M52

What if you made an improvised animated film one week at a time for one year starting only with the concept of a character pushing a big cube in the desert. Where would this story go?

M52 was made as a creative challenge in order to experiment with the creative boundaries of animation film making. The result is an unexpected science fiction adventure into a distant future of mankind.

Direction, animation, design and sound – Yves Paradis

Music – Alexander Hohaus

When I left my hometown Montreal to go live in Germany some years ago, I was facing a disconnection with my passion for making animated film and I decided to reconnect to it with this project I named ” M52 ”

It was originally inspired by the Mythical Mondays of Greg Gunn and other animation challenge like the 30 Days of Animation from Geoff King.

So I decided to start this project in order to force myself to explore new ways of creating a film and animate on a weekly regular basis. It evolved throughout the year and the story slowly took shape as I was trying to keep up the pace with the animation. Since it was made as a 52 weeks challenge of animation throughout one year, the name the film became M52.

In order to fit within the weekly production constraint, I decided to go with a more simplistic color palette and design. It allowed me to later build up on top of the ground I set at the beginning and eventually ended up with much more complex sequences that I originally thought about when I started. After 4 months I was starting to get a better idea of where the film would go regarding the story. Although, I decided to keep it flexible and tried to not think to much about the sequences to comes. I noted down some ideas of where it could go and checked every weeks if this still felt relevant to what I did before and what I wanted to do at the moment.

I would have never thought I could make a 10-minute animated film myself in one year while working freelance on the side. This film proved me that going out of your comfort zone and experiment with different creative methods can help push your limits and discover new artistic horizons.

I hope you enjoy the film and that it can inspire you in return.

– Yves Paradis