behind the scenes of production in Toulouse
It is in Toulouse, a stone’s throw from the Matabiau station, in the huge red brick building also shared by the France Bleu Occitanie team, where the TAT studios are located. A netflix series is made there in all discretion. And not just any. The animated series “Asterix and the Battle of the Bosses” with Alain Chabat as a director. The TAT studios currently occupy 1600m² and project, with the Asterix projectto reach more than 2000m².
cartoon world
At TAT studio, the atmosphere is cozy. It’s very quiet too. On the walls of the vast open-spaces where dozens of 3D graphic designers work, there are posters of their old productions like “aces of the jungle“or what they call expression boards of their last hero”pile“. Pil surprised, Pil angry…
Karen, 32, provides the link between Alain Chabat and TAT
And at the bend of a corridor, meeting with Karen Seghetto.
In the Asterix project, Karen occupies a strategic position: first assistant director. At TAT since 2016, a former student of ESMA Toulouse, the Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques, she is the link between Alain Chabat and the TAT studios. Alain Chabat does not have the right to speak to the press, the production of the series is dumb Top secret but Karen lets us imagine this 3D cartoon:
I think Alain Chabat wants to think outside the box and breathe new life into Asterix by bringing new technical and visual challenges.
Adaptation of the comic strip “Asterix and the battle of the leaders”
The “Asterix and the Battle of the Bosses” scenario will therefore be rewritten, while retaining the main lines of the story. Everyone knows it but a little summary does not hurt. Detour via the executive floor where production manager Jean-François Tosti read and reread the comic until you know her knows by heart: “the battle of the chiefs is the druid who inadvertently receives a blow from a menhir on the head, a menhir obviously thrown by Obélix, the druid becomes crazy, he forgets the formula of the magic potion and it is the moment when Caesar and his troops are smoking in the village. There are a lot of adventures and in the end La Gaulle is still not occupied“.
Two years of manufacture
The production of the “Asterix and the Battle of the Chiefs” series is a job that will last two years, which will occupy between 180 and 200 people. Alain Chabat goes to Toulouse for a week every two months and he is now part of all his expectations of Karen:
It’s the fight of the chefs version Alain Chabat, with all the snubs he can bring to the level of the scenario, the jokes, the casting… Full of beautiful things I hope!
The look of the series
Alain Chabat is not the only big name working on the Asterix series. Since December, the TAT studios have also been calling on foreign talents based in Madrid and Los Angeles accustomed to creating for very big names, such as Dreamworks and Disney says Stéphane Margail, director of the TAT studio:
For the visual development phase which started with a push from artists all over the world, people who worked for Dreamworks or Disney – Stéphane Margail
Artists who will help “fix the look of the series”:
Asterix everyone knows what he looks like but the director may want to have a tighter line on one arm, a smaller ear, a less round nose, these are all the details we are currently working on
early excitement
The animated series on Asterix for Netflix is still in its very early stages of production. The characters and the decor take shape, then you will have to write the script, adapt it into a cartoon, do the editing. etc etc… To listen to the production manager Jean-François Tosti, the excitement of the beginnings is still quite palpable:
Finding ourselves linked to a brand like Asterix, which is part of the collective unconscious of the French, is almost unreal for us.
The work at TAT studio started two or three months ago but:
It’s always hard to realize that it’s for real, it’s great to be able to work with a character like that, for us it’s great!
The work to be done is very long, two years to manufacture five 30-minute episodes. Last will come the work of the son. The witness voices will be recorded in the Toulouse studios but the voice definitive it will be in Paris with most certainly star actors. For the moment the casting is not known.