From the poetic Director Karla Castañeda: ·
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I was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, 1978. Stop motion animation is the art that I love; shooting one frame at a time to achieve the illusion of movement. I enjoy it all- from the drawing of the characters, sculpting, constructing the dress and hair, to animating them to life … it is awesome. Working with models on set, the ‘characters’ and the ‘acting’- seeing how they develop personality, is the magic of stop motion. This immediate physicality is something that does not happen with other animation techniques.
My first short Jacinta arose from a vision that came to me on a recurring basis- a pair of hands on a chest, pulling at their own withered heart. Then I wondered, why take this heart? Are they young or old hands? Slow or fast? The heart, is it beating? … etc.
Also, I had a deep admiration and closeness to my paternal grandmother Santitos. I always watched her knitting, and I wondered: how many miles will she weave throughout her nearly ten decades? How many stitches will be used? Colors?? Forms?? How many people would live with these sweaters, blankets, hats, gloves … etc.. when she dies? That footprint over the years …. Thus was born ‘Jacinta’, slowly piecing together the story, I went through many questions and pictures. My grandmother knew of the film, but sadly died just before we started animating, at age 99.
With La Noria, it was a bit like that process, everything begins and follows from some pictures, a wall, a river and then a Waterwheel. I then developed the story: the loss of a child, the loneliness, the letting go of our loved ones, forgetfulness and memory. I think all the stories I have in mind have a lot to do with personal things and issues experienced in my childhood- experiences that heavily influenced me.
We used a Canon 60D with Nikon optics. The lenses we use are always 60 and 105 Canon Nikon Macro. We like the macro because then you lose the notion that they are models and the sets transform into huge universes.
The capture software was Dragonframe. Its simply great to have been able master so many things with Dragonframe- Focus, key frames, video references, folders ….
More than just animation and film, I prefer to also draw inspiration from writers: Jorge Amado, Juan Rulfo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz, Antonio Machado, Ernesto Sabato, Jose Saramago, Milan Kundera, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, Hermann Hesse, amongst others.
From Animator Luis Téllez:
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In the production level I can tell you that I am not a professional producer, I prefer to animate or make puppets, but it was easier for us to just manage the budget and get the equipment and resources together by ourselves.
We love to make puppets, but in La Noria we worked on the character construction with a Spanish artist- Sandra Arteaga, because Karla fell in love with her style.
The entire production took about 15 months. Funding was by the IMCINE- the Mexican Institute of Cinematography, that each year launches a call for a short film competition. They support 3 shorts (any technique) each year. We released La Noria in March 2012, and it is now beginning the festival route..
I began animating in 1996 (also when I met Jamie Caliri as I worked on the short film ‘Síndrome de Línea Blanca’). Since then I have worked on several shorts, included Hasta Los Huesos.
In this film I was co-animator, character designer and participated in production design. In 2008 i produced and animated the short film Jacinta, directed by Karla.
Karla and I are able to work flexibly as a team, We often interchange roles, sometimes one of us is producer and the other is director and vice versa. When we are shooting it is just us.
– Which apparently is far more than enough! Thank you both! We look forward to sharing the full version of this beautifully crafted film.
