Today I attended the last day of filming of the last project I’m working on. This project, as sometimes happens with good things, came to us suddenly from nowhere. One day Jesus (my boss) told me that he has a great script in his hands, and after a couple of days, without knowing how or why we were caught in the scrub. In this case, my work has been, for the moment, the artistic designs for the atrezzo. Posters, labels, covers of books and magazines, including a business card and a label for a can of drink and the, in principle, future poster presentation for the film.

This is an ambitious film in history and short on the means and resources (for which is usual in the filming industry at least), no zillions of millions for materials, cameras, mainstream stars …… just enthusiasm and hard work. In fact this has been one of the criticisms that have emerged in the press conference, while Woody Allen when he came to Barcelona to shoot the council gave him a grant of one million euros, to independent films like this, when asked permission to shoot in a cemetery in the city they responded that they had to pay 500€/hour

Although I could not read the entire script, the film speaks about the dangers of a society (ours) hiperconsumerist and “too much” informed, posing a hypothetical and not too distant future in which people are easily manipulated through various means and that’s all you can get from me now. Now, after the shooting, we still have a year of post-production, as the film has a high percentage of scenes in computer animation.

As to today, well, on Saturday afternoon I received a call from Jesus in which he said they had Fernando Arrabal to make a small role in the film and needed a poster for the presentation in a press conference they will offer today. After having the poster done, today I received an invitation to attend the press conference and the shooting of the last scene. Although not my first shoot (a few years ago I made an extra … better not to remember), it was the first time that I am directly involved in even when it’s been a small part (unfortunately I could not attend the filming of the Extremo teaser, that video I showed you a couple of entries below). It’s been a great experience which I enjoyed a lot, including the Fernando Arrabal lecture of his lines. On the other hand I can assure that the “interior” of a film is much less glamorous and has more hard work than what people tend to think … well, I do not think Hollywood superstars take these beatings upon themselves, but as for almost all, Hollywood is another planet. Certainly a film is not only done by the actors, there’s a hive of people who “break their backs” and who you’ll  probably  never see their faces or know their names (if you are not of that  very few ones that read the credits, of course )

Anyway, a pleasant experience that I hope to repeat very soon (this will mean that I’ll be working). Here you have all I can show for now, that is, the poster for the press conference, although you will get an idea of the style of the rest…or probably not. It has been great seeing that in 70×90 cm at the entrance to the newsroom and projected on a huge screen behind the speakers.
As I can you’ll have more.

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Well, here I present you the latest work I’ve been doing. This is the video clip of  Begging the waves, the latest single from Lídia Pujol, a Catalan singer / songwriter that I did not know until this work and whose music has pleasantly surprised me, highly recommended. In her latest album released to date, “Els amants Lilith” she collects songs from the folk tradition, collected around the villages of Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Isles, from the mouths of those elder women who sang to her. Those songs are sung in Catalan language but even  though, they are beautiful and… how many of  us hear a lot of music without knowing what they are saying?. Anyway, this single Begging the waves move away a bit from popular music for something a bit more ….actual and it is the germ of a new album.

In this case, the video clip is directed by Jesús Manuel Montané (at the time, my boss) and produced by Grupo Estudio. I have been in charge of production design, making the initial sketches to define the aesthetic of the video (was not that hard because  Jesus has the ideas quite clear from the beginning) and been responsible for the matte painting and the “flying objects” that you can see in the final video. For the moment, given that it is in promotion I can’t show you the full matte painting that was used for the video, but you can see quite well at the end of the song (as well as in the back of the single). I was also responsible for redesigning the cover of the single, based on a photo of Lídia taken by Santi Yaniz.

You can download the song for free (for now at least) in Lidia’s site  www.lidiapujol.com, where you can listen to some of her songs (attention to the beautiful and dramatic La nina i son germá). Also available through iTunes.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

¿Do you remember the matte painting that I showed in this post?. Well, finally I managed to find the trailer of the movie  the matte painting was made for, so here you have the video. As you’ll see the matte was used as the background at the begining of the sequence (though the guys at Neorender put it to 3D, they are cracks, period). This trailer shows part of a 10 minutes sequence we shoot some time ago. I also designed part of what you can see at the inside of the club, as the flags and the sword used by the main character….. What do you think?

Mushroom likes to play with Cuttie, and they never do any good. Of course he doesn´t like so much when he becomes the target of the little girl´s jokes…

Cuttie and Mushroom, along with the mage Nicodemus and the priest Grifh’a are some characters that I have “in my pocket” years ago hoping to do something with them. I even have an eight-page script (4 pages drawn) that served as a presentation of the story …. who knows, maybe someday they come to light. Meanwhile I am quite amused drawing them from time to time, they are two little thugs and it is fun to get carried away by them from time to time.

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Mushroom and Cuttie wish you

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

……so do I

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