Get Claude Letessier, EP at French prodco Paranoid, talking about François Vogel and you get an accented and enthusiastic stream of consciousness:

"When the vehicle landed on Mars the NASA engineers were like kids: laughing and crying. François is the same with film. He is a bohemian and lives with three t-shirts and a sweater. But he's also a mathematician and a researcher like J.S. Bach: he tries to get the equation right. Then he puts the flesh around it and it articulates to a living thing. You should see how happy he can be when he makes his vision come true."

Vogel is liable to express a lot more happiness. In a mere two years he has gone from near obscurity to poster child following his celebrated work for HP. And now that the spot world knows of him, Vogel's phone isn't likely to stop ringing anytime soon.

What movies did you love as a kid?

My strongest movie memory is the old King Kong. I wanted so much to see it. It ran on TV but we were moving, so I had to go to my friend's house but he was the kid who was best at school so he had to work. Neither of us saw it - big frustration. When I finally saw it, I loved it. I liked the stop motion.

Is that when you started doing stop motion?

Yes. I was 13 or 14 years old. I did [a film] with a little monster made of plaster. He had a magic baguette and he would point it and make everything in the room move - the chairs, the tables, the TV. I left the house in a mess. I also made a fake documentary on the life and habits of pillows. It showed how they live, how they behave, how they eat and reproduce. Very serious but it was about pillows. I think I should look for it.

After years doing shorts with none, what's it like shooting with money?

It's cool to shoot with money because everybody wants to finish soon. You finish quickly. If you shoot with no money, no one is as interested in finishing as you are. I'm used to doing it with no money: I'm somewhere, I have an idea and I shoot. I don't need all the crew. I think I'm still learning [how to] produce with professionals, I'm getting better at it.

What are you doing next?

We just finished another HP spot in Buenos Aires (see On Location, pg. 17) and shot more HP stuff in Paris for interactive SKY TV in UK. Also, I'm having another baby. This is my second child - I have a four-year-old boy. This time, we're having a girl.

Which commercial directors do you like?

Gondry, and sometimes I like Traktor. Also, The Poiraud Brothers.

What about directing in France vs. in America?

I notice a difference in post, not as much in production. In the States every aspect of editing concerns the editor. In France, it's more the director. I still follow the process through to the end.

INFORMATION

Production affiliations: France: Paranoid (formerly Entropie Films). US: Paranoid Projects at Tool of North America.

Best-known spots: HP Picture Book Campaign
Upcoming: Winterfresh "Evolve" and "Puzzle Piece" - BBDO, Chicago; MilkPEP "Skinny Glass/Woman" - Lowe

Neat Factoid: In the early '80s, Vogel shot a CGI stop motion film using his Atari computer. "They were fractals, I would shoot eight frames of the screen on my Super 8 per night - it took the computer that long to render the images."

Tool of North America> http://www.toolofna.com