Illustrating and inventing

I was asked to do animated sequences on film for Les mystères de la planète, hosted by Jean-Louis Millette. I used a rudimentary projector with a hand-operated control for feeding the drawings one at a time. This let me sync the images with the narration, which was important since everything was done live on air. Françoys Bernier, for whom I had illustrated Prokofiev’s The Ugly Duckling, suggested I do something on Jacques Ibert’s Divertissement. Producer Pierre Mercure asked me to illustrate Michel Perrault’s Fête et parade to be broadcast on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, Quebec’s national holiday, which was very well received.

Fernand Séguin commissioned some animated sequences for two series, La joie de connaître and La science en pantoufles, to explain scientific discoveries in a light-hearted way. Françoys Bernier asked me to do an animated film to accompany Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche—8½ minutes of animation, completed in three weeks of sleepless insanity, with a Bolex camera attached to a heating pipe and a board laid across the radiator as my animation stand. Françoys Bernier also asked me to do some drawings for The Soldier’s Tale by Ramuz and Stravinsky, directed by Jean Doat with the mime Marcel Marceau, as well as some special effects for L’enfant et les sortilèges by Ravel and Colette. I was doing Le grenier aux images every week and had commissions for television plays and L’heure du concert/The Concert Hour, so there were always interesting subjects to illustrate and new processes to invent, but the pace was hellish.

Les mystères de la planète (Illustrator section)
The Ugly Duckling (Illustrator section)
Divertissement (Illustrator section)
Fête et parade (Illustrator section)
Scaramouche (Illustrator section)
Le grenier aux images (Illustrator section)
The Concert Hour (Illustrator section)