Great Animation
Takes Great Collaboration
Loco Loquito Music Video | PJ Sin Suela + Jorge Drexler
The Beginning of Loco Loquito
It was around November 2017 when PJ Sin Suela first contacted me. He had just seen Misa E' Gallo's lyric video for their single "Gravedad", which I produced in collaboration with Tania (my beloved animation buddy) earlier that same year. We couldn't be more excited to work with another great local artist, so we were both on board without even discussing due dates! After our initial meeting, I had no idea what I had signed for, but it turned out to be a project very dear to my heart and a tremendous learning experience as a 2D animator.
The Process
The First Half (2016 – 2018)
After listening to the song with PJ Sin Suela for the first time, we brainstormed ideas as he explained the meaning of the song and gave us hints of what he had in mind. As a fan of my work, he trusted my creativity and gave us plenty of freedom regarding color choice and animation style. At first I didn't want to assign the roles between Tania and me so quickly. We explored different approaches before making the final decision on the roles. With the help of Luis Torres, a recently graduate student from illustration and animation of Escuela de Artes Plásticas, we came up with the character design style. At the end, Tania's beautiful illustration style suited the backgrounds, while I took the rest of the production as owner of the project. Needless to say that we had a big challenge ahead.
After a quick sketch storyboard of the first half of the video, I proceded with what is called an "animatic", a quick rough pass of what I envisioned the animation would be. This approach allowed us to convey the idea faster to the client. Also, watching the sketched sequence on top of the song gave us a better idea of how the animation would unfold.
Below you'll see some early concepts, an initial storyboard and some still frames from the animatic.
Working in Parts
More organically than strategically, we decided to tackle the main two verses first. You'll notice that the following still frames of the animatic have only the character and background sketches. All lyrics and graphics scenes were added ad hoc and improvised on top of the main storyline. It was not until we already were done with the main verses that we stepped back and thought about the chorus. We showed the work in process to fellow artists and people from the industry, to get some feedback. By then, it was 2018 and we still had no clue what the chorus would look like.
The Second Half (2018 – 2020)
On April 2019, PJ called me after several months hiatus on the project. Since the beginning, PJ had in mind that he wanted to invite a featuring artist to the song, and it took a few pitches before he managed to do so. That day, we got back on track as the great news hit home: Jorge Drexler had joined Loco Loquito! At this point, we had already finished the entire main verses of the animation. It was time to dust off the project and go back to the drawing board to finally decide what the chorus was going to be.
The down side of having to work on a project you had dormant so much time is that by the moment you get back to it, your skills have already gotten better. But instead of seeing it as a show stopper, I saw it as an opportunity to bring those new skills into the mix. For these two final parts, I skipped the story board process and jumped right into the animatic. I must say that the addition of those two bits of chorus gave more sense and meaning to the characters, the story, and the entire song.
The Final Result
Great collaboration takes great chemistry!
I cannot imagine myself working in such a big project for so much time without the chemistry needed to maintain the production going. Tania and I have worked together on previous projects, and she will always be my partner in crime when it comes to animation. But it was the chemistry between PJ and me that helped keep this project alive during the many breaks that we had to take for reasons out of our control. In the process, the lines between client and friendship blurred as we realized we enjoyed talking to each other about new ideas and ways to make the animation better. The mixture between pushing my boundaries as a client, and allowing my creative juices to flow freely as a friend was key to make it work.
F I N