Director's Works
Adolescences Paul Lavau
Born in 1989, Paul Lavau is a filmmaker working on different formats. From live action to animation, his work focuses on memory, belonging to a territory and the individual's place within the group. He first worked as a character animator on several feature films for Illumination MacGuff (Minions, Comme des bêtes, Moi moche et méchant...) before becoming animation supervisor for various Paris studios. Following this, he went on to direct a number of projects, this time behind the camera, continuing to develop a creative and writing process above all oriented by dramaturgy and the desire to develop strong, complex characters, to tell the story of their emotions and desires, in a sincere and sensitive way. Today, he continues to explore ways of crossing reality and imagination with his first short, film and digital images, playing with boundaries to find new ways of telling our stories.
Each scene acts as a portrait, capturing a character having one of those intense emotions we experience at the end of adolescence.
It's in the juxtaposition of these snapshots, where joy and sorrow intertwine, that the heart of this series lies. These vignettes, when viewed together, paint a more complex picture of that period when we must leave childhood behind and try to become adults.
After working for years on animated films, I moved on to creating documentaries and live-action shorts. I learned a lot from working with actors and dealing with real-life situations. In creating these vignettes, I wanted to bring the spontaneity and reality of live-action filming to the digital creation process and breathe life into our characters.
We used a mix of techniques—3D, motion capture, photogrammetry, 2D animation, and live-action footage—to infuse the animation process with a sense of reality through improv and interaction with actors.
As the concept of digital avatars becomes more prevalent, I sought to find the most authentic way to represent them. That's why we chose a blend of realism and stylization for the aesthetic.
All this is an attempt to open new doors, explore new ways to merge reality and imagination, and blur the lines between live-action and digital imagery. Our goal was to make technique a non-issue so we could tell our stories more freely.
