This film tells the story of a man seeking inspiration in the creation of a fragrance. During his creative process, he looks at objects surrounding him in his office and remembers moments of his youth travelling in the summer. These memories collide with dreams and drive him through his creative process. At the end of the film, he finishes a drawing that symbolises the idea he’s been searching for along the film.
To tell a story of dreams and how they can intertwine we wanted to express the idea of an object reminding us of a childhood memory and how this can merge with other memories or dreams. Our minds are not necessarily linear and sometimes, it feels like many years of our childhood (or many summers) can merge into one single memory. This is why the edit is so surprising (at least we hope) but always keeping linking elements between one shot and the following. Objects in our protagonist’s office are just like the madeleine cakes in the famous French literature of Proust bringing him back far in his memories.
We specialise in hand-drawn animation and we wanted an ink on paper look with hand painted backgrounds. All colours were carefully crafted by Edwige Stoll, our art director, in collaboration with Gwenn Germain. The work on the colours was a huge part of this project and we are very proud (which we don’t often say) of the result here. The paper look and the black & white put emphasis on the hand-drawn craft, leaving its print in the project. We hope it helps the audience realise how much is done by hand here. The black & white also echoes the very refined look of the black & white labels we can see in the general world of Diptyque.
