CIAV - Christmas bauble kaktus

The Meisenthal glassworks, founded in 1704 in the Northern Vosges, was a laboratory where Emile Gallé worked, giving the region the status of “birthplace of Art Nouveau glass.”

After decades of production, the factory closed in 1969.

In 1992, the International Center for Glass Art (Centre International d'Art Verrier - CIAV) was created to preserve the company's technical memory and reintegrate traditional glassmaking into its era, by combining craftsmanship, industry, and contemporary creation.

Since then, the CIAV has confronted ancestral gestures with contemporary questions, and in 1999 launched a “Christmas baubles” editorial line.

Each year, traditional models are joined by contemporary baubles, designed by artists invited to revisit tradition. We were asked to produce the trailer announcing the new 2024 bauble.

Concept

The 2024 bauble is called Kaktus and is inspired by the design of a cactus flower. It represents the idea of a futuristic Christmas, where snow has disappeared and cactuses have replaced fir trees. Yann Grienenberger and Nathalie Nierengarten imagined a large house that we would travel through with a tracking shot, following a growing cactus all the way, before seeing a Christmas bauble blossom in the hands of its creator, Mark Braun.

The tone should not be heavy, but festive. To achieve this, we chose warm illustrations accompanied by a cover of the Mexican version of “O Christmas Tree.” After an initial moodboard, we decided to work with Olivier Bonhomme's style.

Illustration

Olivier Bonhomme's art direction can be complicated to animate. So we had to define what could and couldn't be done, and establish a workflow to ensure efficiency and get the optimum result.

Usually, the illustrator creates the boards, then the animator reworks them to be able to animate them.

In this case, we worked closely together to recreate his style in 3D, using Redshift's new Toon Shader on Cinema4D. Once the style had been defined, all that remained was to apply it to all the elements, making it easier to integrate certain pre-animated 2D elements without any noticeable differences.

Animation

Defining a style in the beginning allowed us to create precise animatics. We were also able to identify potential problems with the Toon Shader that could cause Motion Sickness.

For the cactus flowering, we opted for a clone with a field and pre-animations of flower blossoms. As this process is very complex, we had to optimize it to avoid unexpected crashes. This was achieved with Taiao from Insydium.

The character was rigged and animated on Moho. The challenge was to synchronize his 2D movements with the 3D scenery, a meticulous task if we were to integrate him correctly into the background.

Finally, compositing was carried out on After Effects to create a sunrise, accentuate lighting effects, and achieve a fluid transition between the illustrated ball and the real one.

It's a more complicated project than it looks. There were a lot of technical and artistic challenges involved in achieving a coherent graphic unity. We also had to work on the rhythm to avoid boredom during the tracking shot, and add a little suspense to the reveal of this new CIAV Meisenthal Christmas bauble.

We'd like to thank Yann and Nathalie for their attention and trust, and hope that this bauble will decorate as many Christmas trees (or cacti) as possible this year.

Thank you for watching!

Client: International Center for Glass Art

Date: November 2024

Project Management: Yann Grienenberger

Artistic Project Management: Nathalie Nierengarten

Christmas Ball Design: Mark Braun (D)

Art Direction - Illustration: Olivier Bonhomme

Animation - Production: Adrien Boutin

Graphic Design: Stéphane Riedinger

Music: Guillaume Zenses