At the School of New Images, the animated design of the creative villa – Liberation

In Avignon, The creative villa proposes to confront scientific, educational and artistic knowledge to create new knowledge. An event that Release is a partner.

Take the metal staircase, unpack the boxes under the fully redeveloped attic of the creative villa, enjoy the garden, all this will be for this summer … In this month, the director of the School of New Images spends most of his time in the studio, with last year students in animation cinema. They put the last hand to their diploma films, a real grail to start in the profession. The previous promotions opened a royal track, with short films like Off -plying Or Under the ice who won prices in Los Angeles. « In seven years, we have won more than 500 international awards, we are the most awarded school in the world », Rejoices Julien Deparis, managing director of the establishment who has 260 students, trained over five years in the animation and video game professions.

No arrogance in the voice and in these words, only the pride of a path started in 2017 With the desire to « Doing things differently ». First of all in the choice of the structure, associative, which implies parents of students and affirms in its values, far from all mercantilism, the « transparency », there « trust » Between learners and the teaching team. « It is a creation school: animation cinema, video games, are a collective work, it is very important that students understand and live it. » The choice « From a city on a human scale » participle of this framework. And Avignon, with his festival, makes sense: « When we create animation, we are very close to the theatrical staging », advance Julien Deparis. At his side, a tight team of permanents, and a hundred professional speakers, who « Also guarantee a watch on the evolution of studios and working methods » In a sector subject to strong technical accelerations and economic pressures.

Loïc Etienne, studio director at Circus, specializing in 3F and VFX animation – to whom we owe the series Lego City Adventures – is part of the final jury every year. « I am the students from the third year, in their individual and collective projects, he explains. There is a soul in this school, they make an incredible cultural background by also forming them with sculpture, poetry, the history of the arts. ” Founded in Paris, the studio is the first to have chosen to settle in Avignon, near the school. For the dynamics at work on the territory, whose creative villa is going to be, he says, « The totem, the bridgehead ». « Where the studios don’t talk to each other, we wanted to do the opposite here. The idea is to build an entire ecosystem that makes sense. ”

And Julien is to continue: « We share a vision that they find it difficult to find in other territories. » That of a building that is built is developing and secured « Hand in hand » around a private school, a university, studios and partner institutions « Fluids ». This is how Grand Avignon and Vaucluse Provence Attractiveness rents a whole floor of the creative villa – or 800 m² of premises – to creative and cultural industries.

Chromatik, a Marseille studio manufacturing 2D and 3D cartoons, decided to take the plunge and come to settle there, like a dozen other announced. « The place is promising, says Mathieu Morfin, one of its founders. This is the first time that everything has been gathered in a place to make a real animation center. There is bound to be a little competition, but within our professional association Sudanim we try to keep a healthy, transparent competition, and to put a balance in place. And there is a lot of complementarity. ”

On the school side, proximity to studios is a real added value. As well as that with the campus, which will result in the registration in parallel of students at university. They can thus be graduated from a professional license or a master’s degree, and also benefit from the Crous. Not to mention, for example, the coming research on a data center driver operating with green hydrogen and solar energy, for a « Ecological transition » of the sector. « We are working on an animation festival, with professional meetings », Announcement also Loïc Etienne. The desire, in Avignon, is in any case collective.