Director Momoko Seto presented her first feature film this Friday morning, produced by Miyu Productions, Planets. The journey of four dandelion seeds to find a new and less hostile land. All in a unique mix of 3D animation and live action, with real plants and real animals inside.
To depict her imaginary world, the director decided to use settings that could not be more real. Mixing the macro, with images shot in Iceland, at the micro, based on plants, insects, mushrooms and other mosses filmed up close, it composes an original, incredible universe, naturally mixing 3D animation (especially for the achenes who are the real heroes of the film each with their own personality) and real shooting.
This astonishing project, which is reminiscent, in some ways, of stop motion, required the installation of all specific equipment where drones, timelapses, arms of the automobile industry reassigned to film shooting and miniature cameras meet, to name but a few. just a few pieces of equipment. It was also necessary to rent a castle in Burgundy to install in the orangery all the plants to grow and film according to the seasons. Added to this is a whole bestiary where we come across slugs, frogs, tadpoles, grasshoppers and other praying mantises and butterflies. A titanic work of which Miyu’s production director, Tanguy Olivier, and post-production director, Franck Malmin, explained the details alongside Momoko Seto.
And to avoid a purely technical or experimental film, the director surrounded herself with screenwriter Alain Layrac to help her compose her story – a sort of road movie of survival – and Nicolas Becker, recently an Oscar winner for his sound design work. In Sound of Metalto musical composition.
Scheduled for 2025, Planets, which brings together 400 teras of filmed material, took a little over four years to make. It is produced by Miyu Productions, in co-production with uMedia and Ecce Films, will be distributed by Gebeka Films and sold internationally by Indie Sales.
