05/04/2007

Pascal Herold and Jérôme Deschamps’s animated film project La véritable histoire du chat botté (The True Story of Puss-in-Boots), based on Charles Perrault’s famous fairytale, went into production early this month. The €18m budget film – a European co-production between France and Belgium (70%) and Switzerland (30%) – will start its animation phase in September in Paris-based 3D studio Delacave, set up especially for production of the title.

Produced by the Herold Family with artistic direction by Stephane Daegelen, the film is expected to wrap up by autumn 2008 in time for a first quarter release in 2009, ahead of the 2011 theatrical release of a US Puss-in-Boots by DreamWorks.

La véritable histoire du chat botté is being produced by Herold, founder of Duran Duboi ( a company specialising in post-production, special effects and CGI) in 1983, from which he stepped down as president at the end of 2005. Herold handled the executive production of special effects on Enki Bilal’s The Woman Trap [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2003).

"What attracted me to Charles Perrault’s fairytale is that it is the only internationally known fairytale that has not been made into an animated US film. Moreover, the storyline is not very moralistic and I think that’s a good thing since there are so many self-righteous animated films made in the US. The truth is not necessarily black or white and young audiences have the right to know that," the director told Cineuropa.

This original reworking of the classic tale will be co-helmed by renowned theatre director Jérôme Deschamps (behind the sarcastic French television series Les Deschiens).

In 2001, Herold founded the company Nadeo, who produce internationally-known video games, such as TrackMania and Virtual Skipper, and whose innovative technology will be used in La véritable histoire du chat botté.

"This will be the first animated film in Europe, and without doubt in the world, to be filmed in high-definition using time machine instead of time software, which will make the final scenes seem quicker," Herold explained.

“The animated project will involve a team of 22 in Paris, while Belgian outfit Nexus Factory will do the special effects and part of the set design. We will be shooting this summer in DV. We won’t motion capture. Instead we will work with theatre actors who will give directions to the animators. I don’t want to use motion capture. I think it’s the lowest form of artistic creativity. I also have to point out that the film could not be made in France without the tax credit system and without funding from the Ile-de-France region, even though we have television financing. I was also prepared to go to Hong Kong."

La véritable histoire du chat botté is being co-produced MK2, who will handle the title’s French distribution and international sales. The film is also being funded through a co-production with Belgium’s Nexus Factory and Robert Boner’s Swiss outfit Saga Production, co-production and pre-sales France 3 Cinéma, pre-sales from Canal + and Ciné Cinéma, €394 000 from the Ile-de-France region and €80,000 as part of a new technology support scheme for production from the Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC).

(Translated from French)