Dec 9, 2024

Academy Awards 2025 Short Film Nominees:-Duck director Ellie Chapui

Cartoon Brew is putting the spotlight on an animated short film nominated for an Academy Award in 2025.

This article looks at Duck (Canard) by Swiss film director Elie Chapuis. The short film won the Best Animated Film Award at the Warsaw Film Festival and the Best Short Animation Award at the Palace International Short Film Festival to qualify for the Academy Award.

On a small isolated farm in the undefined countryside, Vladimir and Olga raise ducks. They want a child, but this expectation quickly turns into a nightmare in this creepy short story where dreams and reality collide through stop-motion animation, a Belgian-Swiss co-production by Beast Animation and Helium Films.

In Cartoon Brew: Duck, lighting plays a major role in establishing the film's eerie and bizarre ambience. How did you approach this particular aspect of the production-

Elie Chapuis: I worked with Nadine Buss, the great French stop-motion DOP [director of photography]. Nadine is very instinctive and sometimes has an approach to experiential lighting, and there are a lot of very close shots that captivate watching her set the atmosphere of all the different sequences of the film, revealing all the texture details of the doll, and the lighting always enhances the character and their emotions. We told a lot before shooting and she had great input in many areas, including adjusting the size set so that the camera movement was possible and still could keep the claustrophobic aspect I wanted. Even after two decades in the world of stop motion, lighting is still a complete magical mystery, and I'm always in awe when I see what talented camera people can do even in very complex situations.

What was it that forced me to connect with you and direct a film about this story or concept-

The first idea came when I heard a traditional Jewish folk tale on the night of a full random folk tale that my mother's friend brought me. During that night this story of a couple wanting to have a baby came and went wrong, so the woman decided to adopt a duck, make it her baby, knit it baby clothes and carry it around the village in a stroller. The story evolves in a completely different direction, but I was impressed by the violation of making an animal your baby. At the same time, some of my close friends had a desire to raise children. I was struck by the power of that mystery and the subconscious side of anxiety, anger, and their reactions to it, when dreams and nightmares suddenly became so invasive in their daily lives that I decided to take that side and steer the story into a fantastical, nightmarish story.

On a more personal level, my own relationship with parenting was probably a much deeper, unconscious connection to a topic I understood only when the film was completed and released. Indeed, as a gay person, I am technically made sterile by a conservative society at the time I live, having a baby in a gay couple situation is simply illegal in most countries. This movie is probably one of the few steps in my life to get used to a situation I've never chosen (I think I was a great dad).1

What did you learn about the production side, the filmmaking side, the creative side, or the subject through the experience of making this film -

I learned a lot on many levels. The French and German TV channel "Arte" was involved early in the production, and a very frank and direct discussion about the storyboard with short film commissioner Hélène Vayssières pushed the film in a better direction. It was great to get her on board the moment I thought the Animatic was finished and to be able to turn a very experienced (and merciless) eye to my film and make me realize there was a bit more work to do.

On a practical level, I was afraid of colors, so I worked with Cecil Milazzo after the first film, which was spontaneously shot in black and white, to completely de-dramatize the color palette and painting work. She has the freedom with color and charming ease, and at the same time with a clear vision and a lot of room for improvisation, maneuvering its world. She taught me and our set and props team so much that I now feel ready to embrace a huge universe with colors.

Can you explain how you developed a visual approach to cinema - why did you settle for this style/technique?-

Stop Motion is absolutely a part of me, but I don't think this technique works for everything. I feel regularly used to make films that are a bit weirder than it was with other techniques, but there's not much justification. But it is very well suited to this story, in which concrete reality gradually mixes with the subconscious world. And I was hoping to show that those very specific, real dolls would dive into a nightmarish world.

I initially wanted to explore another way to make a doll, lighter in the making process, and I'm sure it would be much faster and cheaper The paper quickly came as an obvious choice to cover the doll, with every crease and crease and the amazing texture it adds, and with many layers of it. It echoes the many shrunken layers of the complex human mind, revealing the fragility of the character. Stop motion is always more complicated than we would like, but paper work was a sheer pleasure to make and a very easy and accessible process. As I said before, I worked with Cecil Milazzo, a very talented director, painter and animator, to design characters and develop together the paper work process used for dolls, sets and props. It was a very friendly and fruitful collaboration.The film palette owes her every subtle detail and color.