My name is Lola Khattou. I'm 18 and a student in prep year at EMCA in Angoulême. I would like to attend the Character Animation program at the Animation Workshop.
I applied to the same program last year, while I was still in high school. I had no art class experience back then, but already had a strong interest for storytelling and art that I experimented with though various artistic mediums: I co-wrote and acted in live action films, learnt how to conduct a soundpainting choir, made and printed an illustrated storybook, participated in online writing projects, went to band camps... trying to learn everything I could independently gave me leadership experience from a very young age. This diversity of interests is what crafted most of my professional influences: instead of just being inspired by my fellow animation artists, I keep my mind wide open to writers (my favourite book I read this year is Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, a collection of science fiction shorts that each takes one scientific fact and builds a story around it), art history (currently going through my "dreary landscape" phase, Arnold Böcklin, Caspar D Friedrich and all that...), and even fashion designers or architects.
This year at EMCA, I could finally organize all of these ideas and link them to concrete animation projects. I was taught the basics of most animation fields: stop motion, design, compositing, traditional 2D animation... I'm now familiar with the following softwares: Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere and Flash, TVPaint, Dragonframe, Paint Tool Sai, and Autodesk Maya (modeling, animating, and a little bit of rendering). But most importantly I met students and professionals who I could talk about animation with, giving me new insights on my projects and my views on animation.
I could compare the different ways of organizing a production for an animation project, from listening to stories by teachers who worked in the industry or upperclassmen who worked on short films, and I now think I want to work on a production with a small storytelling focused team, when the line between director, storyboarder, art director, character designer... is thin, and everyone takes part in the storytelling. My dream would be to direct my own TV show, without loosing sight of my varied influences and experiments.
My favourite works are those that focus on clear storytelling yet are daring and unique when it comes to the aesthetics and story elements they use. To quote a movie, a comic book and a game that, on top of being some of my favourites, reflect exactly what I want to do with my own art:
Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horrors, a funny and efficient musical that isn't afraid to put on a show with kitschy aesthetics and the beautifully animated plant-puppet. Having experimented with music and drama, I'm really drawn to well directed musicals like Dancer in the Dark, or theatre-inspired staging like Kurosawa's Macbeth, Throne of Blood, and when both meet in movies like Chicago, I'm delighted.
Paul Pope's comic Heavy Liquid has a very inspiring dynamic art style, but what I especially love about it is the originality of the science fiction elements, that are possibly inspired by the author's city life instead of usual science fiction imagery. I love unique science fiction designs: one of my favourite animated series is Kaiba by Masaaki Yuasa which uses simple and colorful shapes for all of the props in its sci-fi world instead of complicated machines.
The video game franchise Ace Attorney has a really interesting story structure where you solve murders in trials, that combines funny moments and suspense. This series has some of my favourite climaxes and crime story characters, even though it uses absurd and ludicrous elements that clash with the usual crime story seriousness.
With this mindset, I wouldn't say that I have least favourites works, but I do have examples of things I know not to do: for instance, what happened in the past few years to science fiction franchises like Star Trek or Doctor Who which, for the sake of getting rid of "outdated" aesthetics and effects, lost track of their own unique universe and history to form some kind of muddy generic genre, both story-wise and art-wise.
After this year at EMCA that really solidified what I knew about animation, I'm applying to the Animation Workshop because of its acting and character oriented courses. No matter how broad and different your intentions and influences are, they will appear messy in a movie if the story, as told by the characters, isn't clear. From talking to students of different schools, the Animation Workshop offers classes that would really help me improve my character skills. I also want to go to a school that is more international, because I want to work abroad. While I never studied outside of France, and haven't traveled a lot, i've tried my best to make all of my travels meaningful and enriching. When it comes to lifestyle I love to be pushed fast and hard out of my comfort zone, so I'm looking forwards to the experience of studying far away. This year, my family supported me for my housing while I paid for food and other expenses by doing little art jobs like working as a line artist for comic books. It will surely be the same next year.
I'm determined to work hard in your school to improve my technical animation skills. I'm also convinced I will come across new mindsets and influences among the people in Viborg. I hope i get the opportunity to do so.
Thank you for your consideration,
Lola Khattou.
I applied to the same program last year, while I was still in high school. I had no art class experience back then, but already had a strong interest for storytelling and art that I experimented with though various artistic mediums: I co-wrote and acted in live action films, learnt how to conduct a soundpainting choir, made and printed an illustrated storybook, participated in online writing projects, went to band camps... trying to learn everything I could independently gave me leadership experience from a very young age. This diversity of interests is what crafted most of my professional influences: instead of just being inspired by my fellow animation artists, I keep my mind wide open to writers (my favourite book I read this year is Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, a collection of science fiction shorts that each takes one scientific fact and builds a story around it), art history (currently going through my "dreary landscape" phase, Arnold Böcklin, Caspar D Friedrich and all that...), and even fashion designers or architects.
This year at EMCA, I could finally organize all of these ideas and link them to concrete animation projects. I was taught the basics of most animation fields: stop motion, design, compositing, traditional 2D animation... I'm now familiar with the following softwares: Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere and Flash, TVPaint, Dragonframe, Paint Tool Sai, and Autodesk Maya (modeling, animating, and a little bit of rendering). But most importantly I met students and professionals who I could talk about animation with, giving me new insights on my projects and my views on animation.
I could compare the different ways of organizing a production for an animation project, from listening to stories by teachers who worked in the industry or upperclassmen who worked on short films, and I now think I want to work on a production with a small storytelling focused team, when the line between director, storyboarder, art director, character designer... is thin, and everyone takes part in the storytelling. My dream would be to direct my own TV show, without loosing sight of my varied influences and experiments.
My favourite works are those that focus on clear storytelling yet are daring and unique when it comes to the aesthetics and story elements they use. To quote a movie, a comic book and a game that, on top of being some of my favourites, reflect exactly what I want to do with my own art:
Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horrors, a funny and efficient musical that isn't afraid to put on a show with kitschy aesthetics and the beautifully animated plant-puppet. Having experimented with music and drama, I'm really drawn to well directed musicals like Dancer in the Dark, or theatre-inspired staging like Kurosawa's Macbeth, Throne of Blood, and when both meet in movies like Chicago, I'm delighted.
Paul Pope's comic Heavy Liquid has a very inspiring dynamic art style, but what I especially love about it is the originality of the science fiction elements, that are possibly inspired by the author's city life instead of usual science fiction imagery. I love unique science fiction designs: one of my favourite animated series is Kaiba by Masaaki Yuasa which uses simple and colorful shapes for all of the props in its sci-fi world instead of complicated machines.
The video game franchise Ace Attorney has a really interesting story structure where you solve murders in trials, that combines funny moments and suspense. This series has some of my favourite climaxes and crime story characters, even though it uses absurd and ludicrous elements that clash with the usual crime story seriousness.
With this mindset, I wouldn't say that I have least favourites works, but I do have examples of things I know not to do: for instance, what happened in the past few years to science fiction franchises like Star Trek or Doctor Who which, for the sake of getting rid of "outdated" aesthetics and effects, lost track of their own unique universe and history to form some kind of muddy generic genre, both story-wise and art-wise.
After this year at EMCA that really solidified what I knew about animation, I'm applying to the Animation Workshop because of its acting and character oriented courses. No matter how broad and different your intentions and influences are, they will appear messy in a movie if the story, as told by the characters, isn't clear. From talking to students of different schools, the Animation Workshop offers classes that would really help me improve my character skills. I also want to go to a school that is more international, because I want to work abroad. While I never studied outside of France, and haven't traveled a lot, i've tried my best to make all of my travels meaningful and enriching. When it comes to lifestyle I love to be pushed fast and hard out of my comfort zone, so I'm looking forwards to the experience of studying far away. This year, my family supported me for my housing while I paid for food and other expenses by doing little art jobs like working as a line artist for comic books. It will surely be the same next year.
I'm determined to work hard in your school to improve my technical animation skills. I'm also convinced I will come across new mindsets and influences among the people in Viborg. I hope i get the opportunity to do so.
Thank you for your consideration,
Lola Khattou.
