Noëlle Triaureau is a visual development artist and art director working with Sony Pictures Animation.

Her credits include Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Surf’s Up and the upcoming as yet untitled Smurf movie; but I was particularly struck by images of her beautiful work on Hotel Transylvania, for which she also served as Art Director.

In these she demonstrates a remarkable sensibility for the theatrical character of light in a cinematic context, with dramatic framing of near-silhouettes in pools of light or contrastingly bright subjects against dark shapes.

It would be easy to be heavy-handed with this approach, but Triaureau’s handling is subtle and nuanced — all within the context of artwork that is meant to serve as a guide for film production, not as finished work in itself.

Triaureau’s blog has some of her visual development pieces, fortunately reproduced large enough to see some of the refined nature of her approach. There is also a selection on Concept Art World.

There is a print interview with the artist on Animated Views and a brief video interview and descriptive talk on YouTube about the Smurf movie project, on which she serves as Production Designer.