one of the scriptwriters of Ratatouille is shooting a film in Saint-Péray

The film is shot in Stop Motion, ie with puppet characters that the animators move and film second by second in real sets. Everything is made entirely in the Ardèche studios of Foliascope, behind the facade of an ordinary hangar in a commercial area.

It took a year, for example, to make the 140 characters for the film. You won’t see too many of them pictured here, they are protected. They hold in the hand: latex or silicone bodies, cotton hair, mounted on articulated metal skeletons: “it’s goldsmith-jewelry” explains Ilan Urroz, director of Foliascope studios, “the characters must be able to move like you and me. We must be able to move their index finger, then their heel to animate them. So we build a skeleton made up of ball joints, balls, joints, etc…and it he has to last a year of filming where we put him to the test.” The arms are so fragile that 1,200 pairs had to be made to manage the breakage. 1,200 pairs of eyes too, eyes open, eyes closed. There are tall shelves filled with boxes containing all of these neatly categorized items.

The same concern for precision is brought to the sets, to the machines invented by Leonardo da Vinci, and reconstituted into models by Dassault engineers. Everything is then positioned and operated manually on the film set by the animators.

In a corridor, several film sets are lined up behind black curtains. Silence, animators need concentration, explains Foliascope director Ilan Urroz: “It’s quite a complex job since you have to give expression to a movement, change the eyes, change the mouths, synchronize with the voices that are already recorded and that they listen to in the headphones. They have to do 4 seconds of animation per day.” As several sets are running simultaneously, the studio manages to record 40 seconds of film in total per day.

The feature film must be 82 minutes long. Filming ends in December. Then there is post-production. The Inventor, or Leo in the French version, will be released in the fall of 2023 in the United States, in early 2024 in France.

Why does Jim Capobianco film in Ardèche?

Jim Capobianco heard about Foliascope from another studio in Ireland that had worked with Folimage. A small world. This American director has collaborated with Disney, with Pixar. He co-wrote Ratatouille, also worked on writing The Lion King, among other projects. But for The Inventor
it needed another structure: “In the United States, animation is more oriented towards big productions. Here, we are on a really independent film. And I think it makes sense that we are making it in France. The film is about Leonardo da Vinci , when he moved to France. We are here near Lyon, where he passed when he arrived from Italy.”

This film on Leonardo da Vinci, Jim Capobianco has had it in his head for 10 years. He has already made a short film of it: “what attracted me to him is that he is an artist, and also his inventions. I thought that it would appeal to children and that it could inspire people, that they set themselves challenges, make their own inventions, realize their potential!”

Jim Capobianco is very present in the Foliascope studios in Saint-Péray: “everyone is adorable, I’m impressed by the people here in Ardèche. And especially by the studio, it’s a magical place.” But he also relies on the Valentinois Pierre-Luc Granjon, who co-directed this film with him: “The challenge is to live up to Jim’s expectations. But hey, I’ve been on the project for two years now, so we’re well established and we’re working together!”

The Inventor, Leo, is an independent film, but it still has a budget of 10 million euros. Some images are available at the movie’s official website.