Jérôme Mouscadet

Jérôme Mouscadet was the director of the first 4 seasons of Code Lyoko. He also co-wrote the series' backstory with Sophie Decroisette and was involved early on with Code Lyoko Evolution.

He is affiliated with Agence Kamaji.

Biography

Jerome Mouscadet was born in 1971. Prior to Code Lyoko, he worked at a small company where he directed animated short films.

Code Lyoko Work

Mouscadet was hired as director in June 2002 after having a chance dinner with a friend from Antefilms. Series creators Tania Palumbo and Thomas Romain were looking for someone "from a new generation" to direct Code Lyoko, meaning a graduate from the 90s. Mouscadet had never directed a full animated series before, so he met with friends in the industry to explain how one was managed, the work pace and how many jobs were required. He found "it was similar to what I had been doing previously, but much, much bigger; so I surrounded myself with competent people". One of his first contributions was dropping the heroes retaining their superpowers on Lyoko in the real world, which he did to make the separation between the two worlds as clear as possible to younger viewers.

As director, Mouscadet was involved in planning nearly every aspect of the show, including the writing, visuals, voice acting and other areas. He most notably co-wrote Code Lyoko's backstory with Sophie Decroisette between seasons 1 and 2. He suggested having William "fall to the dark side", which inspired them to have him eventually become an agent of X.A.N.A..

Visually he coordinated getting reference photos of Lycée Lakanal and the Renault factory for the background artists to use for Kadic Academy and The Factory, respectively. He also participated in discussions with Eric Guillon regarding the design of Lyoko. He approved storyboards and animatics, where he occasionally asked Decroisette to write extra dialogue if he felt it was appropriate, which he would add in the animatic and voice himself. He additionally coordinated with the 2D animation studios in Asia. He noted the difficulty of this, comparing it to "a little bit like steering an ocean liner with binoculars", so starting with Season 3 he set up a dedicated team of animators for Code Lyoko at Animation Services Hong Kong Limited's studio who were supervised on-site by two people from Moonscoop.

Mouscadet was present for every recording session for the French version, mostly giving small notes on whether a character should be shouting or whispering a line. He was involved in the English dub as well to a lesser extent, adding a note to Attack of the Zombies's script and getting Sharon Mann to change her voice for Jeremie starting with Season 3.

He was also involved with Get Ready to Virtualize, though he later lamented it was "not enough", wishing he participated more in the artistic direction.

His favorite character is Aelita, saying: "I like Aelita because everything revolves around her. She is pivotal in the series. It is by asking ourselves questions about her background that we unraveled the bible, so it was quite interesting to determine where she came from. She was really our “center of significance”. [She] is also a somewhat ambiguous character, who has emotions… She is less stereotypical a character than Odd, Ulrich or Yumi can be. [She] is the character that undergoes the most character development throughout the series. And I found this quite interesting." His favorite episodes are Ghost Channel, New Order, Mister Pück and The Key. Reflecting years later, Mouscadet said he wouldn't change much about the series, mostly small details like refining certain shots to look stronger. He did however say that, had they had the time and budget, he would have restored the cut Replikas in Season 4, such as the Mountain Replika, and make improvements to the existing ones.

Directing

• Season 1
• Season 2
• Season 3
• Season 4

Code Lyoko Evolution

Mouscadet was involved early on with Evolution, co-writing the initial draft of the show's bible with Sophie Decroisette along with synopses for the first two episodes. He left the series shortly afterwards when the directors and head writer David Carayon decided to alter the bible to simplify Code Lyoko's concept.

Writing

• "X.A.N.A. 2.0"
• "Cortex"

Noteworthy Non-Code Lyoko Work

Directing

• Sherlock Yack: Zoo Detective "TV Series"
• Heidi "2015 reboot"
• Asseyons-nous tous deux près du chemin "A short film"

Further Reading

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1665935/
• http://www.allocine.fr/personne/fichepersonne_gen_cpersonne=262355.html
• http://www.agence-kamaji.com/auteurs/jerome-mouscadet/