Animation Nation: mcbess & Simon

If CGI is widely seen as the pinnacle of achievement in animation, Matthieu Bessudo and Simon Landrein – aka mcbess and Simon – are happy to turn conventional wisdom on its head. They both started out, on graduating from French animation school Supinfocom in the mid-2000s, as 3D animators and were quickly headhunted by London companies – mcbess by The Mill, Simon by Nexus – to work in their 3D departments.

Since pairing up and subsequently moving to Passion Pictures for worldwide representation, the duo’s work has been characterised by diversity of visual style and animation techniques, and has won them spots for the likes of O2 and Transport for London.

Individually mcbess and Simon are both successful illustrators. In the past year Simon’s cubist/pop art take on the comic strip has featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker (below). Meanwhile mcbess (Bessudo’s nickname from university days) is a one-man illustration brand. His 1930s cartoon style updated with rock ‘n’ roll iconography has graced numerous magazines and exhibitions and generated a global cult following.

Their partnership started in 2009 when The Mill invited mcbess to make a short in his increasingly popular illustration style. “I asked Simon to come on board, because I knew he could draw, and was a really good 3D guy,” he recalls. Simon was working as junior operator on a short by Smith & Foulkes at Nexus. “I had experience of making short movies and I was gagging to make them from scratch to the end,” Simon says.

The result was a monochrome 3D music video for an imaginary rock band, the Dead Pirates, featuring mcbess’ own music. “Story-wise and design-wise we found that we worked well together, with similar humour and ideas,” says mcbess. “There’s nothing that’s off-limits.”

Then mcbess and Simon’s first co-directed commercial, Notepad (below), for Indian conglomerate Essar, was a combination of live-action and 2D animation, bringing chalk drawings to life – followed by the entirely 3D-animated Narks And Niggles for O2. mcbess recalls that job providing a steep learning curve for the pair. “In 3D you create a world – and you can change everything. So clients can go mental with feedback. It was interesting for us to gauge how much of this feedback was impairing us from doing a good job.” He adds that they’re always keen to match the tools to the job – whether stop-motion, 2D, 3D, or live-action. “It would be interesting to see the range of pitches we’ve done – they’re massively different every time.”

They reveal that their most satisfying commercial project was Havana Heat for bookselling website Good Books for Kiwi agency String Theory, with a spoof Mills & Boon-style script. “When we saw the script – no problem, no grumpy face,” says Simon. The result is a very saucy cartoon, in a 2D design different from either of their illustration styles. But their recent ad for TfL, When Travelling In London Town, was a chance to bring mcbess’ own illustrations to life in 2D animation. M&C Saatchi had contacted him about creating public information posters on London Underground. Then came the motion version, featuring witty vignettes about Tube-based passenger issues, to a soundtrack of rhyming couplets. “We’re totally aware that our personal work is very important,” says mcbess. “When you have a name, that’s when people trust you more. The agency were really good and left me a lot of freedom to do the thing that I do best – drawing funny stuff.”

When Dead Pirates come to life

One of Simon’s recent personal projects, Michel Homm (below), a tribute to director Michael Mann, employs Simon’s abstract, angular comic-book style. “I had some spare time and thought: If I can work for a few weeks on small projects that are funny and entertaining – that’s good.”

mcbess’ own side project is the Dead Pirates (below) – the once-imaginary subject of the duo’s first film that’s now a real band. “After the video people were saying ‘you guys should play’. I was saying ‘yeah sure’ but someone took me up on that. So I asked some of my best mates to form a band.” They now have a new EP out, and more videos being planned. “Why should we restrict ourselves to one discipline?” says mcbess. “Music is huge for me. I don’t know if we’re good at it, but we’re trying, and we’re having fun.”

Representation

Worldwide passion-london.com