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Hand painted film animation celebrates Van Gogh

Program Code: 0909346150105009 | Source: CNTV

A team of Oscar-winning producers is working on a film about the life and controversial death of Vincent Van Gogh. Titled 'Loving Vincent', the film will be a feature-length painted animation.

Inspired by the style and the hand of Van Gogh, painters hired for the project work in studios in Gdansk to hand-paint close to 57,000. Work on the 80-minute movie is expected to take around two years.

The idea for the film, inspired by Van Gogh and based on some of his best known paintings, came from the artist's own words written in a letter.

"Vincent Van Gogh said in one of his letters to his brother that we can only speak through our paintings. These words were very important for me and they were actually the reason we are making this film like that. So we are telling the story of the artist through his art,"director of "Loving Vincent" Dorota Kobiela said.

Animators use oil paint on canvas and the animation is shot in the highest possible resolution.

Finding the right staff for the job in Europe was a challenge. Producers chose Poland  because they trusted in the abilities of the art students there.

"We will require 50 to 60 painters on this film, and each of those painters needs be able to paint to an incredibly high level. In Poland, the people who graduate in painting often have been to university for up to seven years," producer Hugh Welchman said.

Animators composed a dramatic blueprint for the animation according to the storyboard and modeled the characters and sets in 3D CG animation.

The idea to make a feature-length film instead of a short film came from the popularity of Van Gogh — not only as a painter, but also his personal life and the mystery behind his death.

"I think that there's a lot of people who are fans of Vincent Van Gogh, they're fans of his paintings, they're fans, they're interested in of his life. And, quite honestly, the reason Hugh originally made the decision that we shouldn't do this as a short film but as a feature film was because of an exhibition of Van Gogh's letters in London — that there is a queue on a Tuesday afternoon for several hours just to read his letters. Which meant that it's not only about the art that he created, it's also about him as a person," Breakthru Films CEO Sean Bobbit said.

Breakthru Films is best known for its Oscar-winning short animation "Peter & the Wolf". It was also shortlisted for an Oscar this year for its short film "Magic Piano."




 

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