INTERVIEW ROCIO ÁLVAREZ

1.- How did you get into the world of illustration?

Since I was little I always liked to draw and do creative things. I studied Fine Arts in Valencia and there I tried a lot of different techniques, from clay modeling to engraving or the basics of animation. In the beginning the teaching of drawing was more classical, we did statues and live model sessions together with old painting techniques. These bases would later be useful for me to consolidate my own languages. I explored many techniques on my own and learned a lot by entering poster or story contests. It was a good excuse to create and make a book which then provided me with other jobs, not to mention the pressure of creating with a deadline.

Currently, and for a few years now, I have clients that I work for every year and others that appear thanks to word of mouth or promotion on the networks.

2.- Your illustrations have life and movement. How do they relate to your animations?

I suppose it’s because of an inclination towards more expressive forms and not wanting to stick to realistic representations of bodies and objects. I don’t like making realistic characters and I guess not in animation either, so I tend to exaggerate certain body parts to intensify actions. I have been very inspired by the shapes of Lorenzo Mattoti and the deformations of Gianluigi Toccafondo.

3.- What other artistic formats do you work with?

Lately I’m pretty into the mural. I did a very large one for a metro station ‒with Aline Quertain‒, another for Greenpeace’s 50th anniversary at the Museum of Natural Sciences that pays tribute to biodiversity in various climates, and also other more expressive jungle-type murals in several public centers or private homes, all in Brussels.

I also experiment a lot with macro shot animated textures and portraiture.

I also combine it with workshops, the most recent of which I taught at the Master of Animation in Valencia, at the Tumo school in Armenia and at the Animasivo festival in Mexico.

Sometimes I have also served as a jury, as in the Colombian animation fund, the FDC, and in the Prime the Animation festival.

4.- What did your experience at the French school La Poudrière mean and the nomination of your graduation film Écart de conduite at the European Cartoon d’Or awards? What did you learn with your second short film Carnal Symbiosis?

Entering the La Poudrière school was a gift for me. It is very selective and only between nine and ten students enter each year, most of them French and a small number of foreigners. It is a public school with very good facilities. There are no full-time teachers, only professional animation classes are there. It is a very intense school. In the first year, an individual one-minute short and an adaptation of a children’s book are made into a group animation series. All this alternating with exercises in script or directing actors, given that it is a school that is based more on performance than on technique. Students who have already attended other more technical schools usually access it. In my case it wasn’t like that, my level of animation was not that good, I was chosen basically for my illustrative universe, but because of the group effect they create with the selection of students, a symbiosis emerged very beautiful in which everyone had their strong point and we helped each other.

During the second year at school, a four-minute short film with a free theme is made individually in a semi-professional manner, creating an initial dossier and a pitch. They bring as a jury a professional group and choose four shorts to then adapt them for television. I was lucky and Canal+ France selected my project.

There is a school budget to be able to hire some help with animation, sound and music.

In this exercise I made Écart de conduite, a comedy about the stressful fact of taking your driving license test. It is based on a personal experience but taken to the limit. It was difficult for me to make it because I went through the script a thousand times and then the drawing and animation time was very short and I had to work very intensively. Also, I wanted to do it in analog animation, on paper, and the process was very long: the sketch, the clean, the scanner, the color in TVPaint and compositing. But I learned a lot, and then I had the opportunity to go to the first festivals where I was selected as a director. It was even nominated for the Cartoon d’Or, an award for the best European short, and it was a great honor.

Carnal Symbiosis is my second short film and my favorite so far. It tells the story of human sexuality from an animal point of view, poetic, critical of the misogynistic past and with a touch of comedy. It took me several years to realize it and I did it at first with a grant from Zorobabel and Caméra etc. in Belgium I also received help from Canal+ Spain, and then help from the Federation of Wallonia.

It was very well received, has been selected in more than a hundred festivals and has received approximately twenty mentions and awards. It has allowed me to travel and get to know countries. It can still be seen in some festivals and retrospectives.

I learned that animation is an endurance sport, but hey, I already knew that, heh heh.

What I liked was that I wasn’t pressured to finish by a specific deadline, so I was always able to do it to the best of my ability, in all plans, even though it took longer.

I also worked with animators who made a lot of plans for the short, and it was good because it was always face-to-face and you can better explain to them what you want to achieve and correct before they go any further in the process.

5.- How do analog and digital coexist in your work? What do you think technology can bring to the world of illustration and animation?

I’m always playing ping-pong between the two formats, analog and digital. I love analog because I think it has something random that brings a lot of life to the image. You find features, shapes or ideas that you wouldn’t have come across with a graphics tablet. I think the paint texture, the regalim or the stain is still not that perfected in the digital realm, and doing it by hand always gives it a more human, real and curious touch. I also love making small models or paper constructions that I sometimes use as sets and then integrate them into the 2D characters.

On the other hand, I also really like experimental animation, making spots and photographing them in macro and making them move.

However, the digital world in my case seems indispensable and I’m a big fan of Photoshop and being able to control the whole process with layers, blending methods and the famous +Z control. For traditional animation I really like to use TVPaint and for the final compositing After Effects.

6.- How did you discover Animac?

In fact, it was by chance, through the Días de Cine program of La 2. I had already done Fine Arts, with an animation subject, but I was still quite green in animation and when I saw the ‘announcement of the festival got into my head to learn about another type of animation and I convinced my friend Ángela to go there together to spend the weekend. And as I just said, it was quite a discovery.

7.- What did it mean for you to work on the 27th anniversary poster? What did you want to reflect and how would you like the public to perceive it?

I found it a very beautiful experience because of the affection I have for the festival, and at the same time I felt a little pressure, because the posters of Carles Porta and Gina Thorstensen had set the bar very high. I really like the theme, “LatAm Boom!”, because I think that there really is a boom, but it has also been complex to represent a continent. With my passion for the plant and animal world, I have given it some prominence, but I have tried to include symbols or architecture from several Latin American countries. The human figures rise upwards, in a metaphor of growth. I wanted the image to have strong tropical colors and I’ve mixed them with black silhouettes to give contrast and also a mysterious touch.

I like the idea that the poster can bring color to the public space, a touch of visual joy. I’m looking forward to seeing how the large format prints will look around town during the festival. I also like the fact that there is a clear overall composition, but the viewer can travel inside the poster and find new details each time that they didn’t see at the beginning.

8.- Regarding the animated face, which you also made, how did you come up with it? What techniques did you use?

I have considered it as a side trip taking advantage of the background landscape of mountains with camouflaged elements that appear little by little, where the world of the incredible biodiversity of this continent predominates with touches of urban planning.

9- You live in Belgium. Are there more opportunities for an independent entertainer in Belgium than in Spain?

Yes, I have been living in Brussels for nine years. I think that there is more film aid in Belgium than in Spain, but less than in France, for example. It is also difficult to get help, there are few and many people apply. In the Flemish part there are more grants and of a larger amount, but the requirements to apply are very strict.

In any case, we are also seeing an increase in Spanish animation and more and more help from festivals or communities.

10.- Now you are in Colombia, how was the experience? Do you know other places in Latin America?

Yes, I am lucky enough to be in Colombia for two weeks, in the Antioquia region with my Colombian boyfriend, also an animator, Santiago Pérez. I am amazed by the biodiversity of plants, I have never seen such green and varied areas. A friend when she saw a photo I posted told me that she had come to live inside one of my drawings, and yes, sometimes it seems like that, ha ha. They are like these plants that are so hard for us to grow in Europe and that here grow at will, just like weeds. In addition, the people are very hospitable and I am also hallucinating with the food and especially the new flavors of fruits and juices. At the moment I have been more in rural areas and now a few days in Medellín, which despite being a huge city, is also very green. On the other hand, it is also a city of strong social contrasts and very full of life. I went to Mexico years ago, on a shorter trip, and loved it too. I like the fearless use of color in various Latin American folk art expressions.