For a recent collaboration with the artist Sasha Velour, I worked on animating flames for a black and white surrealist film, designed to look as though it was created in 1934. Inspired by George Méliès’ hand-colored "Joan of Arc" (1900), the goal was to achieve an authentic, vintage feel by hand-painting the flames frame by frame, as they might have done in the early 20th century.
To replicate the 1930s aesthetic, I used a watercolor brush, painting directly over the film frames. This approach, intentionally loose and imprecise, allowed the flames to have a fluid, organic look, mimicking how artists of that era would have hand-tinted film. I then edited the footage in After Effects, duplicating and blurring the animation to match the visual style of our reference.
The result is about 30 seconds of characters engulfed in painted flames, with the style closely reflecting the techniques of the 1930s — painterly and surreal.
CREDITS:
Client: House of Velour
Art Direction: Sasha Velour
Design and Animation : Romane Wach
