New Directors: Thibault de Fournas

The story of animated typography could be a long – and, let’s face it, potentially boring – one but director Thibault de Fournas has crafted a two-and-a-half minute animated film which cleverly and beautifully reveals the story of this particular form. His short, From Paper to Screen, deftly narrates the evolution of typography from the page, where alteration in case, font and style makes it so versatile, to the screen, where the introduction of opening and closing film and TV credits further developed the form.

The 26-year-old Parisian recently graduated from Penninghen, a graphic design school in Paris, after five years of study and an eventual Masters degree. It was during the course that de Fournas was inspired to make From Paper to Screen after a tutor asked students to work on the typeface, Futura, as part of their course. “My idea was to present this animation like a story,” explains de Fournas of the project, which took him three months to complete. “For the first part the idea was to recreate the atmosphere of typography on paper and to set up the basic rules of how to use typography. I used Garamond because it’s a typeface most used for novels, newspapers, and print in general. For the second part I watched hundreds of opening titles, from the first movies of cinema history to blockbusters of our time.” 

The first, more sedate part of the short is set to the strains of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, with the later credits sequence using a score from the French film Shoot the Piano Player.  The film also references the influence of designer Saul Bass on opening title designs. “I am a big fan of Saul Bass,” says de Fournas, “and my favorite directors, Scorsese and Hitchcock, have collaborated with him several times. I really wanted to honor him in this video. He’s the inventor of opening title [and] I couldn’t ignore that.”

De Fournas is now part of a production collective called Parachutes.tv which was created with three fellow students while they were still studying - Yann Pineill, Christopher Van Wilson and Nicolas Lefaucheux. They have already worked on a number of projects – “mainly for start-ups” – but also for some paying clients, and they are eager to do more. “I hope this is the beginning of a new adventure,” says de Fournas. “I have already worked for commercials. It’s a really different way to work, with more constraints, but it’s challenging. Of course at Parachutes.tv we’re all hopping to have the chance to work on an opening sequence for a big movie.”

Finally, we have to ask, what’s de Fournas’ favourite font? “Definitely Futura,” he says emphatically. “Even if it was created in 1924 it’s still a very modern font. It’s very simple but also very sophisticated.”