Editing Code Lyoko (section)

== Development ==
[[File:GarageKidsPoster.png|thumbnail|left|2001 original promotional poster for ''Garage Kids'']]

=== Origins ===
''Code Lyoko'' originates from the film short ''Les enfants font leur cinéma'' ("The children make their movies"), directed by [[Thomas Romain]] and produced by a group of students from Parisian visual arts school [[Gobelins School of the Image]].<ref name="CLAnimeland">{{cite web|url=http://www.animeland.com/articles/voir/84/Bilan-d-apprentissage|title=Bilan d'apprentissage|language=fr|trans-title=Learning Assessment|website=AnimeLand.Com|date=2002-06-01|access-date=2011-06-13|quote=Aujourd’hui ce projet porte le nom de Garage Kid|archive-date=23 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923174644/http://www.animeland.com/articles/voir/84/Bilan-d-apprentissage|url-status=dead}}</ref> Romain worked with Tania Palumbo, Stanislas Brunet, and Jerome Cottray to create the film, which was screened at the [[Annecy International Animated Film Festival|2000 Annecy International Animated Film Festival]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Gobelins - Films d'Annecy 1999/2000/2001 (relativement inédits)|url=http://www.catsuka.com/news_detail.php?id=1301754897|website=Catsuka|access-date=2011-06-13|language=fr|date=2011-04-02}}</ref> French animation company [[MoonScoop Group#Subsidiaries|Antefilms]] took interest in the film due to its atmosphere and offered Romain and Palumbo a contract to turn it into a series.<ref name="R" /> This led to the development of the pilot, ''Garage Kids''.<ref name="CLAnimeland" />

''Garage Kids'' was produced in 2001 by Antefilms. The project was created by Palumbo, Romain, and Carlo de Boutiny and developed by Anne de Galard. Its producers were Eric Garnet, Nicolas Atlan, Benoît di Sabatino, and Christophe di Sabatino.

Similar to its succeeding show ''Code Lyoko'', ''Garage Kids'' was originally envisioned as a 26-episode miniseries detailing the lives of four French boarding school students who discover the secret of the virtual world of Xanadu; created by a research group headed by a character known as the "Professor". The pilot featured both traditional animation and CGI.<ref>{{cite web|title=Antefilms presents Garage Kids|url=http://www.codelyoko.net/FRA/Garage_Kids/Garage_Kids.pdf|website=codelyoko.net|publisher=Antefilms|access-date=2011-06-13|date=2002-03-12|archive-date=12 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190112121402/http://www.codelyoko.net/FRA/Garage_Kids/Garage_Kids.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''[[The Matrix]]'' had "enormous influence" on the pilot according to Romain, citing the concept of a machine allowing the characters to dive in a virtual world, an operator who supervises the trip and the correlation between the action in the real world and the virtual world.<ref name="R" /> Anime also served as inspiration, specifically ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'' for its "worrying digital dimension" and ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' for its dangerous entities to fight. While similarities to ''[[Tron]]'' have been noted, Romain admitted to not having seen the film yet when the series was being developed.

When the concept on the virtual world was added, Antefilms suggested animating it with CGI to help make the series unique, promote a video game theme and make the separation between the virtual and real worlds clearer.<ref name="R" /> While incorporating it, Palumbo and Romain wanted to avoid making the series "too playful and superficial" and sought to "get around the censoring done by TV channels that tend to soften youth programs" by writing episodes "with tension, suspense, even tragic scenes. Things that are hard to imagine seeing in a cartoon series for kids."

A team of artists were recruited in order to give the backgrounds of the real world a realistic appearance. The factory and boarding schools specifically were modelled after locations in France. The factory was based on a [[Renault]] production plant in [[Boulogne-Billancourt]] ([[Île Seguin]]), which has since been demolished.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sources of inspiration > The factory in real life|url=http://en.codelyoko.fr/inspirations/usine_renault.cl|access-date=2017-01-11|website=CodeLyoko.Fr}}</ref> The school, Kadic Academy, is based on [[Lycée Lakanal]] in [[Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine|Sceaux]], which Romain had attended.<ref name="R" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Sources of inspiration > Lycée Lakanal: Kadic Academy's model|url=http://en.codelyoko.fr/inspirations/lakanal.cl|access-date=2017-01-11|website=CodeLyoko.Fr}}</ref> Palumbo and Romain were adamant on keeping the locales based on "the France we knew", as they wanted to avoid what they perceived as "fantastical" or "Americanized" locations other French cartoons used at the time.<ref name="R" />

Scripting for the series officially began in January 2002, with Frédéric Lenoir, Françoise Charpiat, and Laurent Turner being brought on as writers.<ref>{{cite web|title=[From scripts to episodes] S1 - Part 1
|url=https://en.codelyoko.fr/scriptsvsepisodes/saison1_part1.cl|website=CodeLyoko.fr}}</ref><ref name="sd1">{{cite web|title=Interview - Sophie Decroisette, partie 1|url=http://cdal.over-blog.com/article-interview-sophie-decroisette-partie-1-122826682.html|website=Ces Dessins Animés-Là qui méritent qu'on s'en souvienne|date=2014-03-04}}</ref> It was around then when Aelita was added, who at this point was an AI who lived on the virtual world. When choosing a director, the team wanted "a new generation" to be in charge of the series.<ref name="sd2">{{cite web|title=Interview - Sophie Decroisette, partie 2|url=http://cdal.over-blog.com/article-interview-sophie-decroisette-partie-2-122910086.html|website=Ces Dessins Animés-Là qui méritent qu'on s'en souvienne|date=2014-03-11}}</ref> Jérôme Mouscadet was hired in June 2002 after having dinner with a friend who worked at Antefilms. While Mouscadet had experience with animation from directing short films at a small company, he never directed a series before. One of his first major contributions was to drop the idea of the characters retaining their powers in the real world, which he decided after wanting to further separate the virtual world from the real world.<ref>{{cite web|title=Avant première Code Lyoko saison 4|url=https://en.codelyoko.fr/events/avantpremieres4.cl#le_producteur_prend_la_parole__de_garage_kids__code_lyoko|website=CodeLyoko.fr|language=fr|date=2007-07-05}}</ref> Progress was slow over the summer of 2002, which Mouscadet attributed to the series' head writer "[taking] a lot of vacation".<ref name="sd2" /> Antefilms reached out to Sophie Decroisette as a replacement, who had recently been a writer for ''[[Malo Korrigan]]'' and was on a break after giving birth to her first child.<ref name="sd1" /> Decroisette described this stage of writing as expanding the concept and finding strong motivations for the characters. On ''Garage Kids''' pilot, she said: "I really just saw a teaser that was focusing on images[. T]here were great ideas in the images, notably the transition from one universe to the other, but plot-wise, it was just "they travel from one universe to the other", with no explanation on "how" and "why". They had no real motivation, they were fighting X.A.N.A., which was represented as black spheres, something like this, but none of this was clearly defined. Our job, with the other writers, was to try to introduce "scientific accuracy"". The writers struggled the most with finding a motivation for Jeremy. Charpiat suggested during a meeting that he want to bring Aelita onto Earth, which became the basis for the first season. Another concept emerged from Lenoir in the form of a time travel mechanism to explain how X.A.N.A. could cause massive damage to Earth, with other people witnessing the destruction, and have the heroes fix it without people becoming suspicious.<ref name="sd1" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Les secrets de Code Lyoko racontés par ses créateurs (et on sait pourquoi ils ont des grands fronts)|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOU4AWH3pyY&t=206s|language=fr|website=
Konbini|date=2023-01-07}}</ref> This eventually turned into the Supercomputer's "Return to the Past" function.

Networks were hesitant to ''Garage Kids'' due to its serial nature, as they feared it would alienate potential viewers who missed the first episodes and they wanted to rerun the series without worrying about episode order.<ref name="R" /> This lead the writing team to shift to a more episodic format. Romain ultimately chose to leave the series after this change in 2003 to work on the French-Japanese anime series ''[[Ōban Star-Racers]]''. Tania Palumbo remained on the series through its conclusion as creative director. She designed and named the main characters, with Jeremy being named after one of her and Romain's classmates at Gobelins. The series' human character designs were primarily influenced by Japanese animator [[Kōji Morimoto]]'s style.

After the series was sold to [[France 3]] and [[Canal J]], producers felt ''"Garage Kids"'' was too unclear for a title and requested it be renamed.<ref name="i">{{cite web|title=Interview with Sophie Decroisette|url=https://en.codelyoko.fr/interviews/sophie_decroisette.cl|website=CodeLyoko.fr|date=2007}}</ref> Palumbo and production manager Anne de Galard ultimately settled on "''Code Lyoko''", with Lyoko originating from the Japanese word "旅行" (Ryokō) meaning "travel" to further emphasis the dive into the virtual world.<ref name="R" /> The virtual world was subsequently renamed "Lyoko" as well.

=== Writing ===
The writing process for ''Code Lyoko'' usually began with the head writer asking the other writers for story pitches.<ref name="i" /> If they liked an idea, it next had to receive approval from the show's director, producers and broadcasters before it could be turned into a 4-page synopsis. After going through the approval process again, it was then expanded into a script and approved one last time to be sent off for production. Writing an episode typically lasted 2–3 weeks, though some took longer if higher-ups were unhappy with the story or it ran into issues. Sophie Decroisette, head writer of Code Lyoko's first three seasons, described ''Image Problem'' as "very difficult to write" after its original writer left the show following the synopsis phase, requiring another writer to step in and finish it. The writing team was also mandated by production to approve 4 scripts per month.

Following the success of the first season, the show was able to have more continuous storylines. Decroisette and show director Jérôme Mouscadet wrote the series' backstory during the break between season 1 and 2.<ref name="S">{{cite web|title=Q&A with Sophie Decroisette|url=https://en.codelyoko.fr/interviews/qr_sophie_decroisette.cl|website=CodeLyoko.fr|date=2016}}</ref> Before Romain left the project, the idea of Lyoko being created by a team of researchers had changed to just one: Franz Hopper. However his motivations and identity were never established. Decroisette revealed during production of season 4 that the full backstory would not be told in the show, as she considered it "very complicated... dense and [not] really important to the story."<ref name="i" />

The show's international success in the United States also affected production. Romance elements were ultimately reduced after season 2 to appease American audiences.<ref name="i" /> Aside from this, Decroisette otherwise noted that she "never felt censored" while working on the series, apart from a self-imposed restriction to write stories appropriate for children.<ref name="S" /> Bruno Regeste became head writer for ''Code Lyoko'''s final season after Decroisette stepped down while she was pregnant with her second child, though she continued writing scripts and closely monitored episodes involving Replikas.

=== Animation ===
The series' traditional animation was handled overseas by Animation Services Hong Kong Limited,<ref name="g">{{cite episode |title=A Bad Turn |series=Code Lyoko |date=2005|season=2 |number=13 |time="23:38"}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Agogo Corporation - Programs Library |url=http://agogo.com.hk/series.asp |website=agogo.com.hk |date=2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040710005423/http://agogo.com.hk/series.asp |archive-date=10 July 2004 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Fantasia Animation and Welkin Animation also worked on the show's first two seasons.<ref name="g"/> Starting around the third season, a team dedicated to ''Code Lyoko'' was formed at Hong Kong Limited's studio, who were managed on-site by two members from Antefilms' Paris office.<ref name="sd2" /> This change stemmed from Mouscadet's desire for a more consistent animation quality, which he described trying to manage it prior to that point as "a little bit like steering an ocean liner with binoculars". The 3D segments were animated in-house by Antefilm's CGI team at their [[Angoulême]] office.