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Added by animacam 22 February, 2017

Hello everyone! This edition of Animacam may already be over, but our love of animated films lasts 365 days a year. We had the opportunity to have a little chat with Animacam’s sixth edition Audience Award winner, Julien Dykmans, director of The Mechanical Waltz, the second animated short in the career of the Belgian graphic artist, and we would love to share what he has told us about his film and animation in general with all of you.

Your film is a okea in favor of freedom and the self-sulfilment of every human. What was exactly your inspiration to make this short film?

I was living in Paris when I first had the idea of the concept for The Mechanical Waltz. When you live in a big city and use the metro every day, you realize that people always walk as fast as they can towards their single goal. It sometimes looks like a dance when you really think about how every single movement is optimized to gain time. The book “1984” and the universe of Aldous Huxley have been a real inspiration as well. Why do we always rush to do something we do not always like? Is anyone controlling the strings to make us believe we really have to do it? That was the starting point of my reflection.

In The Mechanical Waltz we can see that there is a component of social critique. What paper do you think cinema must have regarding these matters?

The film industry is quite special as it is full of artists who do not always have a 9am-6pm fulltime job. It’s one of the industries that can really engage with the public. It’s a great way to deliver a message and I believe it’s our duty to do so.

Could you tell us about how was the experience of working on this film?

I worked on this short film for over 3 years. The Mechanical Waltz was a personal project with only a small amount of funding mainly from my family and friends. So I was working on it on the side of my paid job in the advertising industry. I had to work on it in the evenings and during the weekends, pretty much on my own. The main difficulty was to keep my motivation over such a long period.

The world of animation is plenty of talent and great artists, but could you tell us who are your main examples?

My first source of inspiration is coming from Belgian comic books with some great mood masters such as Loisel and Guardino.

We are all animations lovers, but what do you think animation provides to live action?

I love creating a beleavable world from nothing and the 2D and 3D techniques are the best tools to do so. It definitely helps projecting people’s minds in unknowns worlds. There is no limit.

Do you think animation is supported enough by the audience and the industry?

I believe that in general, the whole artist status is quite undervalued, which is a shame since the post production is now the main part of what we see on screen. There is not a single shot that did not get through artists’ hands nowadays. It’s a long process to make it look right and believable.

What do you think about your experience in Animacam? Are online festivals the future thanks to its ability to reach all the world

Animacam has been a great experience, its always amazing to know you can been reached worldwide so easily. The only difficult thing is to convince your fan group to vote for you when you have already asked them that a few times before.

This is your second short film, could you give an advice to all the beginners on animation?

Keep focusing on what you believe in. You might not always end up working on projects you trully believe in, but the most important is to keep your motivation intact. Working on your own projects seems crucial to me, its my way of keeping up my energy.