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Nearly 36 million views in three months, TikTok trends… Arte’s animated series “Samuel”, which recounts with humor and poetry the emotions of a 10-year-old boy, is enjoying “dizzying” success for its young director Emilie Tronche, touched to make “people happy”.
At only 28 years old, the designer, author and performer of this black and white series of 21 5-minute episodes continues interviews to return to a phenomenon that she “did not expect”, as she explained to the ‘AFP.
Born “in 2020, just before confinement”, from a desire to “go back to childhood”, his character Samuel evolves in the 2000s, confiding in his diary his love for Grande Julie or his anxieties, from CM2 to middle school .
This journey through time is enhanced by period or timeless songs and references (MSN instant messaging, Diddl paper style with the image of a mouse) well known to “millennials”, born in the 1980s and 1990s. .
If it touches their hearts, it appeals well beyond their generation, particularly on social networks.
The series, which has accumulated more than 9 million views since its release in March on arte.tv and YouTube, has 11.7 million on Instagram and more than 13 million on TikTok, where young people stage or draw themselves in including extracts.
“Happy melancholy”
“It’s quite dizzying to think about it“, comments the young woman who has lived in Angoulême since her studies in animation but grew up, like Samuel, in Sucy-en-Brie, in the Paris suburbs.
“If you have to keep a cool head“, she is delighted with the many messages received from people identifying with her character or telling her that the series “brightens up their lives.”It makes people happy“, she notes. “It’s crazy to think (…) that a small animated series, which doesn’t necessarily show off with this simple feature, can generate a little joy” And “a kind of happy melancholy“.
The main asset of its creation is the accuracy of its representation of childhood, the director having drawn on her memories to create a “character who looks a bit like him” and who takes his first name from a “nice” boy he met, in a “friendly” way, during a party after the baccalaureate.
Emilie Tronche also accompanied the class of her mother, a CM2 teacher, during a visit to the castle of Vaux-le-Vicomte, where she did “sound recordings” and organized a hawk game staged in series. “It was exactly as I had imagined, they are all crazy, it seems like they are gambling with their lives“.
Good in his body, good in his head!
“Choreographies”
The series, which can be enjoyed or watched in one go, also benefits from a format adapted to the spirit of the times. Its producers and Arte even went further by offering other shorter episodes specifically designed for TikTok in order to “reach a younger audience”.
“I had no idea how it was going to be received.“, relates the one who does not have an account on this network which she saw as “an evening where we are not invited”.
The pastilles published there are “more focused on moments of life or choreographies” than the classic series, where dance is already very present. Emilie Tronche, who loved writing and wanted to be a choreographer when she was “younger”, filmed herself to draw certain sequences.
It was in her final year that she turned to animation, after having “discovered the short films by Gobelins students” and “rediscovered all the films” of Japanese Studio Ghibli.
The director, influenced among other things by the comic strip “Lou!” by Julien Neel, is also inspired by the music she listens to while writing. “The search for musical rights was a bit of a saga in itself.”relates the one who had to give up the title “Because” by the Beatles and a dedicated scene in “Samuel”.
Will we find his touching hero in a season 2, as his fans are demanding? “It’s on the table but ideas are needed. And then I take a little rest“, says the one who imagines Samuel’s future at high school “for fun”.
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