Sylvain Chomet, the director of this fantastic animated film, gives us his thoughts on this film, ranging from his favorite scene to the music he chose.
His favorite scene involves the big luxury liner and the mom on the raft following it in a rainstorm. The music in that scene was from Mozart.
We see how some of the sound effects were made (hint: a vacuum cleaner) and how important the expressions were to the characters, which is understandable since there is very little dialog in the movie.
Since they were working eight hours a day, five days a week for two years on this animated film, Chomet thought it would be better if people involved put themselves as one of the characters. Thus, the animator Hughes Martel is assigned the character "Blanche." By acting out the exaggerations of a movement, such as throwing her long braids aside, he can better draw the character, he claims.
Evegeni Tomov, the film's art designer, said the fictional city of Belleville was a combination of New York, Paris and Montreal, and then exaggerated (like the characters). It was pictured as an affluent city which is why you see so many obese characters. His skyscrapers, by the way, are incredible.
Much of animation is exaggeration and always has been, as I recall Tex Avery saying something like that in discussing his great work in the 1940s and 1950s on Looney Tunes cartoons.
Chomet is not always easy to understand with his French accent, but you could get enough to figure out what he's saying. Most of the people in this film - plus the fat dog - are ones he knows.....with exaggerations, of course!
Watching this bonus feature from "The Triplets Of Belleville" DVD just reminded how fantastic the artwork was in here. This is a stunning piece of work.