Mélanie Daigle
Animation Director, Peanuts Series DHX Media
Animation director Mélanie Daigle remembers being laughed at during one of her internship interviews for being in an animation program (at Sheridan College) that was still teaching animation on paper. “I feel very fortunate that I got my start in animation during the notorious slow years after the recession,” she says. “I graduated from Sheridan’s classical animation program in 2010 and got my first animation job after meeting studio representatives on our industry day!”
The studio that took a chance on the young French-Canadian native was Nelvana in Toronto. She recalls, “I learned Toon Boom Harmony on the job, and I’ve been applying, adapting, and refining those same classical animation skills in that software ever since.”
After working on the My Little Pony feature, Daigle is currently directing a new DHX Media series featuring Charles M. Schulz’s beloved Peanuts characters.
“Having grown up as a French-Canadian kid in the small village of Saint-Louis-de-Kent on the east coast of New Brunswick, most of the humor of Peanuts flew right over my head,” she admits. “It wasn’t until I was in college and re-examined A Charlie Brown Christmas more closely that I started to grasp its genius. Pulling together reference over the past few months, and analyzing what’s been done before to create a style guide for our animation team, has made my inner nerd so happy!
Daigle says doing justice to the world of Schulz and animation icon Bill Melendez has been her team’s biggest challenge. “Not only are we
dealing with tricky models that were influenced more by cartooning than by the usual animation conventions, but they also have such a distinctive way of moving. Not to mention that we’re adapting a property that’s so well known for its classical paper animation into a completely digital medium! It’s definitely, in the best way, the most humbling project I’ve been involved with.”
A major fan of Disney’s Nine Old Men, Daigle says her biggest joy has always been animating. “There’s something so magical and satisfying about getting completely lost in a character, and figuring out how to deliver the most genuine performance possible,” admits the 31-year old. “It’s something I don’t want to stray too far away from. That said, I’m definitely feeling the itch to further develop my voice, and I’m becoming more and more interested and passionate about content. Years of animating female characters that were developed under male direction eventually gets to you!”