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TV/Streaming Technical Difficulties: The “Automated Customer Service” episode of Love, Death + Robots was directed by Meat Dept. and produced by Atoll Studio.
Sophisticated Snapshots The second season of Netflix’s adult animation anthology Love Death + Robots delivers eight futuristic, animated gems. By Trevor Hogg
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ast month, adult animation fans celebrated the arrival of Season 2 of Netflix’s muchheralded anthology series Love Death + Robots. Created by Tim Miller (Deadpool) and exec producer David Fincher (The Social Network, Mank), the sophomore season of the five-time Emmy-winning series also features the talents of supervising director Jennifer Yuh Nelson (Kung Fu Panda 2). This year’s eight shorts range from a comical depiction of robot assistants in an assisted living community in Automated Customer Service to a look at the ethical consequences of population control through systematic extermination in Pop Squad. “Love Death + Robots is an anthology of animated short stories done by studios around the world,” notes Jerome Denjean (League of Gods), who returns as the production’s visual effects supervisor. “I have been working at Blur Studio for 19 years and have done a lot of game cinematics, commercials and visual effects; however, Love Death + Robots is unique in that it showcases the work of not only Blur Studio but also a lot of companies that used to be our competitors.” He believes the anthology offers the perfect opportunity for younger studios to showcase something audiences would normally not see
from bigger animation houses working on family features. “We had around 13 studios from nine countries work on Season 1,” he notes. “This time we have returning companies, like Passion Pictures, Unit Image or Axis Studios; but we’ve made new friends by working with Atoll Studio in France. We also have our first stop-motion animation short, All Through the House, which was made by Blink Industries in London.”
Talented Trio In regards to the approaches and attitudes of Fincher, Miller and Yuh Nelson, Denjean praises the trio for their relentless passion for the art form and the stories they’ve selected to tell. “All three are extremely curious people who are also passionate about all forms of animation,” he offers. “The mandate for this show has always been to show people the different ways animation can be used to tell great stories for adults. I hate the term adult animation because people tend to think there’s going to be mostly nudity, crass humor or graphic violence. We want to tell stories that appeal to adults in the same way Tim’s or David’s films resonate more with adults. Animation truly gives you endless possibilities in that regard, and the goal has always been to show as many facets to it as we can.”
The new season showcases contributions from Miller, Yuh Nelson, Alex Beaty, Robert Valley, Simon Otto, Meat Dept, Elliot Dear and Leon Berelle, Dominique Boidin, Remi Kozyra and Maxime Luere. “I was involved early on during pre-production, before most companies or directors were chosen,” reveals Denjean. “Tim Miller chooses all of the stories, supervises the writing of every script, and there is a lot of them by now. Each season starts as this enormous puzzle where we stand in front of a wall of possible stories, and have to match them with directors, companies and animation styles. It’s a lot more difficult than you would think!” According to the VFX supe, every animation studio was free to use their own pipeline. “Each one of them is working on a full episode and nobody needs to share assets, so as long as they deliver beautiful frames in the end, I certainly don’t want to get in the way of how they rendered them. We take care of the final sound and final coloring, but otherwise I only want to discuss visuals, regardless of how all these companies got there.”
Long-Distance Collaborations Along with having to come up with stories and animation styles that were going to sur-
www.animationmagazine.net 46 june|julyy 21
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