The illustrative career of production designer Evgeni Tomov,
focusing on 'The Tale of Despereaux'.
CGSociety :: Artist Profile
31 December 2008, by Barbara Robertson
Tucked in among the prestigious Annie award nominations (from the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood) are a few that specifically reward artists, including one this year for production designer Evgeni Tomov.
Tomov, widely lauded for his work on the 2D feature, “Les Triplettes de Belleville,” received the coveted Annie nomination for designing Universal Pictures’ first animated feature, “The Tale of Despereaux,” which was created at Framestore. The competition is tough: He’s up against production designers for “Wall-E”, “Bolt”, and “Kung Fu Panda.”
But his work on “Despereaux” is beautiful and unique. Tactile. Soft.
Tomov’s intent with the design for his first foray into 3D animation was to create an immersive atmosphere for the fairy tale, one he had yet to see in CG features. “I like CG movies in general,” he says. “Everybody does. But there is already an aesthetic, with Pixar and DreamWorks mainly setting the tone. They’re doing a great job, but everyone has to find their own voice and look. It’s still a new medium. And this was not a story that would be convincing if it were openly CG like ‘Bee Movie’ or ‘Toy Story’.”
"We interpreted the style to create a fantasy land, but I wanted to base the style on the achievements of humanity."
Evgeni Tomov, production designer.
“The Tale of Despereaux” follows a quartet of unlikely heroes who dream big and whose fates mingle in unexpected ways. Except for the title character Despereaux, a mouse with enormous ears, the characters aren’t clearly good or evil. They have shades of gray, they make mistakes. Directed by Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhave, and based on a script by producer Gary Ross, the film stars the voice talents of actors Matthew Broderick, Emma Watson, Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Tracey Ullman and many others. It has 20 main characters and 51 different environments filled with detail.
Tomov based the aesthetic for “Despereaux” on 15th and 16th century Flemish architecture and paintings. “I went on field trips to Amsterdam, and to Brugge and Brussels in Belgium, and sent my staff there,” he says. “We took hundreds of pictures including details like door handles. We interpreted the style to create a fantasy land, but I wanted to base the style on the achievements of humanity. These towns took thousands of people and centuries to invent.”
To achieve his ambitious new look, Tomov concentrated on having the team at Framestore create painted textures and soft lighting. The 15th and 16th century Flemish painters inspired his use of soft, rich light.
“Light was paramount with this movie,” he says. “Light disappearing and coming back later. If you look at Vermeer, who is a bit later, but a good example, you’ll see that he let large areas of the canvas fall off, but they’re not completely black. They’re richly painted.”
Thus, Tomov challenged the lighters to create soft shadows and irregular edges. “As soon as we saw hard-lit edges, the shots looked digital,” he says. “We wanted to make an animated movie, not a cartoon.”
