Sylvain Chomet’s six-minute Dior holiday film was built to celebrate hand craft. After viewers spotted a character with six fingers online, the conversation flipped: some claimed the short was made with generative AI. Chomet and producer Aton Soumache tell Variety that the film is traditional 2D animation, drawn over seven months by a team of roughly 20 people.
What the production actually used
The short, “Christian Dior’s Night in Color,” features a voice cast led by Robert Pattinson and includes Rihanna, Josh O’Connor, LaKeith Stanfield, Louis Garrel and Camille Cottin. Soumache says the team included six animators, plus storyboard artists, designers, background artists, compositors and editors.
- Runtime: 6 minutes
- Production: 7 months
- Team: roughly 20 people, including 6 animators
- Automation: in-between frame interpolation only for a small part of the process
Chomet says the interpolation tool handled the mechanical step of filling in-between frames, not the creative work. “It’s a way of automating the repetitive, mechanical part of animation, not the creative work,” he says.
Why the AI accusation stuck
Dior tied the film to couture craftsmanship, positioning hand-drawn animation as a parallel to its ateliers. That made the six-finger moment a vulnerability: audiences now treat visual glitches as evidence of AI unless the production process is explained. Chomet says the hand is drawn in a fan-like movement, where extra fingers can appear to convey motion, and adds that similar mistakes have always happened in traditional animation.
What brand film teams should take from it
The core distinction is between generative AI and automated interpolation. One creates artwork; the other smooths movement between drawings that already exist. For entertainment marketers, that distinction is the message. A campaign that claims traditional craft needs production documentation from the start: process shots, named tools, and an on-record creator who can answer frame-level questions.
Chomet’s answer is also a useful brand stance: he says he stayed with hand-drawn animation when Disney declared 2D dead after “Toy Story,” and that he still draws by hand, just digitally for now. Expect audiences to audit craft claims the same way they audit ad claims.
Source: Variety
