Podenc

Joana

Short Film

Joana

Short Film

This is a Short Film about my daughter . It is a rotoscope animation of more than 2.000 hand drawn frames! 

It’s been featured in Stash Magazine and Vimeo Staff Picks

The project started in mid 2022 and was born from an inner urge of wanting to step back from the computer. From the beginning I used my daughter as my main inspiration source, so I started recording voice memos with her on my phone. My creativity often sparks when I find some new technique that captivates me, so doing my research, I stumbled on the work of Gianluigi Toccafondo, an Animation Director that repurposes footage using photocopy rotoscoping and painting over the frames. 

With those audio recordings of my daughter and with Toccafondo’s animation technique as a reference, I forced myself to write a simple VO to set a minimal narrative structure. Then I started filming Joana with my camera.

When I did my first animation tests I fell in love with the technique and the process, but immediately understood that I’d better reduce the script to a more realistic duration due to the huge amount of work that involves designing and producing each frame by hand in a practical way (1 second is made of 12 hand painted frames).. 

The process can be summarized like this: I would compose Joana’s footage digitally inside After Effects. Then I would print out a few frames and start designing with acrylic paint. Once I was happy with the design, I’d start producing the whole sequence 

It took me 6 months to complete 2:20 minutes of animation.

 

DIRECTOR: Podenco
PRODUCER: Podenco
ANIMATORS: Luis Llácer, Antoni Sendra
ANIMATION ASSISTANTS: Guille Terrádez, Ester Hernández
MUSIC: Carles Chiner