Hand-painted film vies for Oscar
GDANSK, Pologne — Vying for an Oscar, Loving Vincent is the world’s first animated feature film painted by hand — all 65,000 frames — in the distinct style of Vincent van Gogh.
Centered on a probe into the Dutch artist’s suicide, the film was shot on a shoestring budget of $5.5 million. That is 30 times less than Disney’s Coco, one of the film’s four Oscar rivals.
For director Dorota Kobiela, Loving Vincent has been a seven-year labor of love combining her twin passions of cinema and painting.
“Van Gogh’s style was perfect for the project; his paintings show all the details of his life, his day-to-day habits, his house, his room, his friends,” Kobiela said ahead of Sunday’s Oscar ceremonies in Los Angeles. Hugh Welchman, co-director of Loving Vincent
Kobiela and co-director Hugh Welchman already have one Oscar to their credit. Their BreakThru Productions film company won an Academy Award in 2008 for the animated short Peter and the Wolf, based on the story and music by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev.
“We are the underdogs! In our category it’s normally dominated by Disney and Pixar but I have a feeling we might be one of the big upsets this year,” said Welchman, who is also Kobiela’s husband.
After five years of pre-production, it took another two years for 125 artists from around the globe to bring the opus to life under Kobiela’s watchful eye.
Working in a massive studio in Poland’s Baltic port city of Gdansk, they based their oil paintings on scenes initial- ly shot on film with actors.
The film includes representations of van Gogh’s most famous paintings such as The Starry Night.
Van Gogh, known for his bold colors and rough, vibrant painting style, is considered one of the most revolutionary artists of the 19th century. Painting the 93-minute-long movie was a painstaking task.
“The pace of work was very slow, averaging a quarter of a second of the film a day,” said Kobiela, who spent seven years on the project.
A single second of the film represents an average of 12 hand-painted frames.
Each artist completed an average of six paintings a day, amounting to a half-second of the film for simple scenes.
We are the underdogs! In our category it’s normally dominated by Disney and Pixar but I have a feeling we might be one of the big upsets this year.”