MEXICO.- talk about Pooch’s Workshopwhere scenes from the multi-award winning film were filmed pinocchio, is to speak of patience. Not just because the same filmmaker Guillermo del Toro acknowledges that it took him 14 years to finish the short film, but because the studio based in Guadalajara, Jaliscois a specialist in Stop Motion.
Stop Motion is not for the desperate. The technique that del Toro’s feature film used requires so much passion for how well done that in a business day you can manage to do only three or four seconds of filming.
To give life to Pinocchio’s puppets must have lit up and photographed the characters up to 24 times per secondsometimes 12 times a second, to follow the script of the story that recently it won Best Animated Feature Film at the 2023 Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards.
Although most of the film was made in Portland; in Guadalajarathe land where Del Toro was born, it hosted the creation of two key scenes in the story of Pinocchio where four rabbits appear playing poker and carrying a coffin to bury Pinocchio, who will die from a bomb in the days of Italian fascism.
The Mexican filmmaker shared in a press videoconference that Logistically it was complicated to record part of the film in the Perla Tapatia, but it was a personal wish. “For me, as a Guadalajara it was important take a piece of Pinocchio to Guadalajara”, he explained.
THE WORKSHOP
The International Animation Center in Mexico was founded in 2020 with the support of Guillermo del Toro. The study It is one of the largest in Latin America and is also known as The Chucho’s Workshop because the logo is a dog and in many places in Mexico this animal is known as “Chucho”.
The success of Pinocchio will help position Taller del Chucho in the international industry. Several of its creators were recently present at the Pixelatl Festival, for example. However, the career of many of them began earlier, making their way in a technique that, although they had not had a large budget, they did have a lot of desire.
The most recognized animators are Rita Basulto (photography), Karla Castañeda and Juan José Medina (arts), Luis Téllez and René Castillo (animation), Juan José Medina (arts), León Fernández (puppets) and Sofía Carrillo (costumes)who were featured internationally at the 2020 virtual edition of the San Diego Comic-Con pop culture event by presenting del Toro’s film titled Antlers.
When the Taller del Chucho summoned local talent and from other states, the arrival of all of them was almost natural. Karla Castañeda, for example, had been cooperating with Guillermo del Toro for some time. Luis Téllez, who is one of the main animators of this film, told this newspaper that he began his career 25 years ago.
He had first studied Political Science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, but life surprised him after seeing a film by Jones Van Mayer that was shown at the Cineteca Nacional and it was just when he decided to study stop-motion.
“When I was a child I drew little monkeys and from that moment I left the room I went crazy and I bought a camera and some time later I took it seriously. He did several projects, but the most outstanding was in 2009 when I made a short film called Viva El Rey that gave me an Ariel ”, he expressed.
Téllez narrated that when they called him from the Chucho Workshop to invite them to the Pinocchio project, he did not hesitate: “I I was chosen to be an animation supervisor from the Guadalajara unit and worked hand in hand with Brian Hansen”, he details: “He is the animation director in Portland and we had meetings up to three times a day”.
Rita Basultowho studied at the Guadalajara School of Plastic Arts and various graduates at the University of Guadalajara (UdG), said that met del Toro in 1998when he gave a talk about the profession of cinema.
“I remember perfectly when told us that not everyone reaches the end of this race for the discipline and perseverance that is required.”
Later, Basulto won four Ariel awardsthe highest award that was given in Mexico, until the current administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador took away the budget and for which he entered into controversy with Guillermo del Toro, who offered to pay for it as long as talent continues to be encouraged.
“They spoke to me and I didn’t think I would win the photography position because there were many candidates and even better than me. I never would have imagined that in this project I would meet the dragonframe creator and not only that, because we had to be taught the fifth version and learn from the Portland systems”, mentioned Basulto.
WHERE IT COMES FROM
Although The origins of stop motion go back more than a century.Mexico has relatively little in this technique, but it is backed by many years of taste for animation. The first animated production in Mexico is an eight-minute short film called “My Dream”, created in 1916.
Since that time it does not stop. in the recent Matatena Festival of the Cineteca Nacional presented the short film in Stop Motion “My grandmother Matilde”where talent from El Taller de El Chucho also participated.
Miguel Anayathe producer of the film in Mexico City, said that from now on the technique is expected to become an icon of Mexico. “There will be more and more productions,” he affirms without hesitation.
René Castillo, from El Taller del Chucho, agreed. Mainly because there is quality. “If you are going to spend several years working on the same project, you definitely have to be committed and passionate about what you do. You wouldn’t want to spend so much time and effort on a mediocre and boring story!
“What we do is literally an act of magic: bringing the puppet to life and getting people to think of them as real characters,” he said.
Despite the complexity of the process, Sergio Valdivia believes that all the effort is worth it when you see the end result, which is impossible to replicate through live action or 3D animation. Even when the advancement of technology has made many think that traditional animation or stop motion is going to disappear.
“There are simply things that are impossible to replace,” he stressed.
You might also be interested in:
List of nominees for the Oscars 2023
Mexican Guillermo del Toro gets three historic BAFTA nominations