Mind Games: Interview with author/animator/visual artist Nicolas Fong

From clips to visual tricks, from features to shorts, Nicolas Fong has done it all, and longs for more. An interview made back in 2022, at Anima Festival.

During Anima 2022, I had the chance to many and more interviews with Belgian animation professionals. As animators are notably very talkative people, interviews can sometimes be a bit tricky, especially when they’re conducted in front of a camera.

Such was the case back in 2022, when I did those profiles for Cinergie, but Nicolas Fong proved to be a wonderful guest and very interesting one. It was a real pleasure to conduct this thorough interview on his career, focusing on his short film Yin, and many other aspects of his numerous works.

For five years already, Nicolas Fong had been deploying his psychedelic images on the screens of the Anima festival, for which he created the poster back in 2017. As he continued to develop his projects between inspirations from the past and modern techniques of animation, we met him for a look back on his career.

For the French speakers, you can discover the original interview below, edited by the wonderful Vinnie Ky-Maka.

The full interview in English can be found below, along with video clips and images from Nicolas Fong’s contributions to the Belgian animation industry.

Enjoy!

What made you want to become an animator and filmmaker in the first place?

At the time, I was studying graphic design in Paris, and I had the opportunity to visit the Forum des Images, and their animation rendez-vous. Dedicated presentations, led by a director, showcasing their favorite films while talking about their own career and ways of working. This is where my passion was born. Graphic design is mostly about frozen images, which left me with a certain frustration. I wanted to tell stories, and it was in animated cinema that I found this possibility. After my graphic design studies, I enrolled at La Cambre, here in Brussels.

Fong’s student film Junk Food (2005) is available on Vimeo, and I will surely dedicate a future post on it!

What drove you to animation, in terms of artists? What were your inspirations?

It was with Paul Driessen’s films that I convinced myself that doing animation was possible for me. Not that they were simple, on the contrary, but his approach seemed within my reach, and corresponded to what I was looking for.

In terms of influence, I would also cite his work on Yellow Submarine, and this whole vein of psychedelic animation from the 70s. Akira is also one of my inspirations, as much the film as the manga for that matter.

In terms of comics, the work of Patrice Killoffer and Chris Ware are also major influences. Of course, this list is not exhaustive and it is still evolving today as I discover more.

The book of Life, Chris Ware (2022)

Your first steps as a professionnal were on strong films and series such as Le Tableau or Les mystérieuses cités d’or, how did you feel about joining the industry at that moment?

Just after my studies, I was approached by a French animation company to work in Flash. It was an experience that I had already had as a student on the film Peur(s) du noir (2007) and this company - Blue Spirit - therefore hired me as a cut-out animator. We were then trained with my colleagues in 3D animation to work on season 2 of the 2012 version of Les mystérieuses cités d'or, and on certain parts of the feature Le Tableau by Jean-François Laguionie.

Peur(s) du noir (2007) is one of France’s most interesting animation feature. A short film anthology, it has now sadly become hard to find online and in physical format.

Afterwards, the company relocated to Montreal, and I did not accompany them. Mainly because working on series no longer interested me, or at least did not justify moving so far away. But I also made this choice because I wanted to develop my own projects. Working on a series - even if it a very good ways to learn the tricks of the trade - there was a need for production and a repetitive way of working which no longer suited me at the time. I am happy to have been able to get out of it to test other things.

Your first projects had a lot to do with music…

Quite. It started my career as an independent animator with commissions for clips, and I still like working with music to add my visual universe. To be honest, I still suffer from the blank page anxiety, and starting from nothing can be complicated. Having a sound dimension which already provides raw material, it is easier for me to integrate my images and try to create a match, a new world.

And I have been trusted several times in such projects, which is always very motivating when you start out as an independent animator.

Back in 2017, you directed your first short film Yin. Can you tell me more about this project?

As a teenager, I wrote a comic strip about characters who were behind the creation of the world as we know it. They each lived in universes derived from different religious imagery, and two of them, Yin and Yang, were inspired by Shintoism.

This story stayed in my closet until I left Blue Spirit, and it seemed to me that it was the right time to propose this project to producers and transform it into an animated film. Things led to another, and among the different people I met, it was atelier Zorobabel who suggested that I submit an application to their START grant, intended to finance a first auteur film.

They liked the project, and we started collaborating.

Between my teenage comic book and the final film, the story has changed somewhat to talk about the couple and their questions, but we remain on a framework of world creation, with an aesthetic inspired by numerous religious and mythologies. Regarding technique, the film is entirely animated in 2D with Flash, a software to which I have remained faithful.

Discover the full film at the end of the interview.

And at the same time, you developed a certain fascination for visual games, and especially the phenakistiscope?

When I was working on Yin, I also had another storyline in the works. This one was centered around reincarnation, where the character met a whole series of haloed deities in the style of Russian icons, with large golden circles on their backs. This is where the idea came from to animate them using the phenakistiscope process, one of the ancestors of animated cinema invented by the Belgian Joseph Plateau in the 1832.

It’s fascinating to me how an entire animation can be present in a single still image, which comes to life when it is set in motion.

It has almost become a fad. Back when I started doing these experiments, the Anima Festival asked me to create their poster, so I submitted a phénakistiscope project which they accepted. Since then, I have adapted their posters every year using this same technique.

Adapting someone else's graphic universe, as far as I'm concerned, is really part of the job of an animator. Being able to be a chameleon, and adapt to the graphics given for a particular feature film or short film, is an integral part of our job.

And I do that by putting my added value as an animator, but erasing — for that purpose — the specificity that characterizes me as an author.

Since then, you’ve expanded this technique to other collaborations, most notably with koRn.

Indeed. For this project, koRn’s video manager contacted me after discovering Yin, whose universe he really liked. It seemed to him that it could match the DNA of the group.

For my part, I was quite surprised, I didn't think the group still existed!

Having been a fan during my adolescence, it was a bit of an unspoken dream, so I accepted and it was a great project. Quite trying, due to very tight deadlines, but a great experience. On the other hand, I saw little of the sun that summer!

What projects are you currently developing?

I am creating a small film, self-produced, without really a script. More like a succession of shots where each shot is a different hug. A project that has taken on even more meaning with the pandemic we have just experienced. Besides that, I am working on my project around reincarnation, which I would like to put into images but this time using a giant phenakistiscope. More to follow.

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You can discover more of Nicolas Fong’s work on his Instagram, and Yin is available below.

It as impressive film with striking aesthetics, and deserves every second of your time.

On my part, I’ll go back on working on next week’s article, which will mark this project’s first anniversary! A special treat is in order, and I’ll make sure to provide a very unique article.

If you have any requests / topics that might interest you and the readers, feel free to share them! Animation is about community, and that means you as well.

Have a great animated weekend <3

Kevin