ALINE

Short List
TitleALINE
BrandWES ANDERSON - SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
Product/ServiceTHE FRENCH DESPATCH
Category A01. Fiction & Non-Fiction Films up to 5 minutes
Entrant WETRANSFER Amsterdam, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation AMERICAN EMPRICIAL PICTURES New York, USA
Production OPAL FILMS Paris, FRANCE
Additional Company WETRANSFER Amsterdam, UNITED KINGDOM
Credits
Name Company Position
Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Cocker Singer
Javi Aznarez Javi Aznarez Illustrator & Animation
Wes Anderson Wes Anderson Director
Octavia Peissel Octavia Peissel Producer
Arnau Sola Arnau Sola Animation Supervisor & Lead Animator & Lead Compositor
Fernando Abaca Fernando Abaca Animator
Libardo Bohorquez Libardo Bohorquez Animator
Toni Sala Toni Sala Animator
Julia Olivella Julia Olivella Colour Artist
Miguel Angel Canillas Miguel Angel Canillas Colour Artist
Alex Roca Alex Roca Post Production & Compositing

Why is this work relevant for Entertainment?

Since 1925, the New Yorker has staunchly championed the humble cartoonist, consistently favouring black-and-white, classically unfussy drawings for its beloved (and now trademark) spot illustrations. They’re classic. Timeless, too. You’d be hard pressed to look at all of the cartoons commissioned in The New Yorker’s history and pinpoint the year each was created. In that way, the visually evergreen nature of the magazine mirrors Wes Anderson’s cinematic style. Ask someone what year they think one of his films was set in and they probably couldn’t tell you; in the same way it’s often impossible to date a New Yorker cartoon.

Background

As the world waited for the release of The French Dispatch, Wes Anderson gathered a small team together to make his first-ever music video to celebrate the feature film’s theme song, Aline. As the film is made in homage to The New Yorker, the artist’s style needed to possess a faint whiff of the magazine’s aesthetic values. So Javi was brought on board to help bring Wes Anderson’s cinematic version of one of the world’s most influential magazines to life.

Describe the creative idea

“Like a lot of people in Wes’ surroundings, I was already extremely familiar with The New Yorker and knew what that looked like...single line drawings that have a lot of character and observational humor.” “Wes immediately responded really positively to [Javi’s] work,”So he was brought on board to help bring Wes Anderson’s cinematic version of one of the world’s most influential magazines to life. And so enamoured was Wes with Javi’s drawings that the brief began expanding—quickly. Alongside his existing brief, he was putting in after hours drawing situational doodles on set (rats in the corridors, or a cartoon of a man reclining in the warm beam of light emitted by a desk lamp), Javi also worked on 30 magazine covers for the end credits. Add that to all of the promo artwork (official poster, for example) and Javi had a pretty full-on few years working solidly on the film.

Describe the strategy

Wes then decided that Jarvis’ Aline cover was so good that it deserved a music video to go with it. His Producer who is used to making special side projects around Wes’ feature films, imagined that they’d do a straightforward music video starring the actual Jarvis Cocker as Tip-Top. “When lockdown and COVID happened, my assumption was that we would either table the idea entirely, or pick it up in some distant future as something that you could shoot maybe in a day or two,” Octavia says. Wes, it turned out, had other ideas. Wes, now confident working with animation after making his previous feature film, Isle of Dogs, suggested a hand-drawn process using Javi’s illustrations. What followed was the creation of the first-ever Wes Anderson-directed music video, which took Wes, Javi and seven other people eight months to complete.

Describe the execution

The video features Jarvis Cocker as Tip-Top, taking us on a journey through Ennui-sur-Blasé. Along the way we meet the characters of the film and catch glimpses of the plot. We watch as Tip-Top cheerfully uses a floating corpse in a canal as a stepping stone, or dances past Tilda Swinton observing some elderly French gentlemen play pétanque. We climb up and up through the town with the boulangerie delivery vans in a way that seems to move through storeys without ever breaking the shot.

Describe the outcome

Launching on the 23rd Sept 2021 the film has a global reach and has already gained much media attention with rave reviews! But it's too soon to give details on it's impact.