Summary
- French animator Sylvain Chomet has rejected claims that generative artificial intelligence was used to create Dior’s animated holiday film, “Christian Dior’s Night in Color”, after viewers pointed to apparent visual errors, including a character with six fingers.
- Chomet and producer Aton Soumache told Variety that the six-minute film was produced using traditional 2D animation over seven months, with a team of about 20 people, including six animators.
- Chomet has continued to work in traditional 2D animation, even as computer-generated animation became increasingly prominent in the film industry.
AI Generated Summary
French animator Sylvain Chomet has rejected claims that generative artificial intelligence was used to create Dior’s animated holiday film, “Christian Dior’s Night in Color”, after viewers pointed to apparent visual errors, including a character with six fingers.
Chomet and producer Aton Soumache told Variety that the six-minute film was produced using traditional 2D animation over seven months, with a team of about 20 people, including six animators.
Soumache also dismissed online claims that Chomet had been brought on board only two weeks before the film’s release and that no drawings had been made for the project. He said the film had been drawn by artists.
The filmmakers acknowledged, however, that they used an automated system to generate some of the intermediate frames between hand-drawn images. Chomet described this as a way to automate the repetitive, mechanical part of animation, rather than the creative work.
The distinction is significant because Dior promoted the film as a celebration of traditional craftsmanship, drawing parallels between Chomet’s hand-drawn animation and the work of the fashion house’s couture ateliers.
Addressing the six-fingered hand, Chomet said the image showed a hand spread out like a fan to convey movement. In such a drawing, he said, six or seven fingers might appear visible. He added that traditional animation could also contain visual inconsistencies, citing an example of a character whose nose changes shape over several frames.
Dior’s short film has attracted online criticism from viewers who questioned whether some of its visual details were consistent with the brand’s claims about its hand-drawn production process. The allegations have not been independently established.
Chomet has continued to work in traditional 2D animation, even as computer-generated animation became increasingly prominent in the film industry. Dior approached him for the project because of his distinctive animation style, while his illustrations also informed the brand’s holiday window displays and physical decorations, Soumache said.
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