“Samuel”, an animated series for children

“Samuel”: This 2D animated series about childhood is a real phenomenon

The short series “Samuel” immerses us in the childhood of a little boy full of vicissitudes.

“Samuel” is a short series of 21 episodes created by Émilie Tronche. This creation narrates the daily life of a CM2 schoolboy named Samuel. Between the joys and misfortunes of childhood, this 2D animated series immerses us in the diary of a little boy who will soon be moving on to secondary school. The first episode begins with a voiceover that reads us part of this diary and reveals: “Hi, my name is Samuel, I’m 10 years old and I have a problem. But hey, I don’t really want to talk about it.” A great overview of all the modesty and complexity of childhood shared between several feelings between the happiness and disappointments of the first human relationships.

Émilie Tronche depicts the daily life of a 10-year-old boy, Samuel, between first emotions and adult anxieties. Immersion in the creative process of the author-director-illustrator-performer with an overflowing imagination.

A series full of memories

To build this 2D animated series, Émilie Tronche was inspired by her own childhood. She explains in the columns of the “Hufpost”: “I represented childhood as I knew it, trying to be as sincere as possible. It is perhaps part of the universal themes of those where we can identify with the character.” A story close to reality allows viewers to recognize themselves through this little boy but also in the face of his universal problems encountered on a daily basis. A secret love for a friend, a sworn enemy who seduces all the girls, a devoted best friend… All these themes transcribed in their raw state make the story truer than life. All accentuated by its minimalist graphics in black line on a white background which immerses us further in the world of childhood.

How did your journey lead you to the Samuel series ?

Émilie Tronche: After high school, I entered the Ateliers de Sèvres in animation prep. I then joined the EMCA [École des Métiers du Cinéma d’Animation ] in Angoulême. I graduated four years later. In 2020, I participated in the short film collection “En sortir de l’école” [co-produced by Tant Mieux Prod and France Télévisions] which consisted of making a film related to the poetic universe of Paul Verlaine. I had just spent a very intense year in terms of production, because it was a very structured commissioned film for which I had been limited in my artistic choices. Once this project was finished, I wanted to return to a light subject. I decided to make a very quick little film about childhood, which became the first episode of Samuel . I published it on Facebook and Instagram. I got positive feedback, which encouraged me to continue.

Why this subject of childhood?

I knew I wanted to tell a love story. Setting this story in the period of childhood allowed me to get to the heart of the matter. I also didn’t have a lot of means since at the beginning, I was alone on the project, and in this way I could cheat a little. Above all, I enjoyed diving back into my memories and trying to imitate children. A bit like when you’re little and you play “mommy and daddy”. Except that here it was the opposite!

I let out all my thoughts, even the most parasitic ones, in order to rediscover that spontaneity inherent in childhood.

How did you go back in time?

As a child, I saw my parents having difficulty remembering their youth when I asked them questions about things that seemed obvious to me. With my two sisters, we always liked to remember details of our childhood, to relate them, to cultivate memory and to exercise this muscle! We love to dig up the most buried memories. Moreover, it so happens that I always grew up in the same city, from kindergarten to high school, and I always passed by the places that marked my childhood, which allowed me to not forget anything.

How did you come up with Samuel ‘s script ? The series refers to elements characteristic of a period and also of an era – the recitation of poetry, the sparrowhawk, Diddl leaves, MSN…

I wrote each episode based on a specific anecdote: rainy days under the covered playground, choir rehearsals on the cold tiles of the canteen, passages at the blackboard… Something that resonates, that is linked to a feeling of upheaval in the child. Then, I embroidered around it: I sat down in front of a blank page, and I started to write very quickly, slipping into the character’s skin. I let out all my thoughts, even the most parasitic, in order to rediscover this spontaneity inherent in childhood. I liked alternating between formal language and grammatically incorrect sentences, as children do. I tried to find a balance, not to fall into cliché because I especially didn’t want to make them cuter than they really are.

Why did you choose a boy to represent your childhood memories?

This choice came to me very quickly, as soon as the first episode was created. I made Samuel appear without thinking, and I think it allowed me to move away from the autobiographical side. I wanted Samuel to remain a fiction to distance myself from the protagonist. A female character would undoubtedly have raised other subjects with a greater emotional involvement on my part. I would have been less observant as I am here with Samuel.

Samuel also mentions the pivotal moment of the transition from primary to secondary school. Why this period?

At the beginning of 2021, when I met my producers from Les Valseurs, I had already made four episodes. I published them on Facebook and they caught Damien Megherbi’s attention. Together, we decided to make a slightly longer series of 10 episodes that ended at the end of primary school. When the Arte channel joined the project to be the broadcaster, they asked me to make twice as many episodes. But I didn’t want to overload the primary school period. So I chose to continue with this transition to middle school, which marks a break. But I stop just before puberty, the time when all the problems arise!

 What was your process for designing the storyboards?

I did a lot of dancing, so I like to use movement to draw. I see staging as a choreography. That’s why I used the video as a reference. I staged myself, to get as close as possible to the energy and the way a child moves in terms of postures and facial expressions. This work gave me the opportunity to inhabit my characters, to write them better, to find them a personality. Most of the time, I filmed myself imitating the scenes in my living room. Then, I imported these videos into my TVPaint software and selected the poses that interested me the most before redrawing them. A new writing was born with the rhythm of the animatic. I sometimes had to change words or sentences so that everything would be organized as well as possible and appear natural.

How did the animation work on the series go?

I worked in a team alongside five other animators who were mostly from my EMCA class. They were all very efficient! When we started the animation, I still had six episodes to storyboard. I was quite stressed. My assistant director Florine Paulius, who is also a superb animator, took turns as the leader. I pushed the animatics quite far, because I wanted the intention to be clear and precise to make the animators’ work easier.

Why did you choose 2D graphics, with black lines on a white background?

This naive drawing and sketchy aspect lends itself well to the story, and to the fact that Samuel writes in a journal. These simple lines also allow me a certain contrast: I can adjust the levels, create very dynamic scenes or fixed ones to leave more space for the music.

What guided the design of the series’ soundtrack?

The music chosen had to match the sequences. Sometimes, I even wrote the story based on them! Everything is organic in my work, the image and the music are very linked. When I removed a piece of music for musical rights reasons, I had to rewrite the scene and change its meaning. For example, in the castle episode, the first part is rhythmic, slow, the looks and the positioning of the voiceover are in rhythm with this piano melody. The second part, the hawk scene on “Palos” by La Paloma, is on the contrary much more energetic and allowed me to go in all directions.

Why did you choose to perform the voices of all your characters?

All the artistic decisions were made when I was alone, without a producer. As I wanted a fast and efficient series, I used my recorder to imitate a little boy’s voice for Samuel and I put my voice on all the other characters. My producers really liked it and wanted to keep my voice for Samuel. However, the question arose for the secondary characters. Arte preferred that I embody all the characters while for my part I was more of the opinion to choose dubbers in order to facilitate the understanding of the dialogues. But finally this choice was perfectly in line with the subject of the series: Samuel writes in a diary. What he says is subjective and he interprets everything with his own voice.

Samuel is the first series produced by Les Valseurs. How did this collaboration go?

We learned a lot during this production. And Samuel was a deceptively simple project! From the outside, the series seems light but it gradually took on more and more scope, especially when the Spanish producers [Pikkukala – editor’s note] joined the project to adapt it into Spanish…

The series has exceeded 40 million views across all platforms. How do you feel about this success?

I try to keep my head on my shoulders. I may anticipate the moment when the craze will die down and we will have to start again, find a new idea, make other films. But I am very happy, I continue to receive messages from people who recognize themselves in the character. I see that some Internet users are imagining sequels, others are asking me for permission to get Samuel tattooed! It’s crazy to think that this character that I created in a few hours is now the subject of montages and fanart . Samuel has taken on enormous proportions, but I try to make sure that success does not overwhelm me too much. It can be dizzying.

Will there be a second Samuel diary ?

We are discussing it with my producers! It is true that I like the idea of ​​an isolated fictional object because it gives it a certain rarity, but I can’t help but imagine the continuation of the adventures of Samuel, Bérénice, and the great Julie.