The Directors: Charlie Toqué

Charlie Toqué is a French illustrator and animation director passionate about telling stories using bright colours, playful characters and a bit of nonsense humour.

Animation director Charlie’s work is irreverent and stylish, with his love for sport and pop-culture influencing his character design, alongside his seamless integration of animated elements into live action footage.

Initially Charlie used his dynamic framing, clever transitions, and intuitive storytelling to educate children through video games, taking complex messaging and transforming it into engaging, memorable content.

Since then he has worked on a variety of projects for global clients such as FIFA, Disney, Nickelodeon, and Subway, and for TV production companies such as Arte and France TV.

LBB> For you, what is the most important working relationship for a director to have with another person in making an ad? And why?

Charlie> I’m pretty new to this industry, as I had a long ride in video games first, but to me, everyone is important in the process! After all, the result is the sum of complementary expertises. That being said, I think that a trusted relationship with a producer is essential to me, both in making an ad or a video game, actually. The producer has the full picture, helps a project go smoothly, and gives valuable production or creative-based insights - allowing the creative team to have a nice clear focus.

LBB> What type of work are you most passionate about - is there a particular genre or subject matter or style you are most drawn to?

Charlie> I like colourful, cartoonish, and slightly candid absurd universes, whatever the media. In video games, I love the very particular universes of Keita Takahashi, and in comics, the naive and eccentric world of Anouk Ricard speaks to me a lot. They are designers who have an incredible mastery of the worlds they offer, while giving the impression of an elementary and naive form. It's really what I aspire to achieve.

LBB> What misconception about you or your work do you most often encounter and why is it wrong?

Charlie> Apart from the fact that I often have to explain how iCloud works to relatives during the Christmas holidays, I don't have too many complaints about preconceptions related to my work! Maybe the value of work in a passion project is generally less recognised. And to be honest, it’s 100% fair. It is a real privilege! However, we can be sucked into this passion and spend long hours stuck in it. 

LBB> What are your thoughts on opening up the production world to a more diverse pool of talent? Are you open to mentoring and apprenticeships on set?

Charlie> This can only be positive. More diversity leads to a multiplicity of views and sensibilities. I am of course open to mentoring, it is indispensable and often a valuable exchange in the end. The mentor shares experience and the mentee shares spontaneity. I accompany design students on animation workshops, and I learn a lot from these exchanges. Some students are very natural at managing their online presence, creating animation-related content on YouTube, managing a community, and questioning their work processes and experimenting. It's rewarding to see this in action. 

LBB> How do you feel the pandemic is going to influence the way you work into the longer term? Have you picked up new habits that you feel will stick around for a long time?

Charlie> I find it difficult to think too long term because all this still remains rather unprecedented. What I do think is that, on a personal level, this pandemic has reinforced my idea of trying to develop safe universes. That doesn't mean not questioning reality, but just doing it in devious ways without taking ourselves too seriously. 

LBB> Your work is now presented in so many different formats - to what extent do you keep each in mind while you're working (and, equally, to what degree is it possible to do so)?

Charlie> Some social networks affect framing and the way you approach a composition. Usually I’ll work on a master version and anticipate the different framings so everything works in all cases. It's similar for digital with the responsive formats, or video game for mobile (with an infinity of mobile and tablet screen sizes) but everything is displayed and distributed in real time, where a commercial/social content is pre-calculated. I have layouts that allow me to test this at any time, and I've gotten into the habit of making regular WIP renderings in the most extreme formats, early in the production process.

LBB> What’s your relationship with new technology and, if at all, how do you incorporate future-facing tech into your work (e.g. virtual production, interactive storytelling, AI/data-driven visuals etc)?

Charlie> I like to dig into some of these topics. Having spent most of my career in the video game industry, I'm ultra sensitive to real-time technologies, which are becoming popular in the animation and film industry. Interactive storytelling, through the writing of tree-like dialogues, requires projecting on all the potential outcomes of a conversation. It's very interesting. 

I also had the opportunity to work on incredible narrative experiences in virtual reality, as a lighting artist. It was a big discovery for me. There is an unprecedented level of immersion, and a whole new grammar to elaborate, especially in direction and UX, because of the total immersion and the freedom offered to the viewer. How do you draw attention to key elements of the narrative? How do you play with the scale? What point of view should you offer to the viewer, and what degree of freedom do you give them? These are questions that have been asked for a long time in video games, that we’re now seeing in a linear narrative experience closer to cinema. 

It’s exciting to see these experiments at work, and I really want to get more involved in the future.

LBB> Which pieces of work do you feel really show off what you do best – and why? 

Charlie> ‘Money Time’ was an opportunity to express myself fully, to evolve my identity and to try new things without any particular pressure. On this project, I had the luxury of experimenting with a lot of things, including ones that I threw away in the end. As personal projects do for most creatives, this one probably resembles me and my style the best!