Benjamin Renner discusses his own trepidation

In most cases, when you finish college you have to spend a few years doing jobs you perhaps wouldn’t want to do – attempting to make ends meet as a newcomer to the working world. Well for Benjamin Renner, he came out of school to land quite the job, co-directing the delightful French animation Ernest and Celestine.

Working alongside Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar – the men behind the innovative A Town Called Panic – the trio present the first cinematic adaptation of the successful Gabrielle Vincent children’s books, telling the tale of a bear (Ernest) and a mouse (Celestine) who become friends in the face of adversity.

Renner discusses his own trepidation at becoming director of this title, his inspirations, working as part of a trio – and tells us what the most touching and reaffirming aspect to making this entire movie was.

How did you first come to be involved in Ernest and Celestine?

The producer was looking for a director, so he called me. I went to see him and discovered the book and said, “Yes. I want to work on this film.” He was not asking me as a director obviously because I was still at school, but there was no director so it was a strange situation. I had to work as the director but not be the “real” director, although I was telling the artistic team what I saw for the film, so after one year the producer said to me – “You know you are doing a director’s job, so why don’t you have the title of a director?” and I said “Only if I an be a co-director.” I didn’t know how to make a feature film and so I joined the team and the three of us made a sort of fusion and between us we created the perfect director.

You must have been so thrilled to work with Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, because A Town Called Panic was fantastic.

Yes, yes of course. I hadn’t seen that film yet, I know the TV show but not the film and actually I was a little bit scared because I didn’t know if we would get along, and the thing is, when we met we are three very shy people and we met at the restaurant with the producer and they were all “yeah yeah yeah” and we were not talking at all, we were very shy and it was like “Oh my God, what are we going to do together if we cant even talk?” But when we finally met to work we had so much fun, we laughed so hard together and it was really very complimentary, we had a lot of things in common and wanted the same things for the film and we trusted each other a lot. I couldn’t dream of better co-directors.

It must have been very helpful to you to have people who were so experienced as well?

Yes of course, I needed experience so they could tell me if I was doing the wrong or right thing. The animation is a bit rough and very quickly made and they made me think about what we are doing and what they didn’t want. When we disagreed on something we never chose to do it if one person was not happy with what we were doing – we always had to make sure that we all agreed together.

Am I right in thinking that you were able to choose you team around you? That must have been quite nice to be able to pick people to come together.

Yes, the thing is that I had just left school so I didn’t know anyone but I started meeting people and I felt freed, and able to be on the project because they really loved what I offered to the film, and we felt that there was something to this film, we had something very big here, very new, even if it had got that nostalgic look, it still feels very new to make this kind of animation, so yeah it was great because we are a very solid team and maintained a very friendly, huge friendship between us and we dream to make another film together and we hope that this one is a success so we can maybe make a new one. Working together again would be the best.

You were in charge of almost 40 people, or a big team at least, and because this was your first big job, were you quite nervous?

Yeah, actually it was quite funny, I refused to be a director at first, the producer asked me for six months “Do you want to be a director?” and because it’s so much responsibility, I couldn’t say yes. In Europe it’s so hard to get the money to make a film. This is nine million euros, even if it’s nothing compared to a Pixar movie which must be something like 200 million euros, still you cant make any mistakes. Everything must be clear and the thing is Pixar movies make a story board for a long time, they change things and here we couldn’t do that, we had to have the film perfect the first time. So I had to do that with Vincent and Stéphane and we had to make it perfect, we couldnt’ make any mistakes – it was a lot of pressure, because if you make a mistake it can lead to the end of the film, if you make one single wrong mistake you can kill the film so it was a lot of pressure.

Do you see yourself now as a director?

Yeah, I think if someone asked me if I want to make a film and I liked the project I would say yes without hesitation. Now I know what to do, not to make mistakes and I know the team as I said, I know people, I know what we can do, I know everything – so I feel much more confident about that.

Tell us about the animation style in the film, because it’s like a watercolour technique – it’s quite unique, I haven’t seen many animations like that.

We of course looked to the book, which is watercolour and I wanted it to look the same and we made the backgrounds in watercolour in order to make them very similar to the backgrounds of the books, while we did the animation on the computer. We chose this technique because when you draw on the computer you can go really fast you can immediately see what you are doing. When you do a traditional animation on paper you have to draw, scan your drawings, see if its worked, if not you have to come back and correct and you have to do it again and do it again and it’s very long. On the computer you can do it very quickly.

So when you were a child were you a big fan of the original Gabrielle Vincent books?

I’m a little bit ashamed to say it, but I didn’t know the books, I discovered them when the producer told me about the project. I met him and he showed me the book and he was talking to me but I was not listening. When I read the books I was so amazed by everything I was seeing and once I took one book home I went to the shop and brought everyone of her books, I was really thrilled by this artist and I started to talk to her family and her friends in order to know her because she’s dead now. I really want to pay respect to her. So no I didn’t have a childhood point of view of it, but I think it was a good thing because I didn’t have the nostalgic feeling, it was like an artist to whom I wanted to pay my respects, that was all.

The film is equally appealing to adults and children, do you think the fact that you first read the books as an adult meant that you were able to make it more appealing to the older audience?

Yeah, actually I think I feel when I’m making animations that I’m like a child, I never grew up and I will never grow older and I am really interested in every kind of film, adult films, children’s films, and when I make a film I don’t really ask myself whether it is meant to be for children or not, I just make it the best I can. I want it to be seen by children, adults, everyone who can be pleased by the film, so in a way I don’t think the fact that I’m an adult made the film accessible for adults.

You mentioned that you got in touch with Gabrielle’s family – did you feel a responsibility and pressure to do justice to her and her animation?

Yes it was a huge responsibility actually, we really wanted to pay our respects. I hope that if she was alive now she would be really happy about the film, that she would see it as a gift we made for her. So that’s why we asked everyone around her what she was like, how she worked, would she have liked this kind of film? Or this one? Or that one? It was a huge responsibility and at Cannes Festival the film screened and the nephew of Gabrielle –  who owns the rights to her work – he was there with his daughter, and when everyone applauded at the end, I just turned around and he was still sitting, crying a lot, of joy not of sadness of course! I started crying seeing him like that, it was the best gift he could have given me. He told me that was the best gift you could have ever have offered her and I think he is the right person who could have told me that. But it was a big relief, I told the producer that now it’s ok if the film is a huge failure, I don’t care, he liked it and that’s enough for me.

How important was it to you as a director to bring your own unique touch to the film but stay loyal to the original stories as well?

It was quite hard, it took time to own the film because I was so stuck between Daniel Pennac, who is the famous screen writer behind the film and Gabrielle, and actually I took what I loved most in the film and made it bigger. Some parts of the film were not so important in the script and because I liked them I made them bigger and more important, so it could be more like me. I felt that this film was personal and I was learning a lot of things doing it.

The main theme of the film is prejudice – that of two people that society says can’t be together. Was it quite difficult to tackle quite a severe theme like prejudice but make it accessible to a younger audience?

I think the screen writer did such a good job with the script that we didn’t really have to think about it. The screen writer was actually reading the script in front of an audience, and mostly children, and it was working really well so we knew his choice was working. So yes it is always hard but as I told you before, I think I understand the film because I am still a child in my mind. If I can understand the film, then children can too.

There was a great vocal acting performance from Lambert Wilson, you must have been thrilled to have him on board?

Yes he was fantastic, he impressed me so much when I met him but I learned a lot working with him. The first time we met I was very impressed and I didn’t know how to talk with the actors but he was always trying to be the best and understand everything, and at the end of the film when we finished the animation and the backgrounds and everything, he dubbed the film for the final touch and there it was much more comfortable for all of us and we started working together and he still continued to bring new things with his acting skills. He was a very impressive actor because he was always moving when he was doing the scene, imitating what the characters he was doing, if he was eating he was “on nom nom” all the time, it was crazy.

The film has a very French atmosphere to it I find, but it seems to be influenced by Studio Ghibli, are you a fan at all?

I am a big fan of Ghibli films, they just have something I really love and they are all artistic films so we wanted to have something not too similar, but you know we watched how they worked and we tried to put the best of what they did into Ernest and Celestine. It’s always a very minimalistic animation, it’s not always moving, and we had very charismatic characters, so Spirited Away was a very big influence for me because of the story of the little girl and I watched it 1000 times just to impersonate.

I was just wandering what’s next for you now and if you are going to remain in animation or if you can see yourself moving into live action?

Yeah actually I’m slowly thinking about going to live action but mixing with animation. I have ideas for projects like that but for now it’s not yet ready so I can’t really talk about it – but I would love to try live action just because I think there are so many beautiful films you can do. One day maybe.

Ernest and Celestine Film Page | Ernest and Celestine Review

ERNEST AND CELESTINE IS PLAYING EXCLUSIVELY AT CINE LUMIERE AND COMES TO DVD ON MAY 27