Disney entered these studios through the front door as the first Spanish animator to sign. “A dream come true,” says Raúl García, who has become one of our country’s greatest cartoonists. passed through their hands Pocahontas, Aladdin, The Lion King anyone Beauty and the Beast. On Friday, she pays homage to her career at the Sax Film Festival.
His biography on any Google page is preceded by being the first Hispanic to work for Disney. Good presentation.
OK, yes. The fact is that it was a kind of honor, the honor of the pioneer. Really working for Disney was a personal goal fulfilling a childhood dream I had and it was very important to me.
He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Sax International Film Festival on Friday and will be featured here as well. Extraordinary TalesA film based on five short stories by Allan Poe and nominated for two Annie Awards.
This is very rare because it is more undeserved tribute than deserved. I don’t think I deserve such an honor myself but hey, the alternative is to wait for someone to die to pay you a tribute, so better give it while you’re alive. enjoy the festival. It makes me half embarrassed, but at the same time, it’s satisfying to remember that there are cartoonists among us.
How has the world of animation changed since it started at Disney?
On the one hand, we must not forget that animation or cartoon, if cinema is drawn, is not a genre, but a technique. I like that over time the term has moved from something just for kids to an environment where stories can be told for everyone. Let’s go step by step, but a love or war story can be told with animation. And it has changed a lot technologically. When I entered Disney, paper was made with a traditional pencil and a sharpener. Few studios could afford the technical material needed. Now I can shoot movies from home with programs that can be purchased anywhere. And I no longer use paper. Things that used to be very complex are now simpler.
It is true that formerly an animated movie was associated with children’s cinema, but that is no longer the case because there are authentic animation gems for adults.
It’s a real leap. They have internalized it for a long time with anime in Japanese cinema, and now it seems that animations that touch on non-childish themes in Europe rather than America work, have an audience, and we break this. prejudice barrier
“This barrier that I broke when I entered Disney was more than broken, it was crushed.”
It has also gained weight academically and has university studies for animation cinema.
Yes, we were a bit like Martians before. Now there are places where you can learn animation, at least more systematically, instead of looking for information in books. The internet has done wonders in educating itself and the public on what animation is because we have access to a lot of movies and audiovisual content.
Making movies with actors is complicated, but even harder without them?
We have actors as they provide the sounds but this is completely different. In a live action movie, you place the camera, rotate it, and you pick it up. On the other hand, if I want to do the same thing in animation, I have to start by designing the area it is in, the table, the wallpaper in the background, the window view and the t-shirt. Of course, you have the advantage of being able to control each of the frames the way you want, tightly controlling what you want to tell. One of the biggest differences between animation and real image is that we have a movie from start to finish whereas in real image thousands of things can happen on set and the movie is done in editing. In the animation, the movie is already assembled because everything is calculated.
You started your own production company, Melón Digital SL, and that’s where you came from. It’s so extraordinary. He now lives in Los Angeles and works for Boxel, who works for Disney.
I’m working on a series of short films for Disney. me and mickey I am preparing a Spain-Singapore co-production with a production company from Valencia with my personal projects, which is put on youtube. Reviving Mickey Mouse in a new version has the challenge of preserving that recognizable image and image of Mickey’s drawn old animated shorts. I challenged myself to re-introduce Mickey to the kids, but with a more stretchy version and closer to the shorts we grew up with.
“There is more freedom to take risks in Europe than American industry would have been able to do”
Europe or USA
Is it more complicated to work in animation in America or Europe?
Working in animation is more commercial in the US. There is a chain or studio that hires you where they have every opportunity to make a movie. In Europe you have to work with co-productions where there is a little more sniping, more help. The way it works and how the movies are produced has nothing to do with it. But on the other hand, there is much more freedom to take risks here than is impossible in American industry.
Are there good animators in our country?
Certainly. Spain is a country of great artistic talent. It manifests itself everywhere and in animation. There hasn’t been a non-Hispanic movie since the US opened up to European talent for animation. We’re a ubiquitous group of nomadic showmen. Artistically or technically, they all have a Spanish team. That barrier that I broke when I entered Disney is more than broken, crushed.
In addition, the work of animators is much more recognized both in the world of cinema and by the audience. do you feel like this?
Yes, I believe that animation is slowly being understood as an art, something that needs to be cared for and promoted, and I also believe that on an economic level animation makes a lot of money. If you look at the US box office, major blockbusters are always animated or those that are declared non-animated, but they are. avatar, For example.
“Since the US opened up to European talent for animation, there hasn’t been a non-Hispanic film”
Even so, it’s interesting for people to know who’s running it, for exampleGodfatheror who played Indiana Jones, but not who created it Aladdin, The Lion King anyone pocahontasBy the way, so were you.
This is not yet. This is an education issue. Animated cinema is still seen as a minor genre. History will prove us right.
Animated series also do not proliferate in a world with so many platforms.
There are many, but the American market swallows them all. If you go to an international market, you will see the number of projects produced everywhere. But the truth is chains and platforms buy already known products, they don’t want to bet on new stuff.
The Hollywood world is on its way to war, with strikes from writers and actors.
At the moment, animation in the US has been stopped halfway because no one wants to greenlight a project and risk the actors or screenwriters striking later. It’s all a struggle for the problem of control. Clearly, the world of publishers and platforms that didn’t exist a decade ago at the time of the last employment contracts needs to be regulated. This has made a difference, but with the current crisis, I don’t know if it would be beneficial to have it now.
If I had to stay with one of your characters…
Frankly I prefer genius aladdin because he was my first character for Disney and he was the dream of my life.