film were filled with so many wonderful encounters and incredible experiences! I’m obviously thinking of my two producers, Juliette and Manon, who supported me from the start. Without them the project would never have seen the light of day! Then, there’s the animation team, with whom we shared a flat and with whom we forged incredible bonds! But they weren’t the only ones: the actors, the sound engineers, Héloïse, the editor, Aliénor, the composer….They all took the film to a new artistic level…I was really lucky to have such a fantastic team, both for the artistic contribution they all made to the film, and the human dimension they brought to it.
Watch an interview with the director at Annecy below:
Watch the trailer for the charming short below:
Find out more about the artist here:
