One of the reasons for its success is that the company is new, but not the team. La Maison was founded by Annie Dautane, CEO, Eve Ramboz, head of digital visual effects, and Luc Froehlicher, head of the 3D department - the former core team of Medialab's special effects department that was recruited by Dautane as former head of the department. The team that also includes Bruno Maillard and François Dumoulin (special effects), Emmanuel Chapon and Pierre Pilard (3D), and Pascale Mazoyer (production), has over seven years of experience working together. The launch was also made possible through the association with the animation production company Millimages (CEO Roch Lener). Meanwhile 35 people work in the renovated printing plant. La Maison's equipment includes two inferno with Onyx 2, one flame with Octane 2, a Hippi inter-framestore network, numerous PCs and several Mac G4 stations, and four montage rooms with Avid 9000. The graphic artists work with Softimage XSI, Mental Ray, 3D Equalizer (on SGI Origin 200), Combustion, After Effects, Photoshop, Painter, and DPS Reality.

Dividing its work equally between movies, videos and commercials, La Maison has worked on music videos for Depeche Mode, Stereodrome, and Dax Riders and on movies such as Behind the Sun, directed by Walter Salles, Demon Lover by Olivier Assayas, and Steal, by Gérard Pirès. Commercials include work for Nestlé, L'Oréal, Citroën, Ford, and Victoria's Secret. To a U.S. audience, La Maison's artistic sensibilities are best known from the effects-heavy fantasy worlds evoked in commercials for Thermasilk from J. Walter Thompson, directed by Bruno Aveillan (see Boards, June 2001; September 2000). More recently, La Maison worked on the spot "Symphony" for Nintendo Game Boy Advance from Leo Burnett, Chicago, which was launched in the U.S. on Halloween.

"Symphony," also directed by Bruno Aveillan through Quad Productions, takes place in a baroque theater. During a concert of classical music, led by a female conductor, inexplicable things happen. First, a statue - part of the supporting structure of the theater - comes to life and mutates into a Gorgon monster with wings that flies towards the conductor in order to kill her. The conductor is saved by a percussionist who beheads the Gorgon creature with a cymbal. Then the enormous crystal chandelier transforms itself into a dragon and sets out to attack the conductor. The dragon - made of a brass and crystal - is also defeated and explodes into thousands of crystal pieces. The end reveals that the whole fantasy was played out by a member of the audience, using a Nintendo Game Boy.

Since the commercial was shot in a real baroque theater, most of the effects had to be virtual. "The spot was a big artistic and technical challenge. The biggest challenges were the mutations of the two monsters, which required a lot of 3D work," Dautane explains. "Because of its thousands of crystal pieces, generated one by one, the creation and animation of the chandelier dragon was also technically very complex and involved." Luc Froehlicher supervised the 3D work.

But artistically ambitious and technically demanding effects are La Maison's specialty. "To be able to make full use of our combined artistic talents and digital skills and to offer the best solutions, we like to get involved in new projects at the very beginning," says Dautane. The company usually follows the whole development of a commercial, and works in close collaboration with the directors and production technicians.

Recently, La Maison finished its work on two commercials for Saturn View by Publicis, directed by Frédéric Planchon, which will be aired in the U.S. in March.