W

hen art meets technology, magic is bound to happen. Loving Vincent (2017) is the first of its kind feature film created by the film-makers reimagining 94 of Vincent Van Gogh’s iconic paintings. The production started off as an idea of a short film by painter and filmmaker Dorota Kobiela, who found herself inspired by the life of Van Gogh after reading his letters and studying his paintings. Nine years after it entered into development, the 90-minute film released in September this year and went on to achieve immense critical acclaim all around the world.

Here are some interesting facts about the movie:

• The film’s narrative surrounds the mystery of the death of Vincent Van Gogh, as depicted by a young man Armond Roulin.
• The movement in the film comes from live action, for which actors were cast, combined with visual effects and animation.
• Once the film was shot and projections were created, they were then turned into oil paintings.
  80 top-level oil painters were roped in to create frames in keeping with Van Gogh’s brushstrokes and colour palette.
• A total of 66,960 frames of oil painting were created for the scenes of the film.
• If each frame were laid on the ground in the original size that is was painted in, they would not only cover all of London but also the island of Manhattan!
• Since the film could only have canvases of one frame size, vertical or smaller sized frames were expanded or changed from the original pieces.
• For many of the frames, the colours in the original paintings were altered to suit the time of day and the season as per the film’s script.
• The parts of his life that he never painted but were required to be shown in the film, appear in Black & White frames as flashbacks based on photographs from the era.

Loving Vincent is a painstaking tribute to Vincent Van Gogh and the 800 works of art he created in 8 short years, one of which sold during his lifetime. He went on to be named the ‘Father of Modern Painting’ by art historians. The film makers Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman stay true to Van Gogh’s words in one of his last ever letters – “Well, The Truth Is, We Cannot Speak Other Than By Our Paintings”.

“Well, The Truth Is, We Cannot Speak Other Than By Our Paintings.”

• Watch the trailer of the film here.
• Visit www.lovingvincent.com for more information on the film and paintings.
• Source:
  • Michael Denner’s Loving Vincent, behind the scenes