Eric Montchaud was a student in the first class of the animation school of La Poudrière in Valence in 1999. There, he was able to specialize in the stopmotion technique. His final year student film "Les animals" and his self produced film "The Smell of a Wet Dog" were a success in festivals in Annecy, Clermont-Ferrand and Hiroshima. Eric then became a stopmotion animator working mainly for commercials. He was also one of the animators for feature films directed by Michel Gondry "The Science of Sleep" and "Mood Indigo". When one day his son showed him 'Anatole's little saucepan', a book by Isabelle Carrier, Eric dreamed up a film with puppets, which becomes his first professional short film.