The series, which Ocelot also
voice acted in, co-
produced,
art directed and
designed, returns to the format of short
silhouette animation fairy tales established by 1989's
Ciné si and continued in 1992's
Tales of the Night to produce further stories originally conceived for the then-unsuccessful
Ciné si, episodes of which have since enjoyed popularity in the form of the compilation movie
Princes and Princesses. At least as early as September 2006, when ''
Azur & Asmar: The Princes' Quest was previewing in France, Ocelot was mentioning in interviews that he was planning to return to silhouettes and the anthology format with a project then planned to be titled Bergères et Dragons
("Shepherdesses and dragons") and released in 2008 but wavered on whether it would it take the format of a feature film or television series and if it would consist of a combination of existing and new or all-new footage (the title suggests the inclusion of the "Bergère qui danse" segment of the earlier Tales of the Night
). Instead, 2008 saw the inclusion of these earlier silhouette films in the Les Trésors cachés de Michel Ocelot
short film collection and the new project, set back by production of several others, was announced in June 2010 as taking its eventual form of both a television series of ten new silhouette films and a new Tales of the Night'' for movie theaters drawn from it.
Dragons also notably sees him return to working with once-regular composer Christian Maire, who had last scored
Ciné si for him two decades ago, and is the first production animated by his own Studio O in
Paris, which previously had covered only
pre-production for projects animated at larger
animation studios. A total of over 300 characters and 800 sets were designed for the project, which was animated by a team of five in
Autodesk Maya. ==Release==