David Florian

Kool kat surviving small talk 

The Kool Kat: Okay, hello oh hi nice to meet you bro

David Florian:  yo yo can you guys hear me 

David Florian: i can't see you but you can hear you can you see me? 

David Florian: yeah wait i'm gonna take out my phone wait yeah i can see you 

The Kool Kat: okay cool nice nice 

David Florian: what up

The Kool Kat:  i'm good 

David Florian: im walking

The Kool Kat: your walking? Oh, take your time take your time no rush are you gonna sit down  sorry what did you say? I cut you off, my bad 

David Florian: we can just we can just chat like i'm gonna be on a walk for a bit and we can just have the chat or like the interview 

The Kool Kat: that is cool with me imma start this by saying nice to meet you bro nice to actually talk to you you know get this started and again its super casual so feel free to sit down take a walk sip some tea really up to you 

David Florian: nice 

The Kool Kat: but yeah so the questions The questions aren't too long, so don't feel the need to overthink too much about what to say. Just be yourself. 

David Florian: Yeah, perfect. Don't worry, I'm not in a rush. I'm pretty chill. I can just have a chill talk. I'm also thankful for you guys seeing and covering us and asking us. It's really cool to have a magazine cover your story, you know? Thank you, guys. 

The Kool Kat: Anytime. But, like, bro, like...

David Florian: haha 

The Kool Kat: Bro, like, I'm lost for words right now because the movie you made...

PHEWW Super cool. 

David Florian: Thank you.

The Kool Kat: In 30- no in a hundred years, when AI takes over, what's left is your movie I'm deadass.

David Florian: HAHA I hope so, man. 

The Kool Kat: Yeah. I know so for a fact, but yeah, let's begin with the questions and everything. And again, take your time. So the first question I have for you is, 

Question 1 

if you could only watch three movies, what what would you pick and would Niccolo be a part of the movies you pick? 

David Florian: You mean like in general, any movie, like full feature movies as well? Or you mean the gobelins movies? 

The Kool Kat: Okay, technically only cartoons, animated movies. 

David Florian: Ah okay. 

The Kool Kat: Yeah, if you could pick only three animated movies, what would they be? And would Niccolo be part of what you pick?

David Florian: oof, I don't think it would be Niccolo. I think there's just too many like good, really long movies. you know I've worked on it for years you know . I've seen enough of it. But it would for sure be Vampire Hunter D. One of them 100% has to be

The Kool Kat: By the way sorry to cut you off real quick, you know what's funny? Because when I watched the trailer for your movie, I was like, these people must have been inspired by Vampire Hunter D. And I was like, should I put that as my wallpaper? But let me not assume too much. But the fact you said that is really cool. Carry on, please. 

David Florian: Yeah, we're all huge fans of Vampire Hunter D, all on the team. We found kind of together because we all love the film so much and the aesthetic of it. I would say it's also probably Ghost in the Shell for animated movie and probably The Lion King just because it's like the thing that's just got me into art in general so.

The Kool Kat: Honestly, very good to hear that. It's funny cause

When I think European movies or anything European especially and you guys are French, you guys are in a French school, I wouldn't think that you guys really like anime and you guys more, you're more towards Western cartoons. So me hearing that you like anime is very kind of cool to me really. So I really appreciate that. 

David Florian: Yeah, I know it's huge here. Like Gobelins and everybody else in the world, a lot of people love it. But technically, I love it with my friends, yes, of course, but Most people love anime as well…….. (unfortunately, the anime police didn’t let bro finish his statement) 

The Kool Kat: Oh I’m really sorry. I think you're walking too fast and the audio is kinda weird. 

David Florian: Oh, sorry. Is it better now? 

The Kool Kat: Yeah, it's very clear now mhm 

David Florian: Okay All right, wait, let me just take a seat here. There's a bench. It's a pretty chill spot. 

The Kool Kat: Take your time, bro. Take your time. If you like, smoke a cigarette too. I'm here for it. 

David Florian: Hell yeah man All right. But yeah, I think those three movies would probably be the ones I would pick. 

The Kool Kat: Fair enough. I do hear it. 

The Kool Kat: The question I have for you next is, you know,

Question 2 

When it comes to working in a team amongst five people, how do you... pick your ideas? How do you navigate picking which idea or which concept gets in the final cuts? And do you have any difficulties landing on a good theme, the genre, and in between, between five people. 

David Florian: I think for us, initially I was the one that pitched the idea to Gobelin right. In the very beginning, there's just a pitch. And then once you pitch the idea, the base idea was like an initial artwork, then people can choose if they would be interested in working on it.

And so I was pretty lucky. I had like a lot of people that were interested in the pitch. And so I could just kind of pick people depending on like which strengths they had. So, for example, I knew Axel was an amazing background artist and my knew Hugo was amazing with character design. And so I just kind of could select from the people that were interested in the movie which ones I would pick. And so I just built a team kind of with . everybody's strength in mind so there was never like any 

David Florian: ohh yeah hell yeah

The Kool Kat: I wanted to pick this before but i was like let me not you know assume too much please go ahead go ahead 

David Florian: Yeah, no it's awesome bro but yeah like i just picked the team basically like based on their skills  So for us, as a teamwork and like as far as teamwork goes and kind of finding our areas, like it was very natural from the very beginning. Like everybody knew what they wanted. Everybody knew what they were interested in. And like I said, it was like very lucky because I just could just select the people that fit the team and like the aesthetic the most. Like I already knew the work of those people and I knew roughly like what kind of style they prefer. Yeah. 

The Kool Kat: I was going to ask you, umm first of all, you did a damn good job picking the team because the product is very cool at the end. 

David Florian: Thank you

The Kool Kat: I was going to ask you, like, 

Question 3 

How did you guys initially meet? And did you expect, you know, the turnout to be so beautiful in the end? Or did you have, you know, any conflicts making the thing? Not the thing, sorry, making the movie?

David Florian: Yeah. Yeah.  Let me think this through. I think we all of us kind of had a similar idea when it came to length of the movie, right? Because all of them are short films and some are like 10 minutes long. But we knew we wanted to keep it very short. in order to make it as beautiful as possible. So we made huge cuts in the story and decided to cut whole characters and whole arcs and everything and redesign it so it's as short as possible. So we kind of expected, to be honest, to look good. We were more worried about the story. I think that was the main part we were worried about because we're all very visual workers on the team. and all like very focused on our individual parts and we don't really have like a main story person but two people really stepped up in the team and they like worked hard on the story and we kind of found a place where we could still keep all the visual ideas to make it you know very beautiful and have like our show reels and stuff but still have like a story that's doable in a quick time. 

David Florian: I’m very sorry, I don't remember the first part of your question. I think the second part was like if we expected it to be beautiful and I think we kind of did in a way because we sacrificed a lot for it. Like we sacrificed a lot of length and story for it basically.

The Kool Kat: I have two questions from what you said right now. The first question is actually, with…………..

David Florian: Oh yeah, I remember you asked how we met each other as well. I can answer that if you want. 

The Kool Kat: Yes, yes. how did you guys meet?

David Florian: Yeah, true. I just remembered. Sorry. 

The Kool Kat: No, that's fine. Don't worry.

David Florian: But we met like Gobelins. The master is a two-year program. So the first whole year you just spend working on your individual projects. Like there's a module for body mechanics, a module for storytelling, etc.

And so you kind of get to know them. They're like your classmates. You spend time with them. You look at their work. Every module, there's like a presentation. So you get to see everybody work and how reliable they are, you know, as well. It's important when building a team. And yeah,

So at the end of the first year, so we knew each other for a year, everyone, like we're a full international team. You know, we have people from China, from Cameroon. We have people from Switzerland. We have like people from all over the world. So we all came for the master. We didn't know each other before. 

The Kool Kat: Look, man, I would love a good cause when everyone comes together. Beautiful. 

David Florian: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I'm also, I'm not from Paris as well. I'm from Austria actually. So I also just got there and yeah.

The Kool Kat: Oh shi no way

David Florian:Yeah, I'm not from Paris originally.

The Kool Kat Oh, sick. Okay. 

The Kool Kat : Two questions for you right now about what you said before. So obviously you guys are all visually storytellers. 

Question 4

In the future, with the way you approach animation and hopefully you have a long career in animation, would you want to go more in depth with storytelling and exposition? Or do you want to just solely be...

be known and work on visuals and not too much on story? 

David Florian: mhmm I see what you mean, yeah. Good question too. I think for now, I think personally, I really want to grind as an artist. I want to become as good as I can. So I think for me, the next couple of years, I just want to work in the industry and really get a lot of feedback, really get better as an artist. And then I want to open a studio later on. So...

The Kool Kat: Hell ya!

David Florian: Yeah, I already have like a bunch of friends who are down for it, who are kind of waiting and they're also on their projects, of course, but they're all very down and since years already, it's kind of planned to build a studio. So as soon as I'm like satisfied with my skill level, I'll just go more into the story direction and kind of create a studio with people around me. And yeah, I think then I really want to be like a storyteller more.

The Kool Kat: Excuse my profanity. I'm going to say the next couple of words, but fuck yeah, bro. 

David Florian:Yeah, man.

The Kool Kat:I love people who have actual big plans with their lives and don't hold any punches when it comes to achieving their goals. Yeah. Hearing you talk about making your own studio and doing so much animation-wise, love to see you, bro. Honestly.

David Florian: Yeah. Thank you, man. Thank you. Appreciate it.

The Kool Kat: Anytime I'm going to skip a couple of questions down because I want us to save this for a bit later because it's kind of generic. But 

Question 5

when you started working on the movie and you needed inspiration from different sources, what medium inspired you to go the way you did with the movie? And I was going to ask you anyway, but did Vampire Hunter D inspire you with the way you visually told your story? And if Why and how did you encourage you to be so artistic with the way you made your movie? - might change the grammwe in the last sentce 

David Florian: I think a few things inspired us. I would say, like you already pointed out before, it's like Vampire Hunter D, of course, like a huge inspiration. But I would say also like a lot of the old Disney movies. Like it was mainly, I would say, stuff from like the early 2000s and 90s and mainly like animation from Disney or Japan. But yeah, the two main inspirations for sure are like Fantasia and Vampire Hunter D. And what was the second part of the question, sorry?

The Kool Kat:  No, sorry. Second part of the question was, yeah, if Vampire Hunter D inspired you visually, what scenes in the movie or atmosphere really directed how you compose the scenes in the movie?

David Florian: Honestly, okay, you know what that just got me the idea of one thing I forgot Ghibli of course like a lot of the scenes like how they are composed and how they're built a lot of it is also inspired by Ghibli so for example like what Ghibli really loves to do is to play a lot with like size differences for example and like really explore the idea of being inside of the movie inside of the perspectives so for example when the old lady chases Niccolo on the table this whole scene And scenes when he, for example, transforms with his emerald on his chest when he becomes older. All these scenes are very inspired by Ghibli as well. This transformation scene, a lot of focus and effects. And I would say Vampire Hunter D also puts a lot of focus on the effects of clothes and stuff. So I looked a lot at Vampire Hunter D for that, for folds and clothing, those specific things. Yeah, I would say Ghibli was probably like scene and shot wise was probably the biggest inspiration. Honestly, art direction wise, it was more so Vampire Hunter D. 

The Kool Kat: hmm I was going to add to that as well. When you, because again, I cannot draw for shit myself. I just know what looks good, but yeah,

Quetion 6

When it comes to animation and the way you tell stories, would you say you are more interested in body horror and the way people transform? Because obviously, like throughout the movie, Niccolo transforms and grows older. Is that something that you really emphasize when you approach storytelling with the body horror and the transformation? 

David Florian: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like for me, that's also maybe a personal thing. It was also me who boarded most of the transformation scenes, you know, like in the boarding phase.

So I've always done this. I've always loved animating transformations. I've done it since my very first projects that I've done when I was 17 or something. So basically all the time, I just love doing stuff with animation that you can't do in real film and just kind of twisting the mind of the viewer, like finding some cool idea visually to tell something in a different way. And that's like, I love transformations, man. I don't know. There's just something about it. No, no, no. I love it. Like, 

The Kool Kat: it's just so cool to see the subject or the character just like mold into something different over time in the movie.

David Florian: In this movie, it also just offered itself very well because we knew we wanted to tell the story of his whole life and kind of really kind of...narrow it down but still like pay attention to it and we thought it's a kind of tasteful way to show it like spend a lot of time on those transitions and speed up the storytelling that way so it did kind of lend itself well because we can't like tell a proper whole life story in four and a half minutes or five minutes so yeah 

The Kool Kat: real quick i'm gonna get some water quick because my mouth is 

David Florian: yeah sure um 

The Kool Kat: sorry i know it's not professional my bad

David Florian:Don't worry about it, man. We said it's chill. so  I'm chilling.

The Kool Kat: I smoked some cigarettes before I came. My mouth is so dry, my bad.

David Florian: ha ha  Same, same.

The Kool Kat: I need a cigarette day just to get my mind out of bay. You know what I'm saying? 

David Florian: ha Yessir. 

The Kool Kat: But um the question I have for you is is the character of Niccolo inspired by Niccolo papaaaaa Sorry. 

David Florian: Paganini? 

The Kool Kat: say it again. 

David Florian:Yeah, Niccolo Paganini. 

The Kool Kat: Oh, thank you so much.

Question 7

Is the character of Niccolo inspired by Niccolo Paganini? If so, what attracted you to the character? And in the planning stage, did you have more ideas to deviate from the source material in terms of giving him a different instrument or chainging the setting to fit more of what you envisioned initially? 

David Florian: Ah, interesting, bro. Yeah, I mean, I... I think we didn't really reconsider the instrument. All of us were very down to do a violin. I think it's just one of those instruments you can move while you play it, not like the piano. So it just lends itself to more visual stuff, I think. And... I mean, the whole thing is very based on Niccolo Paganini. Obviously, it's not historically accurate, you know. But the whole story started when... Or, like, the whole initial idea started when I watched a documentary on the guy. And I just thought his life is super interesting. And it also kind of told that story about passion and how he lost himself in the fame and then just kind of ended up in, like, nowhere. Nobody knew exactly where he was at the end of his life. And... I don't know, it was just very interesting because I think as artists we can kind of connect to it, even if we're not violin players specifically, but as visual artists or music artists we can all kind of connect to this life story. In a way it's a pretty typical life story. It's very similar to what happened to Mozart, for example, and stuff. So it's not like it's incredibly unique, but just the time setting as well, you know, it's the end of the 19th century, it's in Italy, it's Just a cool aesthetic to play with, kind of the gothic vibe. But yeah, it's definitely based on him, but like I said, it's not historically accurate. It's kind of like we took cornerstones of his life. You know, he got discovered at a very young age. He was encouraged by his father and like other kind of family friends to play the violin. He really got kind of dragged into it, but he enjoyed it. And then over time, he lost himself in the pursuit of like fame and yeah so the rough story kind of reflects his life journey but not all the details of course. 

The Kool Kat: of course i mean it's only five minutes but 

David Florian:yeah 

The Kool Kat: what i would say is that for me in the way i look at creation i make my own stuff i don't think anything is inherently um like new or unique but 

David Florian: yeah

The Kool Kat: the way you approach telling a story or making you know a whole um a whole new medium whether it's animation or drawing etc is how you approach it and i feel like the way i can't say this enough the way you approach the movie was so beautiful like like it doesn't matter if you know it's a simple story it matters if it's done right you know yeah you guys came together to make something again i said really beautiful and really well put together so on that on that front  applause  

David Florian: thanks man yeah honestly it makes me very happy too like that's exactly what we wanted people to kind of look at it as well like we kept it short we kept it pretty simple but we tried to have the beautiful executions and i'm very happy it comes across exactly like we wanted it to i mean makes me happy man no of course 

The Kool Kat: i mean please be happy bro like like you did a damn good job What I would say next is, I didn't write this down or anything, just something that I want to say through talking to you, is that 

Question 8 

when you display gender and when you design a character, are you fluid with the way that... the character's gender is displayed because through out the movie for me when I first watched the movie I thought Niccolo was a woman or a little girl so like is playing with gender or playing with you know the characters overall appearance something appealing to you like the same way that you like to transform scenes and transform the subjects do you like to play around how the how the subject is perceived gender-wise?

David Florian: interesting i didn't actively think like to be honest throughout the process we never really thought of this like it never came up but then once the film released a lot of people said oh we thought it's a girl so we all didn't really like during the process of the film we never actively thought about it i think it's just the way we drew him like the kind of you know beautiful anime eyes and 

The Kool Kat: SAKUGA

David Florian: like it looks very feminine and like very Amano inspired obviously and But it was never something we actively thought about during the production. And I've never done any animation before with like, you know, talking about gender or anything. But I mean, yeah, we...

Like after the film came out we discovered like oh damn people always confuse him for a girl and like once he grows the beard then they realize and yeah it's funny to us but we didn't actively think about that aspect during the production. Like even our team because you obviously share like all the productions in the school and nobody ever like said he looks like a girl funnily enough and like now that everybody's saying it obviously we can also see it but... Yeah, it never came up before. 

The Kool Kat: Okay. That's fair, because I was like, that's a whole man right there. I had no clue. 

David Florian: ha ha Yeah. but, yeah. It wasn't something we actively... I think probably some people made, like, some remarks, but I think also in general, like, even when... human people you know like very young boys or young kids they can sometimes look very uh what do you say androgynous i don't know the right word 

The Kool Kat: yeah you said it right over feminine that's that's fine

David Florian: yeah a little more feminine than like once they grow older it becomes more clear so yeah

The Kool Kat: bro again really cool the question I have for you next is it's more personal but throughout the movie Niccolo's passion for the instruments was abused by other people until the very end until he realized that you know this is something that I hold dear to myself and not for other people. And, you know, he walked alone at the end. Is that something that you can relate to in your own life and the way you approach making art and the, sorry, let me do it again, if you don't mind. Yeah, of course. 

Question 9 

Throughout the movie, Nicholas' passion for the instrument was abused by other people and there are very clear themes of social validation and pre-pressure to, you know, um, uphold the level of artistry that he, he had when he was a kid. Um, do you have that same, um, have you ever had that same feeling towards your own work where, um, where you feel consumed by other people's, um, like thoughts of your work or what you should be doing or even overall fatigue and if you had that feeling or those feelings how have you you know um come out of that and overcome that feeling 

because people in the arts people alone in different fields have that feeling as well so how would you tell people to you know um go go about that that encounter artistically 

David Florian: yes a very good question um I think all of us in the core team could relate in some way to it. For some, it was more so the aspect of looking for fame or looking for stardomship and kind of losing sight of what's important about art. For me personally, I remember... It's funny you said it because it reminded me of this. When I was very young, in the family...When I started drawing, there was quite a bit of pressure on like, oh yeah, you have to make a living off of this. This has to be your thing, you know. And as a kid, I really liked it though. You know, you also enjoy obviously the attention and you kind of get pushed into it. So I often wonder if I really kept with art because of this like very heavy encouragement when I was young. But for me personally, it never really turned too negative, it's more so, I think, the film really talks about when, especially nowadays, that when people enter the industry, it can be pretty rough. You get a lot of chances and you think each chance is super important and you want to overwork all the time and you kind of lose sight of why you even started in the very beginning. Like, you love drawing. It's pretty simple, but you tend to overcomplicate it when all these other things are going on and a lot of things are kind of bound to it and you're making a living off of it. And if you completely lose the passion for it, you know, then might as well do a different job. Like artistry is not really a job you do for the money. I think it's more so a job you do because you really love it. And if you lose sight of that in the end, like I said, like why are you even doing this? And I think that's one of the things we talked about in the film as well. It's like he kind of loses his passion for it. Or at least he sees how it's used and how it makes him feel and like how drained he becomes from it and he just decides to go against it to kind of lose all the riches, lose the fame and embrace what he loved in the beginning about it. I feel like a lot of people from Goblin especially, it's a lot of peer pressure, it's a lot of work, a lot of preparation for the industry and so you feel like you're kind of caught in this tunnel vision of what you want to become, what you want to achieve.

Interviewee: And you hear it often, like a lot of teammates, me, myself, a lot of people from my class sometimes just wonder if it's so fun to them if all the time you spend just drawing until late nights are worth it, you know? But you just gotta remember why you do it in the beginning. And if it's not the right choice for you, you can always do it as a passion. You don't have to do it as your job as well. But yeah, I think I can kind of relate to it because when I prepared for gobelins as well, like that one year I prepared for the school and I really grinded art, man. I grinded so much life drawing and animation courses and like all the time working on it. And I also encountered that point where I was like, am I still enjoying it? Like my arm is hurting every day. But yeah, I kind of decided for myself for now, it's definitely what I want to do.

The Kool Kat: damn. I can't lie. That was so poetic. It can make a grown man cry, bro. 

David Florian: Yeah, man.

The Kool Kat: That was really well said. That was really well said. I mean... Nice. You know, you guys, we're currently in Paris right now. And I live in London myself. I'm from Nigeria, but I live in London for school. And the... : The London art scene, whether it's animation, drawing, or even graphic design, I would say more now than ever before in history. Whether it's because of you know inflation or people's economic situation, people are more so driven by the need to get money, recognition, to go on top, climb ladders. So obviously you guys made a very amazing product at the end of the day, but it's also... very refreshing to see people who love the game, you know, who just want to put out work, just to put out work and show that like people in the medium are still very concerned about innovation, you know? So yeah, very cool. Very cool I'm going to like hop around like three different questions at the same time, if you don't mind. 

David Florian: Yeah, don't worry. 

The Kool Kat: The first question, the question I have for you is that, yeah,

Interviewer: When it comes to making a movie, you know, so elaborately and so well thought out, do you have any personal changes you would like to make

Interviewee: Either the beginning of the movie or the end of the... Jesus Christ. 

David Florian: ha ha Don't worry, man. 

The Kool Kat: Thank you, bro. But, like, yeah, like,

Question 10

Throughout the movie, would you have made any personal changes throughout the movie? And if so, what would the final product look like? And are you satisfied with everything that was animated during the whole movie? 

David Florian:  I think I... I think like the biggest thing I've learned or the way I've changed was that I really have to like now more than ever like pay attention to health as well like for this last year and it was a passion project so that's I think the main reason that happened but I really overworked and I had like some health issues because of it so for me personally I'm definitely gonna you know in the future not get

Interviewee: too involved with work projects. I swore that to myself because for this film, it was more so, you know, it's kind of like your baby, you're creating it, working on it all the time. You can't sleep without thinking about it in some way. And I just need a bit more distance, I think, to my work from now on. I think that's a big thing. And so I think looking back on it, I think I would do it exactly the same, even though it was a lot of work. I'm I wanted to do exactly that. When I came to Gobelin I really wanted to not just get a good grade, I wanted to make a really cool film and put as much work into it as it needs. So I think I would do it all over again but for now, for the future I'll take it a bit more chill and not rush so much into the work.

The Kool Kat: this is persoal, but my sister is a painter and she goes to a really good school in London for painting and she painted like six differnt paintings at one time and I was like, you're making very good work, but like you have to slow down and like slow down when you can because there's no point of, you know, going so hard when you're painting or when you're making your own medium and you're burnt out all the time, you know? So I would say, when you need to work go stupidly hard but when you're done or you want to take a break take that break bro take that break you know 

David Florian: yeah 

The Kool Kat: fair enough

David Florian: yeah it's very true like finding this kind of balance and like being able to just turn off like once you're off the clock you know you need to be able to rest your health like your mentality and as artists it's hard because you you really put more into it than just work is thinking with your sister as well like if she's painting you know like you really want to it kind of shows yourself in a way you know so it's so hard to turn off your head when you're taking a break and like fully rest but yeah i hope she's managing man it's really stressful

The Kool Kat: yeah she's good but like um for me like i'll never say like when you take a break i'm not saying like go off the go go mia go off the radar but like you can slowly make developments to future projects but like not as intensely as you did before so that's what i'm trying to say

David Florian: yeah

The Kool Kat: yeah um again sorry because my zoom has been kind of kind of stupid because because uh how to say this it's uh it cuts off at a certain point so i have like eight minutes left with you but i want to speed speed around a couple questions before it ends yeah okay um wow wow wow my sorry again my mouth's so dry

David Florian:  don't worry take another sip man 

The Kool Kat: thank you man thank you! AHHH okay That was good. Whoa, nice

The Kool Kat:  So, yeah, 

Question 11

Did you anticipate the growth of your short film? And what are the emotions that come with that? Do you have more pressure to beat expectations? Do you have more anxiety? Or are you more motivated now to work harder on the next project? And if you have any of these emotions, please walk me through it. 

David Florian: Yeah Okay, I would say I'm like super grateful and very surprised in a way. I think we expected it to do kind of well, you know, but there have been other gobelins films that looked beautiful and that didn't do as well or like didn't receive as much attention as they should. So it was kind of like a gamble to us in our minds. Like it could do either very well or be underwhelming. And so to us, like we said, no matter how the film is received, you know, we already got the film done. We're happy with it.

And so this was kind of like a bonus, like it felt really nice, obviously people love the film, so I'm super grateful to everybody who watches it and enjoys it. It's like a nice surprise for us, and I think I don't really feel too much pressure. I already started working on new things, and I'm not gonna lie, some of them are very exciting, so...Right now I feel like it's been a really good kind of stepping stone to get into other things and like start new things. So I don't feel too pressured right now. I feel really good about it. I feel chill. 

The Kool Kat: Nice. im very happy for you !for me, for me The more you work, the more I'm more inclined to check out your stuff and you make really good stuff. So I'm just happy. 

David Florian: Nice, man. 

The Kool Kat: The two questions for you are 

Question 12:

When it comes to the score of the movie and the sound of the movie, when you think about the score, I think about how it will sound like throughout the whole movie. Does that process come after you animate scenes or before you any of the animations even done for the movie? 

David Florian: Oh bro that's a super good question because it was such a unique thing with this movie you know it's kind of like Fantasia it really like the music we didn't have any text any dialogue so the music really was our dialogue you know it kind of tells you how you should feel and it pushes the emotions in every scene and almost feels sometimes like it's Niccolo talking through the music so To us, it was very important to get the vibe right. So very early on, I think in December last year, we already had the finished storyboard and we put it full of like placeholder music.

to kind of get the vibe and then we sent it to our musician it's Mathieu Wilbert and he's amazing you know like he just took like the rough ideas we gave him and he gave us like versions he did and we kind of slowly over time adapted it and so like to be honest for most of the shots the animation was done before the final version of the music but there was a rough idea of what the music is going to be like for the whole process

And we kind of like in terms of beats, you know, like sometimes you want the music to kind of hit with a certain moment in the animation. So we always indicated those moments, those key beats that we wanted to be highlighted by the music also very early on and in the placeholder as well. So he knew. So we were also like very time locked. We couldn't make some scenes longer or shorter because it needed to be on beat all the time.

And it was like a lot of communication between us and the musician, but it was a pretty interesting process because like I said, no dialogue, you know, it's the main audio.

The Kool Kat: I feel like it's more impressive to tell a story without no dialogue and just music and just, you know, straight dialogue. I mean, hopefully when you do make more stuff, more elaborate movies, there's dialogue, but like for me, it's way more impressive to tell a whole narrative just by sound. 

David Florian: Yeah. Yeah. You're forced to like show and not tell, you know, you're always supposed to do that, but in this case you just don't have a choice. So it really forces you to make creative choices.

The Kool Kat: Yeah. I think it's a cool, um, things are cool. Um, A cool deviation from what you meant to do, but I really enjoyed it. Last thing I'll say before the time goes off, because you have two minutes left, is that 

when, in the process of making the movie, what sequences were the hardest to animate? Actually, one second. 

Question 13 

In the process of making the movie, what sequences were the hardest to animate and And how long did it take you to finish the whole movie, including storyboards and planning as well? 

David Florian: Oh, damn. Okay. I would say pretty quick because we don't have much time. But the whole process took from September, end of September, till beginning of May. Like from story writing. Then in October, we started storyboarding over to production start in January. And...

What was the other part? Sorry. Oh, the other part was how long the... Oh, the hardest scenes, right? 

The Kool Kat: Yeah, yeah. Like, what sequence did it take you the most time to actually animate? 

David Florian: Yeah, for sure. Like, I had a lot of, like, very heavy effects and, like, some of the most difficult shots in the movie. And I animated... Like, for me personally, it was definitely the... The cape shots, you know, where he transforms into the old version of himself. The very first transformation took very long, like the one where he steps with his shoe and it transforms with the ribbons. And I would say the concert shot, like once he's at the very top and he's playing, you know, and the wind blows through his hair and stuff. That shot also took a very, very long time. It was like a collaboration between four people, that shot. It like went back and forth through so many changes and that one really took long. So I would say those three probably, and maybe as an add on the one with the violin in the beginning where the baby like slides down the violin. That one also took quite a while, but yeah.

The Kool Kat: damn Again, honestly, it's a very big honor talking to you and, you know, actually like getting into your mind and how you create your, you know, the movie and how, you know, effectively you get creative work done as well. Very cool to watch. We don't have much time, but all I have to say is that 

Question 14 

what do people expect from you? And if you do, no, if when you do make other projects, would you want to include people you already work with in the team from Niccolo? Or would you want to experiment more and find new people to work with?

David Florian: I think for sure I want to work with some people from Nicolo. You know, it's like with every team. With some people you work together very well and with some you don't. But we still all manage in the end. And I think with a lot of the people from my team, I definitely want to work with in the future. And in fact, like with one dude, I already plan to work on the studio together. So yeah, I'm definitely going to keep in touch with a lot of people.

interview abruptly ends dang :(