Duo

Duo is an outstanding short film created by seven artists at Parisian school Gobelins that focuses on staging, performance, appearances and human relationships. Built on a cyclic structure, two characters are presented with an external conflict that is staged in a theater’s backstage dressing room, edited in parallel (jumping back and forth in time) with their on stage performance.

The short uses a stylized aesthetic that mixes 2D animation with miniature sets, employing saturated colors and a palette with predominant blues and reds. There’s an emphasis on the use of choreography, poses, performance and light, with a good amount of sensory images (contact of the hands, with the fabric, the head breathing close to the floor, etc.). Conflict is effectively transmitted through facial expressions, poses and sound, and augmented through editing and a sense of implied danger.

The sets in Duo have been created by Guitty Mojabi, Janis Aussel and Aron Bothman. Characters were designed by Marie-Pierre Demessant and the storyboards and layouts were drawn by Dorian Lee, Elsa Boyer and Laurent Moing.