Rotoscopers
  • News
  • Podcasts
    • Animation Addicts Podcast
    • Every Episode Ever
  • Reviews
    • Animated Movies
    • Art Books
    • Blu-ray/DVD
    • Live Action
  • Interviews
  • Opinions
  • Studios
    • Aardman
    • Blue Sky Studios
    • Disney
    • Don Bluth
    • DreamWorks
    • Fox Animation Studios
    • Illumination Entertainment
    • LAIKA
    • Lucasfilm Animation
    • Paramount Animation
    • Pixar
    • Sony Pictures Animation
    • Reel FX
    • Studio Ghibli
    • Warner Animation
  • Animation Calendar
No Result
View All Result
Rotoscopers
  • News
  • Podcasts
    • Animation Addicts Podcast
    • Every Episode Ever
  • Reviews
    • Animated Movies
    • Art Books
    • Blu-ray/DVD
    • Live Action
  • Interviews
  • Opinions
  • Studios
    • Aardman
    • Blue Sky Studios
    • Disney
    • Don Bluth
    • DreamWorks
    • Fox Animation Studios
    • Illumination Entertainment
    • LAIKA
    • Lucasfilm Animation
    • Paramount Animation
    • Pixar
    • Sony Pictures Animation
    • Reel FX
    • Studio Ghibli
    • Warner Animation
  • Animation Calendar
No Result
View All Result
Rotoscopers
No Result
View All Result
Home The Latest Animation News

Interview with ‘Snowtime!’ Filmmakers Francois Brisson and Marie-Claude Beauchamp

Rachel Wagner by Rachel Wagner
January 27, 2016
in The Latest Animation News
7 min read
0
Interview with ‘Snowtime!’ Filmmakers Francois Brisson and Marie-Claude Beauchamp
654
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
All kids in front in the fort
Photo credit: courtesy of Shout! Factory & CarpeDiem Film&TV

Last weekend, I had the unique opportunity to attend the Sundance Film Festival and the US English premiere of an animated feature film entitled Snowtime! This is a delightful little movie about a group of kids who wage battle over their neighborhood snow fort. It features the voice talents of Sandra Oh and Ross Lynch and songs by Celine Dion, Simple Plan, and more.

For the uninitiated, here is the trailer for Snowtime!:

They are doing a release in over 50 cities starting February 19th and I had the chance to interview director Francois Brisson and producer Marie-Claude Beauchamp about the film, its message, and their approach to making an independently animated film.

Francois Brisson (director), Paul Risacher Paul Risacher (executive producer/writer), Don Shepherd (voice of Chuck), and Marie-Claude Beauchamp (producer)
Francois Brisson (director), Paul Risacher Paul Risacher (executive producer/writer), Don Shepherd (voice of Chuck), and Marie-Claude Beauchamp (producer)

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Children are the best. They are so great. They are so on it. They are so true. They are not going around and about. They are going for the real thing and you always appreciate that.

Rachel Wagner: One thing I wondered about is you don’t see that many animated films about children. Most of them are about adolescents—your Disney princesses and things like that. So I was curious what your thoughts were about making children the leads. Do you worry that will ostracize and make it only a kids’ film?

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Well, the film is a family film, but then again it speaks to children in a very intelligent way. We feel that we’re not talking down to kids. This is what makes it a family audience because we are talking true. We’re talking directly to them and because the film carries a lot of emotion, it’s emotion that they’ve had. That they’ve experienced but they’ve not seen characters experience it necessarily at the same age that they are. So that’s very important that kids see themselves, not just the older, not just what they are going to become. We like things to be in the present, and they should be growing within their time period, not just hoping to get to their teenage years. So the film suggests that. The film suggests you can be a kid and you can stay a kid until you are a teen. You don’t have to be a teen before your time.

Rachel Wagner: It reminded me a little bit of The Peanuts Movie in that way.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yes, it has some similarities for that.

Rachel Wagner: Were any of the kids based on either yourself as a kid or your own children or children in your lives?

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Not exactly because the film is a remake of a film that was done in live action 30 years ago, so the characters remained mainly the same. We had to make them evolve because we had to adapt to the values of today. So obviously 30 years later, there’s a difference between today and then with social values, family values, all that. So, yes there was some changes to the characters, but the core of them was established 30 years ago.

Jack and Luke bored
Photo credit: courtesy of Shout! Factory & CarpeDiem Film&TV

Rachel Wagner: And the character design? How did you come up with them? I particularly liked Lucy with the red hair.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yes. Well, I think that what’s important to say about the design is that we wanted the character to be warm. We didn’t want the character to be shiny and plasticy. We wanted it to feel like they were real people. So the suggestion of the art director was to keep some penciled trace in it. Francois can talk about it more because obviously he supervised that part

Francois Brisson: [The art director] because he’s an illustrator for children’s books he has a very strong style with himself. And the style is very like in watercolor and colored ink. So we thought, we need to keep that as we textured the characters.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: And keep the warmth of it.

Francois Brisson: Keep it organic

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Without being sophisticated to the point that everything had to look real. We still wanted it to be an imaginary world because we were carrying important subjects and important emotions. We still wanted the children to have a projection into those characters and not necessarily being too realistic to the point that it would make them sad. Yet again, it’s realistic enough they could see themselves.

Sophie and Franckie at the third battle
Photo credit: courtesy of Shout! Factory & CarpeDiem Film&TV

Rachel Wagner: Are you concerned about it being too sad in that it deals with themes of grief?

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: I could say that the film has been released in the French version in Quebec. We had the biggest box office. We actually had more of a box office than Spectre, the James Bond film! And the audience were children, so we have experienced it with children in a lot of ways . The parents are more worried about their children being sad but the children want to understand what it is. They ask ‘why are you so sad when someone dies?’ Now they can experience it. Now they can actually talk about it. Share. Discuss it. It becomes something they will carry on with their lives. It’s also how the film became so known in memorial to a whole generation because they learned. I was brought up on Bambi. I cried on Bambi. Now you can experience that here.

Francois Brisson: And also in the original film there was not much happening once the death occurs. We took that breathing time, and gave them longer to take it in.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: It brought it to the hope moment. Because the last scene is about hope. It’s about friendship. It’s about overcoming sorrow. And the song which is a very important—a song which Celine Dion sings for us. We wrote the words and we did it for the film and she gratefully agreed to sing it for us, but it is a song that tells you “You will grow bigger. You will grow stronger because you will have this memory with you.”

Rachel Wagner: Yeah, I was going to ask you about the music. Also was there a film that really inspired you or that you were looking at? Maybe a favorite Disney film or anything you were looking at that inspired you?

Francois Brisson: No.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: There were two films we kept on bringing up when we were working. One was Coraline and the other one was ParaNorman because the way that those independent films made it through. But also because they took time with real subjects within those films and weren’t just about a ‘joke for Mom, a joke for Dad, and something for the kids’. It was something really for the kids

Francois Brisson: And also my take on it is I want to have a style of animation that is unique—its own feel. That’s not a major studio type of animation. It’s not another Japanese style of animation. It has its own imagery. And also these kids don’t walk or move like others, and they have these big boots, so we had to deal with that. Make it so that is part of the character also.

Jack and Luke at the corner store
Photo credit: courtesy of Shout! Factory & CarpeDiem Film&TV

Rachel Wagner: What’s the main message you hope kids take away from the film? Dealing with grief? Are there any other messages?

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yes, for us, we are looking at children that aren’t playing outside any more. They don’t know how to play in a group. They know how to play alone or with one brother but organizing games, being responsible, taking the lead into organizing stuff outside is something children are losing as a reference. And we want them to go and play snow time. We want kids to say, “Oh let’s go and play snow time!” as if it was a game. And they are going to go out and build forts, and slide, ride, and do snowballs. We want them to reappropriate the pleasure of play.

Francois Brisson: Like what I did when I was a kid myself. We were playing outside all the time. Going back home? No, no, no, no.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Just for a soup and then back out!

Francois Brisson: We didn’t watch TV that much or anything.

Rachel Wagner: I like that line about ‘we don’t want to be just sitting around’.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yeah, and having brain cells not being produced! We think that being outside has more usage for itself.

Rachel Wagner: Well, and I also liked that you had the whole community of kids as opposed to more sort of cliquish kind of things. You had different ages playing together.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Nationalities as well.

Rachel Wagner: That’s something that gets lost I think when you have too much of the soccer – the scheduled, the planned activities as opposed to play.

Francois Brisson: Exactly.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yes, free play. Inspire yourself. Tell yourself stories and adventures.

Francois Brisson: Don’t be afraid of doing that.

Jack,Luke and Fran at the top of the fort
Photo credit: courtesy of Shout! Factory & CarpeDiem Film&TV

Rachel Wagner: What’s your distribution plan? Are you working with a distributor?

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yes, our distributor is called Shout Factory. It’s the US distributor. We are coming out February 19th in the US in more than 50 cities. Right now, English Canada is also going to do it at the same time. We’ve done Quebec but we’ve also been released in Russia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania. It’s all starting now so it started right before Christmas and all through the winter; we are having releases everywhere around the world.

Francois Brisson: You should see the Russian version.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yes, that’s interesting!

Rachel Wagner: It does seem like a movie that would translate well.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: It does because it’s about kids so that’s very relatable. Internationally it’s very relatable. When it comes to kids, they’re not that different from one country to another.

Rachel Wagner: The original film. It was something you had known quite well?

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: Yes, and I had known the producer for a very long time. And when he was given a petition of 11,000 names of people who wanted a remake he thought that animation was the best vehicle to do a remake. He came to me and we put it together.

Rachel Wagner: Is this your first animated film?

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: No, this is my 3rd animated feature. I did a feature about 15 years ago which was called Pinocchio P3K, and 3-4 years ago we released the Legend of Sarila, and now this third film.

Francois Brisson: My background is all animation. I worked more in television and some films.

Marie-Claude Beauchamp: And he’s also one of our best storyboard artists in Canada.

Francois Brisson: All the shots you saw in the film, I drew.

Snowtime! releases in over 50 cities nationwide on February 19. Read our full review of the film here.

Edited by: Kelly Conley

Tags: interviewsnowtime!
Previous Post

[REVIEW] ‘Snowtime!’

Next Post

[REVIEW] ‘Rocks in My Pockets’

Rachel Wagner

Rachel Wagner

Rachel is a rottentomatoes approved film critic that has loved animation since she was a little girl belting out songs from 'The Little Mermaid'. She reviews as many films as she can each year and loves interviewing actors, directors, and anyone with an interesting story to tell. Rachel is the founder of the popular Hallmarkies Podcast, and the Rachel's Reviews podcast/youtube channel, which covers all things animated including a monthly Talking Disney and Obscure Animation show. Twitter @rachel_reviews

Related Posts

Animation Addicts Podcast #122: ‘The Jungle Book’ – Bagheera!
The Latest Animation News

Animation Addicts Podcast #197: Interview with Shelley Buck & Kathy Curtis

January 20, 2021
First Look at Pixar’s Upcoming Coming-of-Age Film ‘Luca’
Pixar

First Look at Pixar’s Upcoming Coming-of-Age Film ‘Luca’

January 19, 2021
‘Wish Dragon’ Flying to Netflix This Year
Netflix

‘Wish Dragon’ Flying to Netflix This Year

January 19, 2021
[TRAILER] Still Stuck on Jurassic Island for S2 of ‘Camp Cretaceous’
DreamWorks

[TRAILER] Still Stuck on Jurassic Island for S2 of ‘Camp Cretaceous’

January 6, 2021
Load More
Next Post

[REVIEW] 'Rocks in My Pockets'

Discussion about this post

Popular Posts

  • [REVIEW] Pixar’s ‘Soul’ Soars in Ideas, But Falls Flat in Execution 171 views
  • [REVIEW] ‘Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical’ Proves That Yes, Anyone Can Cook 161 views
  • ‘Iwájú’: Disney’s Upcoming Pan-African Series That No One’s Talking About 130 views
  • First Look at Pixar’s Upcoming Coming-of-Age Film ‘Luca’ 128 views
  • ‘Wish Dragon’ Flying to Netflix This Year 106 views
  • 11.3k Fans
  • 12.2k Followers
  • 5k Followers
  • 5.3k Followers

Recently Added

Animation Addicts Podcast #122: ‘The Jungle Book’ – Bagheera!

Animation Addicts Podcast #197: Interview with Shelley Buck & Kathy Curtis

January 20, 2021
First Look at Pixar’s Upcoming Coming-of-Age Film ‘Luca’

First Look at Pixar’s Upcoming Coming-of-Age Film ‘Luca’

January 19, 2021
‘Wish Dragon’ Flying to Netflix This Year

‘Wish Dragon’ Flying to Netflix This Year

January 19, 2021
[TRAILER] Still Stuck on Jurassic Island for S2 of ‘Camp Cretaceous’

[TRAILER] Still Stuck on Jurassic Island for S2 of ‘Camp Cretaceous’

January 6, 2021
'The Boss Baby: Family Business'

Universal Delays ‘The Boss Baby: Family Business’ to September 2021

January 2, 2021
Rotoscopers

© 2019 Rotoscopers

Important Links

  • About
  • Support
  • Contact
  • Store
  • Privacy Policy
  • User Posts

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Podcasts
    • Animation Addicts Podcast
    • Every Episode Ever
  • Reviews
    • Animated Movies
    • Art Books
    • Blu-ray/DVD
    • Live Action
  • Interviews
  • Opinions
  • Studios
    • Aardman
    • Blue Sky Studios
    • Disney
    • Don Bluth
    • DreamWorks
    • Fox Animation Studios
    • Illumination Entertainment
    • LAIKA
    • Lucasfilm Animation
    • Paramount Animation
    • Pixar
    • Sony Pictures Animation
    • Reel FX
    • Studio Ghibli
    • Warner Animation
  • Animation Calendar

© 2019 Rotoscopers

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.