back

The 3D film Coquille: A miniature epic

News . 12 May. 2025

Directed by Justine Aubert, Cassandra Bouton, Grégoire Callies, Maud Chesneau, Anna Danton, Loïc Girault, Gatien Peyrude, and Justine Raux, Coquille is a short film by the ESMA class of 2023. It will be released in its entirety on the Esmamovies YouTube channel in June. Don’t miss it if you love 3D animation and stories full of sensitivity.

A poetic comedy on the scale of seashells

Coquille is the story of an invisible world where humans leave traces without even realizing it. “We wanted to talk about […] the impact that humans can have on the tiny, and the mark they leave on a world they can’t see, but which is very much present.” This reflection is at the heart of the film. Made in 2023, this short film features Bernard, a vain hermit crab on a perpetual quest for the perfect shell, whose daily life is turned upside down when he meets Morice, a crab with an unattractive appearance but a big heart, who lives under a plastic cap. With humor, tenderness, and a critical eye, Coquille invites us to rethink our relationship with life, even in its most discreet forms.

Although he seems difficult to appreciate at first, Bernard gradually reveals his flaws and humanity. As his adventures unfold, this egocentric hermit gains depth, eventually inspiring genuine tenderness. Through him, Coquille unfolds a modern fable that is as funny as it is sensitive, subtly exploring themes of friendship, maturity, and change.

When wildlife documentaries inspire animated fiction

The initial ideas for Coquille came from observing the real world: the directors immersed themselves in the world of wildlife documentaries to create a film that is both contemplative and ultra-realistic, deliberately flirting with the conventions of documentary filmmaking. To bring this vision to life, the team had to overcome significant technical challenges, particularly in creating the sand, which required meticulous FX work combining precision, patience, and visual rigor.

To anchor Coquille in a credible and immersive visual universe, the directors made extensive use of photoscanning, a key technique for reproducing natural elements such as pebbles, branches, and shells with great realism: “The use of photoscans helped a lot, especially for pebbles, branches, and shells.For the framing, a lot of it was inspired by macro photography, explain the directors, with the long focal length and bokeh used to reinforce the impression of smallness.” It’s a masterful aesthetic choice that contributes to the film’s authenticity.

A contrasting sensory universe

Thanks to a strikingly realistic visual reconstruction, Coquille plunges viewers into a world they thought they knew, inviting them to rediscover its richness, complexity, and fragility. This immersion questions our relationship with the environment through a sensitive and well-researched approach: “Humans can pose a real danger […],” say the directors. “Taking this further, we asked ourselves how the microscopic world perceives its environment and what its daily challenges are.”

Driven by ecological reflection and a desire to revalue the invisible, the film stands out for its ability to combine technical excellence with narrative depth.