Fairly new subscriber here & I enjoy the animation centric articles on my email inbox. It's more "quiet" there, it's a nice break from the social media platforms of delivery. Thank for doing what you do :)
Thanks very much -- we definitely hope to offer an alternative to the noise of social media, something a bit more human. Glad you're enjoying the newsletter!
By the way, if you folks have a few mins, do check out this indie animated comedy feature film we are making about a man who swallows a giant rock that turns him into a female superhero :) https://youtu.be/l68AG2etpEs?si=DN3B9Uj5vOrTDBNf
Haha, understandable! And with so many of these students ending up in the 2D European animation industry, that wish may be getting closer to reality every day. You can see quite a bit of Gobelins DNA in French animated features from recent years.
Great piece. I thoroughly enjoyed your piece on Gobelins and its impact on animation. Your analysis of standout films like When I Replaced Camille and Best Friend was insightful, and I appreciated your discussion on the influence of Satoshi Kon. I
I'm from a rival school (The Animation Workshop), and the animation jam we had with them was a delight^^ One of our team members had a bad cold, and still managed to compose all of our shots in less than an hour!!
Happy you picked Contretemps and Coffin, two of my favourite Gobelin projects! Along with Sundown and La Quête de l'Humain.
This is awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing this story. And absolutely, there's so much to see from there (La Quête de l'Humain was actually in the running for our list, too). Hope you enjoy going through the films!
Sep 14·edited Sep 14Liked by Animation Obsessive Staff
The thing that is wildest to me about Gobelins is how *consistent* they are. New students come through every year, and yet there remains what feels like a common ethos to all their films - and the inventiveness and polish bar they maintain is just unbelievably high. I'm not sure what magic their instructors are pulling, or if it's just the incredibly selective admissions, but their formula works! I can think of very few misses (honestly Best Friend here feels a bit trite for Gobelins - when they do so well at moody and ambiguous), and even then, the technical level is still there.
By comparison, watching other graduation films, even from prestigious animation schools like CalArts, you tend to feel you're seeing something much more unformed, often rougher around the edges, with only a few standouts reaching the technical level of Gobelins. Though, equally, those films often feel more personal to each student - whereas Gobelins films often do feel like the work of one very exceptional studio with a recognisably consistent ethos.
I'd love to read a detailed history of Gobelins one day, like, I'm so curious about how they got to be this unique way.
It's a mystery to us, too. We've heard that Gobelins can be a very challenging place -- some students have definitely been unhappy with it -- but the technical standards are really, really high. Only in China and Japan (namely, Geidai) do you consistently see such ambitious student work, and the stuff from Gobelins is more consistently ambitious than the graduation films of any single school we can think of in those countries.
We can only guess that the school has a competitive spirit, maybe even a kind of student arms race, to get results like these. But it's tough to say. We'll keep an eye out for more information!
Fairly new subscriber here & I enjoy the animation centric articles on my email inbox. It's more "quiet" there, it's a nice break from the social media platforms of delivery. Thank for doing what you do :)
Thanks very much -- we definitely hope to offer an alternative to the noise of social media, something a bit more human. Glad you're enjoying the newsletter!
By the way, if you folks have a few mins, do check out this indie animated comedy feature film we are making about a man who swallows a giant rock that turns him into a female superhero :) https://youtu.be/l68AG2etpEs?si=DN3B9Uj5vOrTDBNf
Thanks for the tip! Best of luck with your campaign.
Wish if goblins is a studio, just imagine what kind of feature movies they can make, and all of that in 2D!!! Feel so happy just thinking of it🌻
Wish someday that will happen…
Haha, understandable! And with so many of these students ending up in the 2D European animation industry, that wish may be getting closer to reality every day. You can see quite a bit of Gobelins DNA in French animated features from recent years.
Excellent choices! I like the moodier psychological shorts myself, so any readers who like "Camille" do check out "La Neige Incertaine"
Thank you! And for sure, they can be great -- we also found Hors Saison pretty enjoyable, along those same lines.
Great piece. I thoroughly enjoyed your piece on Gobelins and its impact on animation. Your analysis of standout films like When I Replaced Camille and Best Friend was insightful, and I appreciated your discussion on the influence of Satoshi Kon. I
Thanks as always, Jon! Glad you liked it and hope you enjoy the films.
I'm from a rival school (The Animation Workshop), and the animation jam we had with them was a delight^^ One of our team members had a bad cold, and still managed to compose all of our shots in less than an hour!!
Happy you picked Contretemps and Coffin, two of my favourite Gobelin projects! Along with Sundown and La Quête de l'Humain.
This was a good reminder for me to watch the rest
This is awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing this story. And absolutely, there's so much to see from there (La Quête de l'Humain was actually in the running for our list, too). Hope you enjoy going through the films!
The thing that is wildest to me about Gobelins is how *consistent* they are. New students come through every year, and yet there remains what feels like a common ethos to all their films - and the inventiveness and polish bar they maintain is just unbelievably high. I'm not sure what magic their instructors are pulling, or if it's just the incredibly selective admissions, but their formula works! I can think of very few misses (honestly Best Friend here feels a bit trite for Gobelins - when they do so well at moody and ambiguous), and even then, the technical level is still there.
By comparison, watching other graduation films, even from prestigious animation schools like CalArts, you tend to feel you're seeing something much more unformed, often rougher around the edges, with only a few standouts reaching the technical level of Gobelins. Though, equally, those films often feel more personal to each student - whereas Gobelins films often do feel like the work of one very exceptional studio with a recognisably consistent ethos.
I'd love to read a detailed history of Gobelins one day, like, I'm so curious about how they got to be this unique way.
Must be something in the water...
It's a mystery to us, too. We've heard that Gobelins can be a very challenging place -- some students have definitely been unhappy with it -- but the technical standards are really, really high. Only in China and Japan (namely, Geidai) do you consistently see such ambitious student work, and the stuff from Gobelins is more consistently ambitious than the graduation films of any single school we can think of in those countries.
We can only guess that the school has a competitive spirit, maybe even a kind of student arms race, to get results like these. But it's tough to say. We'll keep an eye out for more information!
Wish if goblins is a studio, just imagine what kind of feature movies they can make, and all of that in 2D!!! Feel so happy just thinking of it🌻
Wish someday that will happen…
Thank you so much for these amazing recommendations.
Glad you enjoyed them!
It was Amazing!! Thanks for the great recommendation as always.
Happy to share! We're really glad you liked the films.
https://open.substack.com/pub/mslyravega/p/a-tad-bit-of-new-music?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1mv6o4