How My Life as a Zucchini Recreated Its Script With Its Child Actors

My Life as a Zucchini is a beautiful stop-motion film about a group of orphans who become a kind of family at an orphanage. If you want it in French, this featurette will make you appreciate the young voice actors and the care the team took to make sure the voices felt genuine and real.

“I think a good half of the film depends on the voices and we ended up practically recording a shoot with the children,” says Swiss director Claude Barras. He also talks about collaborating with Marie-Even Hildbrand, who’s used to working with children in fiction.

A notable way the French version distinguishes itself from the English one, is that the children voice actors weren’t actors. Rather, Barras says, “We tried to recreate the group of kids that was in the script…we chose them for their personality, their age differences, and also their ability to forget about the camera.” Barras had told us about a casting speedbump, where Paulin Jacquoud, the voice of Simon, took on the role of Simon after he had gotten too old for the role of Zucchini.

The work behind the camera really translates to the animation, which you can definitely see in the clip’s transitions between shooting and stop-motion. Zucchini stands out in it’s earnest and honest portrayal of children, and it’s very interesting to see how that was done. Are you going to check out this Oscar-nominated movie?

(Image via GKIDS)

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