When Instagram gives birth to animated series

It is very rare at trade shows, especially those intended to attract investors, that the presentation of a project ends with a standing ovation. However, this was the case at the Cartoon Forum in Toulouse (from September 21 to 23), a meeting place for professionals in the animated series, with Samuel, series carried by a young author and director, Émilie Tronche. The enthusiasm aroused by this sensitive and funny fiction about the moods of a ten-year-old boy is due as much to substance as to form.

Samuel has problems. He does not like the smell of his mother’s beef with carrots, nor his comrade Basile who revealed to Julie that Samuel loved him, and even less Berenice, who she loves him… These first sentimental emotions are staged with great simplicity and extremely refined graphics contrasting with tongue-in-cheek humor and animation attentive to children’s gestures. Émilie Tronche’s ability to create strong characters in a few strokes and in a very short format, 4 minutes, hit the mark in Toulouse as on Instagram and Facebook where the director first uploaded a few episodes.

« After finishing my first professional short film, an adaptation of a poem by Verlaine, Sentimental walk, I wanted to create something quick from my childhood memories. I did everything myself, even the voices “, Says Émilie Tronche who says she liked the freedom offered by social networks, without being constrained by a framework of dissemination. The young filmmaker tested the series on fifth grade students, who were thrilled, “ both moved and laughed out loud ».

Spotted by producer Damien Megherbi, from the company Les Valseurs (César 2019 for the animated short for bad girl), Samuel will become in 2022 a web series for the Arte site, developing ” a narrative arc avoiding the big ones scriptwriting strings “. Other very short episodes will be produced specifically for TikTok.

Generation “Brief”

The time of Samuel, and its use of a very present voice-over, is very reminiscent of the successful series Short, by Kyan Khojandi, a success for Canal +, ten years ago. The comedian is also engaged in the adaptation of a comic first posted on Instagram by its author, Theo Grosjean.

Since then published as an album by Delcourt (two volumes), Most freaked out man in the world is an autobiographical account of the phobias of its author. ” The series was born from an experience I had on a train: the passenger sitting next to me asked me to keep his bag and I thought there was a bomb in it … “, Detailed Théo Grosjean who then wanted to tell his day to day anxieties on the social network.

Three years and 158,000 subscribers later, the series project, renamed Freaked out and co-produced by Nicolas Schmerkin of the Oscar-winning company Around Midnight, captivated Canal + which is expected to air the first episodes next year. Kyan Khojandi will double as the main character, and will be accompanied by Youtuber Cyprien, who will play the coach in malaise, or Garance Marillier (fetish actress Julia Ducournau, director of Titanium).

Rather intended for an adult audience, the series could be seen from 13 years old, the age from which children can subscribe to Instagram, said Nicolas Schmerkin, ” but alsofrom the moment we have anxieties. »

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