On Wednesday 7 and Thursday 15 October 2026, Thomas Digard will be speaking to students at École Méliès. Credited story & art visualization specialist on The Bad Guys 2, directed by Pierre Perifel and JP Sans, he also worked on Forgotten Island, the other DreamWorks Animation feature, which reaches French cinemas on 21 October.
The images that come before the film
On 7 October, Thomas Digard will present his own artwork created for The Bad Guys 2. The presentation will then give way to a discussion with the students.
Inside the major studios
The second session, on 15 October, takes another route: that of careers which cross borders. It will cover the creative processes of the major international studios, the integration of artificial intelligence into production pipelines, and how the industry is changing.
Thomas Digard's own path is a case in point.
From 2001 to 2009 he headed animation and the five Borisfen-Lutece studios, based in Kyiv, which animated the Lascars series and then the feature film, among other projects. He went on to join Ankama Animation, where he co-led development on the feature Dofus, Book 1: Julith and directed its pilot. Gaumont Animation took him on as creative director in 2015: there he co-created, with Emmanuel Klotz, and then directed the series Bionic Max. Los Angeles followed in 2022, where he directed the Valorant Episode 6: Revelation cinematic for Blur Studio, before joining DreamWorks Animation to work on The Bad Guys 2 and then Forgotten Island. He is currently Art Director Development at Sony Pictures Animation.
An industry harder to break into
Both sessions come at a particular moment. The annual study by the CNC on the French animation market describes an industry that remains active, but whose doors are closing to recent graduates. Recruitment of newcomers has fallen for a third consecutive year, and the number of workers under 30 is dropping far faster than among established professionals. Franck Petitta raised these same findings at a roundtable at the French Senate devoted to the industry.
Hearing a professional retrace the studios he has worked in, and relay the questions being asked there today, carries rather more weight in such a context.
Sources
CNC, Le marché de l'animation en 2025. End credits of The Bad Guys 2, DreamWorks Animation, 2025. Forgotten Island, released in French cinemas on 21 October 2026, distributed by Universal Pictures.
