Graduation Movie - ESMA Lyon 2025
For my last year at ESMA, along with 8 other students, we worked on a movie we titled:
The story of this young cow, bored with her old farm and in search of a new adventure went through many versions, though the essence stayed the same. If there’s one thing we were certain of, it’s that we wanted that clay stop motion look from the start.
We naturally decided on a miniature environment to go with it, but if Aardman was our primary reference for animation, we eventually decided on a different look for said environment. And so we went for a do-it-yourself with recognizable objects kind of style. A harder Artistic Direction to achieve in a year, but we were committed.
Here I will take you through this process, and you will be able to see both the early research for this movie, while we were figuring it out, as well as the final designs.
Enjoy!
TEASER
ARTISTIC DIRECTION: EARLY RESEARCH
Early onto the pre-production, we went thought many different ideas before landing on our final style. Like stated before Aardman was our primary inspiration and thus you’ll see this being reflected in here, especially when it comes to characters. However our very first researches were much broader, as we were unsure for example of how we wanted our main character to look like.
You’ll see some abandoned concepts too, whether it’d be characters, or sets that did not make it to the end of the movie because of story changes.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION: FINAL DESIGNS
Once we had found our style, it was time to get to work! Our movie had quite the ambitious requirements, with over fifteen characters to design, nine sets, over a hundred items, etc… all to design under six months. Let’s say we were quite busy in Concept! As Manager of the Department and one of the only two full time concept artist in the team, you will be able to see most of the final designs here. I also included some of the colouring by my teammates when available (credited when showed). A lot of the colouring had to be unfortunately cut out of the pipeline because of the lack of time due to the sheer amount of work. If you want to see more of my work with colour, I invite you to go to my Personal Project tab, which is updated periodically.
CHARACTERS
MOOMOO:
Our main character, she is a young cow made out of clay. We wished for her to reflect this idea that she could be made by hand, and included a few DIY elements on her body (ears and tail). We had to find the balance between making her someone we could see as our main character and that would detach herself from other cows while keeping in mind our team’s abilities and needs in 3D. She needed to look pliable enough but couldn’t give too much trouble to our sole rigger. An extensive back an forth process but worth it in the end!
OTHERS COWS:
There are many other cows seen in the movie, in both the farms but also in the truck! All of them needed to be different to reflect the environment they evolved in, but had to remained based on Moomoo’s model .
THE BARON:
The main antagonist of our story, he runs the New Farm like it’s the military. We wanted his form to be imposing, taking inspiration from Baron Harkonnen in Dune.
SETS
OLD FARM:
Moomoo’s home! We wanted it to feel cosy but also very “put-together”. It’s a place tended to by an old man, the place is lived in and has clearly not kept up with technological advancement. It’s part of our main character’s motivation to leave but she’ll also need to be content when she comes back. Autumn is also the season we landed on as it’s colours can have a double meaning depending on one’s perspective - dreary or comforting.
NEW FARM:
This is Moomoo’s dream! They are a mysterious place that advertise themselves as a sort of four-start farm for cows. Which draws ours in, and traps her inside… I did not design the final outside look, but I did make the Flyers and Banner that encourages her to come to the New Farm to fight her boredom.
LOADING BAY:
The first room we see inside the New Farm! It is a corridor that goes through the immense warehouse that will be our cow’s only way out later on. Though I didn’t design the corridor (Done by Yulia Nikitina), I coloured the final design.
SILO:
Our money shot, this is our biggest set in the entire movie and was by far the most difficult to design. But it tuned out the most impressive and is the one we are the most proud of!
MILKING ROOM:
This room is the turning point, and thus needed to feel different while still following the Artistic Direction. This room did give us some trouble for that reason. It was one of the first rooms we designed but as we defined more of the New Farm, it fit the style less and had to go through an “emergency redesign” during production. I was in charge of said redesign.
CELL:
The cell is were the New Farm further reveals it’s true face, and if we get a taste of it’s brutality during milking, we see just how little it cares about cows with it’s cells.
GRINDER:
Where Moomoo almost dies! We needed this room to feel (nearly) unescapable.
PROPS
LIGHTSCRIPTS - COLOURSCRIPTS
