Mexopolis: Creative InspirationsIntroduction| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:11 | Sandra Equihua: Nickelodeon had
never really had show so Latino filled.
| | 00:16 | I mean, it was almost like
having salsa pushed into your face.
| | 00:19 | It was so Latino, it really was.
| | 00:21 | Jorge Gutierrez: And so we start with these
little nuggets of things that happened to us and then
| | 00:25 | we elaborate and embellish and then
add the superhero of stuff at the end.
| | 00:29 | (Male voice: El Tigre!)
| | 00:30 | (Rwar! Tiger snarling.)
| | 00:33 | Sandra Equihua: So we both had our own worlds,
and we were both growing creatively and we had so
| | 00:38 | much to share every time
we would come down and see each other.
| | 00:42 | Jorge Gutierrez: In all her assignments, she
would concentrate on making illustrations for them.
| | 00:47 | You look at her work and it's clear
that she has animation in her blood.
| | 00:52 | Sandra Equihua: So one thing about Flash is
that it's very much like clay, I like to say.
| | 00:56 | Jorge Gutierrez: But I think it is those
different points of view or different perspectives
| | 01:00 | of how to approach artwork
that gives us all that variety.
| | 01:05 | Sandra Equihua: The entire story behind the
paintings was the joy and the whimsy and the
| | 01:11 | happiness that a new life brings.
| | 01:12 | Jorge Gutierrez: We call it the flair.
| | 01:15 | It's like a style and it feels
unique and has a point of view and
| | 01:18 | it feels different.
| | 01:19 | These paintings, this is who you are,
this is your voice as an artist,
| | 01:25 | this is where you're from.
| | 01:26 | If you can make this move, then
you'll be making something that I've never seen before.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Workspace| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Sandra Equihua: Hi! I am Sandra Equihua.
| | 00:10 | Jorge R. Gutierrez: And I am Jorge
Gutierrez and together we are Mexopolis,
| | 00:14 | a small animation production company.
| | 00:16 | And this is our Burbank
studio apartment where we live.
| | 00:21 | We decided to move to Burbank
because this is the center of the cartoon universe.
| | 00:27 | Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros.,
Cartoon Network, all the studios are here,
| | 00:31 | and we hate driving.
| | 00:33 | So this is the perfect location for us.
| | 00:35 | Also, we always move to wherever we work.
| | 00:39 | So this was a natural decision to move
here. This is where we sort of do the
| | 00:46 | creative part of our job and then after
we come up with our ideas, we go to the
| | 00:52 | big Hollywood studios down here in
Burbank and that's where we literally go to
| | 00:56 | work for a production.
| | 00:57 | Sandra: We have been
working together nearly forever.
| | 01:00 | We are living proof that a married
couple can actually work together.
| | 01:04 | We have been together since I was 17
and Jorge was 18, and here we are, working
| | 01:09 | together, being happy and
working on stuff that we like.
| | 01:13 | So if you guys want to come up and
follow us that'd be great. Come on up.
| | 01:17 | Jorge: Welcome to
our home studio. Bienvenidos.
| | 01:19 | Sandra: Ta-da!
Jorge: This is one of our bookcases, full of...
| | 01:23 | This kind of defines our
philosophy and aesthetic in a way.
| | 01:28 | You'll see a lot of Mexican folk art.
Just like most animation nerds,
| | 01:31 | we collect toys, except we collect folk art
Mexican toys and from different states of Mexico.
| | 01:38 | Up here, we have a lot of
our day-to-day iconography.
| | 01:42 | We love calaveras and skeletons, paper mache.
| | 01:46 | We sort of put it all together.
| | 01:48 | So this is our Day of the Dead altar.
| | 01:52 | Day of the Dead is a tradition
celebrated in Mexico and a lot of countries in
| | 01:56 | Latin America and it's a tradition
where on November 2nd you put an altar to
| | 02:04 | your loved ones who passed away and
you put their favorite foods, some of their
| | 02:08 | favorite games, and you remember them,
because their spirit comes back to you
| | 02:13 | that day and it's a very festive
celebration. It's not sad at all.
| | 02:16 | I was very close to my grandfather
who was a big time general and
| | 02:21 | the grandfather in El Tigre is based on him.
| | 02:23 | So for the first time we
did a little altar for him.
| | 02:27 | And the first Emmy that the El
Tigre won, it's now won six Emmys, but
| | 02:33 | for different things.
| | 02:34 | For storyboarding, for art
direction, for directing, for --
| | 02:39 | Sandra: Background design.
| | 02:40 | Jorge: For background design.
And what was really great and really sort of
| | 02:45 | rewarding was that both of us won
for character design. Like individually.
| | 02:50 | Actually this is yours.
| | 02:51 | Sandra: Yeah, this one
is yours. Gimme that.
| | 02:54 | Jorge: But Sandra won before I did.
| | 02:58 | Sandra: But it was
because of you, thank you so much.
| | 02:59 | Jorge: I was really
happy and really proud.
| | 03:01 | But particularly I felt like my manhood
has been challenged, like "I have to win one too!"
| | 03:07 | And sure enough
the next year I won one.
| | 03:09 | So it was very rewarding.
| | 03:12 | Sandra: I expected you wouldn't say that.
| | 03:13 | Jorge: But it's all thanks to you!
| | 03:16 | This is the first painting that got me
addicted to paintings about loss and what
| | 03:23 | I mean by that is, a painting where
the artist was making it as they either
| | 03:28 | broke up with a girlfriend or their
wives left them or there was some sort of
| | 03:32 | relationship ending.
| | 03:33 | I am of the belief that
from pain comes great art.
| | 03:38 | So what's the most painful time
for a young artist? When love ends.
| | 03:44 | I wanted to buy this piece from
Gerald De Jesus, this great artist, and
| | 03:48 | he said it was too painful.
| | 03:49 | And then one day he just gave it to me.
| | 03:51 | He said, you can have it.
| | 03:52 | And I just love it.
| | 03:53 | It's this beautiful girl and this
dead baby hurting her with barbwire.
| | 03:59 | I don't want to ask him what a lot of
this stuff means, because I am have been
| | 04:02 | imagining these horrible things.
| | 04:03 | Sandra: He kind of leaves it
to our interpretation as well, so yeah.
| | 04:07 | Jorge: But he is a fantastic,
fantastic painter from Art Center who ended up--
| | 04:11 | literally started as a background anchor
on the show and worked his way up to art director
| | 04:16 | and then won an Emmy.
| | 04:17 | Sandra: Thanks to Jerry.
Jorge: So he's one of the big success stories from the show.
| | 04:21 | Sandra: Okay, so this is our studio.
| | 04:23 | This is where Jorge and I collaborate.
| | 04:24 | This is where the magic happens.
| | 04:26 | As you can see, the room is pretty
small, but we have learned to work
| | 04:30 | together very well.
| | 04:32 | A lot of our stuff that
influences us are on the walls.
| | 04:36 | For example, James Otto
Seibold who we totally love.
| | 04:39 | He is one of our idols and that's another thing.
| | 04:42 | We totally coincide with a lot of
things that we love too. That's why I think we
| | 04:47 | can work in the same room, because a
lot of the stuff that he likes, I like and
| | 04:50 | a lot of the stuff that I like he likes.
| | 04:51 | But then there are also things that
I just don't and I can't stand.
| | 04:54 | For example, sorry, Jorge.
| | 04:58 | I really love his artwork, it's
inspiring, it's inspired me to do things that
| | 05:04 | are organic and crazy and colorful.
| | 05:09 | Like that!
| | 05:11 | Jorge: So this is an example of--
Sandra: No, not like that! Yeah.
| | 05:13 | Sandra: Of difference.
Jorge: Of Sandra's artwork and what I do.
| | 05:18 | And as you can see, Sandra's stuff
is very delicate, very tasteful.
| | 05:23 | People even wonder like, is she doing
this with a computer? Because the stuff
| | 05:26 | looks so perfect and exact. But then
my stuff looks like a crazy drunk man did it.
| | 05:32 | And I love to paint things that I
can't do on the computer, which is messy,
| | 05:38 | dirty. I love finger painting,
sometimes, most of the time.
| | 05:44 | I never know when
I am done with the painting.
| | 05:45 | Jorge: It just keeps--
Sandra: Evolving.
| | 05:47 | I feel like when I paint, the canvas is
calling me out and I have to beat it with paint.
| | 05:52 | Sandra: Mary Blair is huge influence on
many an artist and Jorge and I are no exception.
| | 05:59 | She is the amazing lady that
helped out Disney on many things.
| | 06:06 | One of the main things that
she did was "It's a Small World."
| | 06:10 | She designed the interior, she
designed the character, she designed
| | 06:12 | everything that's in there.
| | 06:14 | Her work is so whimsical and so child-
like and yet it's so hard to replicate.
| | 06:19 | It really is, because her technique is
so mastered. It's a craft that not a lot
| | 06:25 | of people can do.
| | 06:26 | Jorge: When Sandra
discovered her, it was just --
| | 06:28 | Sandra: It was enlightening.
| | 06:30 | Jorge: Because there are not
a lot of famous female artists in animation.
| | 06:33 | So she became kind of Sandra's Frida Kahlo.
| | 06:35 | Sandra: Oh yeah.
| | 06:37 | Jorge: This is another huge inspiration
in our work and it's the films of Italian
| | 06:43 | director Sergio Leone.
| | 06:46 | The father of the Spaghetti Western and
as we were saying earlier he had never been
| | 06:51 | to America, let alone Mexico,
but when you see his films, the Mexican
| | 06:55 | characters are these over-the-top crazy
caricatures of what Italians in the 60s
| | 07:01 | thought Mexican cowboys looked like, but
he's become a huge, huge influence on us.
| | 07:07 | Having giant posters like this is one of
the best things that we can do here in
| | 07:12 | our home studio, because we just
have all our inspiration everywhere.
| | 07:15 | So we say like that is our little sort
of cave of magic where we get to do our
| | 07:18 | own stuff before we show it to the civilians,
before they turn on us with their pitchforks.
| | 07:24 | Sandra: I personally just like waking up in
the mornings and being really inspired by everything.
| | 07:29 | There's nothing like coming into the
living and seeing that red wall that we
| | 07:32 | have in the living room. I just love it.
| | 07:34 | In here, it's so visual and it's just
so inspiring and I hope that we are just
| | 07:40 | going to keep on adding and
adding until we can't see the walls.
| | 07:43 | Jorge: This is Mexopolis right here.
A little chunk of Mexico in the middle of Burbank.
| | 07:48 | Sandra: Yeah, and it's our inspiration.
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| Career path| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Jorge Gutierrez: I was born in Mexico City
and like all children, I was a disappointment to
| | 00:11 | my father.
| | 00:12 | On my mom's side of the family, everyone
was in the military and from my father's
| | 00:17 | side of the family, there seemed to be
more artists and specifically my dad is an
| | 00:22 | architect and so he
considered those to be serious arts.
| | 00:26 | When I told him as a kid that I
wanted to be a painter, he thought,
| | 00:31 | well, that's like saying you want to be
the Pope or be an astronaut, but it's not
| | 00:35 | going to happen.
| | 00:37 | And then I would you hear like, oh that
guy didn't make any money, he died and
| | 00:40 | then his paintings became
famous, stuff like that.
| | 00:42 | So I started going, oh no!
| | 00:44 | If I grow up and I want to be an
artist I need to do something where I can
| | 00:48 | make money.
| | 00:49 | So I thought, oh, I'll do cartoons and
comic books. And I told my father this
| | 00:55 | and he was appalled.
| | 00:56 | He was very, very disappointed.
| | 00:59 | He started pushing his agenda of maybe
you should go to school for architecture
| | 01:04 | or for graphic design.
| | 01:06 | And then if your whole painter thing
or comic book thing doesn't work out
| | 01:10 | you have a real degree and
a real art to fall back on.
| | 01:14 | And then you can do all your other
stuff on the weekends and at night.
| | 01:20 | I laughed at my dad and
I said, what do you know?
| | 01:23 | I am going to show you, Dad!
| | 01:24 | Sandra Equihua: I am originally from Tijuana,
Baja California, Mexico and I came to a family of
| | 01:31 | all doctors and academia people.
| | 01:36 | My mom was a teacher and my dad is a
teacher and he was a professor, an anatomy
| | 01:41 | professor, and my dad would be giving
us anatomy lessons when we were like
| | 01:45 | nine, seven, five years of age and he
would gives us 25 cents each if we knew the
| | 01:51 | parts of the cranium.
| | 01:52 | And I was just not paying attention.
I was just off doodling with crayons and
| | 01:56 | markers on, I don't know, on the floor or
on the wall because I just had no interest
| | 02:02 | whatsoever in medicine.
| | 02:03 | So although I didn't start in
animation, I kind of smelted my way into it.
| | 02:09 | I studied graphic design.
| | 02:11 | I actually got my Bachelors in that.
| | 02:14 | It was the closest thing
I could get to animation.
| | 02:16 | When I was in high school, I was
actually going to go off and do architecture.
| | 02:20 | I was very interested in it, but
it was a little too cold for me.
| | 02:23 | I need a something a little warmer,
something like that could come from --
| | 02:26 | I don't know, not that architecture doesn't,
but from my soul. That I could do with my hands,
| | 02:30 | that I could love.
| | 02:32 | I started dabbling in illustration and
I started dabbling in drawing characters
| | 02:37 | and then Jorge, my boyfriend back then,
husband now, we've been together forever.
| | 02:42 | Since we were 17 and 18.
| | 02:44 | He actually went to CalArts and he
studied experimental animation while I
| | 02:49 | studied graphic design.
| | 02:50 | So we both had our own worlds and we
were both growing creatively and we had so
| | 02:56 | much to share every time that we
would come down and see each other,
| | 02:59 | just exchanging ideas and projects.
| | 03:04 | I always thought that my dad was like
not very proud of what I was doing and
| | 03:11 | it wasn't that he wasn't proud
because he wasn't paying attention.
| | 03:14 | He just didn't understand it.
| | 03:15 | Jorge: And here I was the
physical representation of everything
| | 03:21 | her parents wouldn't want in their daughter--
Someone who wanted to be an artist and
| | 03:27 | who encouraged Sandra to be artist.
And they gave her these crazy curfews.
| | 03:31 | Like she was 22 and her curfew was 10 p.m.
| | 03:35 | And it was like - it was Gestapo,
like investigating all everything we did.
| | 03:41 | It was horrible, but it was really
exciting, because I was trying to steal this
| | 03:49 | great artist girl from this family.
| | 03:51 | And to her, it was like
a smoke dream to be an artist,
| | 03:57 | it was so far away.
| | 03:58 | Removed from her. Like she was going to
graphic design school and they certainly
| | 04:01 | didn't make any effort in that school
to imply that you could make a living
| | 04:07 | doing your own stuff.
| | 04:08 | Sandra: Moving on a little forward,
we got married and we started working together on
| | 04:12 | projects like on Mucha Lucha, and we
started working on The Buzz on Maggie and
| | 04:18 | then we started pitching and we've got
on El Tigre and right now we are working
| | 04:21 | on other things for Disney and I love it.
| | 04:23 | I love showing my work.
| | 04:24 | I love giving my work to people and
I think animation and illustration is
| | 04:28 | the best way to do it.
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| Educating Jorge| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Jorge Gutierrez: This piece is one
of the first paintings I ever did.
| | 00:12 | I was 16 years old when I did this.
| | 00:14 | This painting is called
"The Woman Who Had a Coyote Lover."
| | 00:18 | It's this woman who has all these
children that are half-coyote, half-human.
| | 00:22 | There are all the things that I love.
| | 00:23 | Tons of skeletons, tons of candles
and crosses and I love baroque Mexican
| | 00:30 | Catholic iconography.
It's everywhere in there.
| | 00:34 | We looked around in Mexico and there
are no cartooning schools and my dad at
| | 00:39 | that point was like, maybe if you're
really serious about cartoons, let's try to
| | 00:44 | get you to go to the best
cartoon school in the world.
| | 00:47 | If you can get into that school,
then it means you are serious about it.
| | 00:52 | So we started looking and we found the
school called CalArts, the California
| | 00:56 | Institute of the Arts.
| | 00:57 | I was going to high school in San Diego
and everyone in high school told me,
| | 01:02 | well, you're not going to get in.
| | 01:03 | But every time you get rejected, you'll learn
a little more as to why you couldn't get in.
| | 01:09 | So by the time you apply a third or
fourth time, you'll know like what you did
| | 01:14 | wrong and you might get in.
| | 01:17 | I told my dad like "Dad, this is
perfect. Because every year I don't get in,
| | 01:21 | it gives you one more year
to save money from me to go.
| | 01:23 | So this is all going to work out."
| | 01:25 | So I'm a junior in high school and
they tell me, well, bring your portfolio
| | 01:34 | to Valencia.
| | 01:35 | And meanwhile, my cartooning
portfolio was full with 17-year-old drawings, like
| | 01:42 | aliens, barbarians, girls in bikinis,
like all the stupidities of youth were in there.
| | 01:48 | My painting portfolio was all
Mexican folk art, which is the stuff I love.
| | 01:54 | Like ever since I was a kid, I have
been obsessed with it and they are very,
| | 01:58 | very different.
| | 01:59 | It never occurred to me
that I could mix those things.
| | 02:03 | So we get to CalArts and at the front of
Experimental Animation line is Jules Engel,
| | 02:11 | this legendary artist,
cartoonist who orked at Disney and UPA and
| | 02:16 | he is kind of done by this point.
| | 02:18 | He's seen a bunch of crappy stuff and
here I am, really shy, and I put down my
| | 02:24 | cartoon portfolio and he asks me like, wow!
| | 02:30 | What kind of artist are you?
| | 02:33 | That was a big question.
| | 02:33 | I didn't even have an answer for that.
| | 02:36 | I said, "I want to do cartoons." Like that
was my answer and he gave me this look of
| | 02:42 | like you poor idiot, like what's wrong with you?
| | 02:44 | So he opens my portfolio and he's kind
pissed and he goes through my drawings and
| | 02:49 | he goes, this is crap.
| | 02:50 | He is like, "You see this? This is crap!"
| | 02:53 | And he turns over the page.
| | 02:55 | He grabs like a barbarian.
| | 02:56 | He is like, "this is derivative,"
and he turns another page.
| | 02:59 | He is like, "I've seen this a
thousand times, but drawn better."
| | 03:03 | And he's just tearing me a new one,
just destroying me drawing by drawing, and
| | 03:08 | he's like, "Is this supposed to be funny?"
| | 03:11 | And I go, "Uhhhh-uh."
| | 03:12 | He is like, "It is not funny."
| | 03:13 | And he just? And my ego is going down as he keeps
destroying me and destroying me and then he is done.
| | 03:21 | He is like, "That's it,
that's all you have?"
| | 03:23 | I was like, "Yeah, that's it."
| | 03:25 | He is like, "You are not ready to do
film school, you are not ready to be a real artist."
| | 03:32 | And he said, "This is what
everyone else is drawing and you are only
| | 03:38 | drawing things you like.
| | 03:41 | This says nothing to me about who you are."
| | 03:44 | So I take all my stuff and I am
putting it all away and I put my painting
| | 03:49 | portfolio on the side.
| | 03:51 | As I am grabbing my stuff, I forget
painting portfolio and Jules goes,
| | 03:57 | "You forgot this stuff."
| | 03:58 | So I come back and there is a tiny piece
of a painting peeking out of it, and
| | 04:03 | he goes, "Let me see that."
| | 04:04 | So I open my painting portfolio and I
explained to him, oh it's about Mexico and
| | 04:10 | folklore and all the things I love about
my country and he starts looking at it,
| | 04:15 | and his eyes light up and he is going
through all the artwork and it's very
| | 04:19 | colorful and it's very personal to me.
| | 04:23 | And he goes, "These paintings, this is who you
are, this is who you -- this is your voice as
| | 04:29 | an artist, this is where you are
from and this tells me who you are."
| | 04:32 | He says, "If you can make this move,
then you will be making something that I
| | 04:39 | have never seen before."
| | 04:41 | I am officially accepting you into the
CalArts' Experimental Animation program.
| | 04:47 | I went home. I told my dad.
I am like, "Dad, I met this crazy old man.
| | 04:52 | I think he let me into the school."
| | 04:55 | And my dad was like, "That sounds crazy."
| | 04:56 | He was like, "You should
call the school to confirm."
| | 04:59 | So I called the school and they had
no idea of what I was talking about.
| | 05:03 | I waited a week and then they finally
told me like, "yeah, Jules Engel accepted
| | 05:06 | you into the Experimental Animation program."
| | 05:11 | My dad said, "Well, your grandfather
and me talked and we got enough money
| | 05:15 | for you to go one year."
| | 05:17 | You can only go to CalArts for one year.
| | 05:19 | And at that point I thought, that's
more than enough, like that's all I need.
| | 05:24 | I will go to CalArts for one year and
I'm going to learn everything that needs
| | 05:28 | to be learned in one year, and that's it.
| | 05:31 | Perfect!
| | 05:33 | I was like, how could this fail?
| | 05:33 | So I go to CalArts, first day of school,
you get to sign up and you are supposed
| | 05:39 | to do roughly-- you are
supposed to do nine units a semester.
| | 05:44 | So I look at the book with all the
classes and I'm like, well I should try to
| | 05:49 | get 40 units this semester and then
I'll get 40 the next semester. That's it!
| | 05:54 | I got my degree!
| | 05:56 | So I go and I started signing up for
classes and the teachers are like, "Wait a second.
| | 06:02 | How many units do you have?"
| | 06:03 | I was like, "Don't worry. I have this
plan. We are going to do this in one year."
| | 06:07 | "Just trust me. I'm going to get this
done." And you are supposed to do one film
| | 06:13 | a year in CalArts.
| | 06:15 | That's kind of what you're expected to do.
| | 06:18 | So I ended up doing four films my first
year, and out of the 40 units I took for
| | 06:25 | that first semester and then I
think 38 in the second semester,
| | 06:28 | I ended up getting a high pass on
most of them. Like I don't know how I did it.
| | 06:32 | Just drinking tons of coffee
and visiting Sandra every two weeks.
| | 06:35 | So all the teachers at the
end of the year were like, "Wow!
| | 06:39 | He almost died but look at all the stuff he did.
| | 06:42 | Let's give him a scholarship."
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| Educating Sandra| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Sandra Equihua: I was often looking for graphic
design gigs in Tijuana and it was kind of hard.
| | 00:14 | People are constantly fighting
against each other to find a job.
| | 00:18 | So for me to find one back then was awesome.
| | 00:21 | I found a company called Fotographica,
which took me in, and they taught me the
| | 00:25 | very basics of it and from there I
took that and I decided I don't think
| | 00:29 | graphic design is for me.
| | 00:31 | I think I am going to have
to dabble in something else.
| | 00:33 | I think I am going to have to go
with what I wrote in my thesis.
| | 00:36 | I think I am going to have to
go with animation and illustration.
| | 00:38 | Jorge: Her parents had been so
supportive of her going to graphic design for university
| | 00:47 | that she didn't want to let them down.
She really wanted to pursue that.
| | 00:50 | But Sandra had her own thing and her
own unique style and all her assignments
| | 00:55 | she would concentrate on
making illustrations for them.
| | 00:59 | You look at her work and it's clear
that she has animation in her blood.
| | 01:02 | Sandra: My thesis was based on the
fact that a lot of kids in Mexico are interested
| | 01:09 | in animation.
| | 01:11 | Unfortunately, they are very limited
in the mindset that in order to make
| | 01:16 | something you need money, you need a lot
of funding. Which is true if you want to
| | 01:20 | make a very large project, but even so
nowadays with the technology that we have--
| | 01:25 | Like Flash is so functional, Harmony is
so functional that you can make anything
| | 01:29 | that you want with it.
| | 01:30 | Jorge: Any one in Mexico can make a
cartoon without having big expensive equipment.
| | 01:39 | If they make it in Flash, they can
put it online and the whole world can see it.
| | 01:43 | And the way to prove that theory was
she herself did an animation piece.
| | 01:50 | Sandra: I got my Bachelors in Tijuana,
Baja California, Mexico, and my school, which happens
| | 01:57 | to be Ibero, Iberoamericana
Noroeste, a wonderful school.
| | 02:01 | I learned a lot.
| | 02:03 | Great teachers, wonderful students.
| | 02:05 | We fed off each other and our creativity.
| | 02:09 | I have got a lot of backing from them.
They were like "You know what, let's do it,
| | 02:13 | but you have to do an animated
shot that has to deal with our culture."
| | 02:18 | Because I was ready to just to do
something very experimental and crazy and
| | 02:21 | they are like, "You have to portray
something that has to do with Mexican culture."
| | 02:25 | So I chose to show in a very childlike
way, like very cutout kind of way,
| | 02:31 | the domination of Aztec Empire. And legend says
that there was a woman called La Malinche
| | 02:41 | that took Cortez and his
crew to where the Aztecs were and
| | 02:47 | they dominated them,
they completely wiped them out.
| | 02:49 | That's what the legend says.
| | 02:50 | Due to a woman, the Mexican Empire
came down, the Aztec Empire came down.
| | 02:56 | It took a while, it took me a long time,
and I finally finished it. And I better have,
| | 03:00 | because my father said that if I didn't,
I was never going to marry Jorge.
| | 03:04 | Even though he was on his deathbed he
was still telling me, "You finish your
| | 03:07 | thesis or you will not marry that boy."
| | 03:09 | I was like, "Okay fine."
| | 03:12 | And I finished it and
I finally got the yes from him and
| | 03:16 | I passed.
| | 03:17 | I passed with flying colors.
| | 03:19 | Jorge: She shows her thesis to her
whole department and her father and mother are there,
| | 03:25 | and my father and my mom are
there and I think that's the day her dad got it,
| | 03:31 | like realized there's something
about Sandra that's unique about her and
| | 03:37 | he had no idea what she's been doing
those four years, and when he saw that
| | 03:42 | finished animation, I think it clicked
with him like, "this is what my daughter
| | 03:46 | was meant to be and maybe Jorge is
not such a bad guy. Maybe with these two
| | 03:51 | crazies could do something good."
| | 03:53 | So I think like she had her own
journey and to this day, I think her dad
| | 04:02 | from that point forward became very proud of her.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| El Macho vs. the Mariachis of Doom| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Jorge Gutierrez: I had one more year left to
finish my CG thesis and I don't want to do computer
| | 00:13 | animation. I want to do my own stuff and
then that boom happens, all these crazy
| | 00:19 | websites start popping up everywhere,
these crappy cartoons start popping up
| | 00:24 | everywhere and I start looking at these
things going oh my God, if people are
| | 00:30 | buying these crappy cartoons, maybe
they can buy one of my crappy cartoons.
| | 00:34 | So I literally went to my dorm.
I started coming up with Internet show ideas.
| | 00:39 | Final job fair comes around and
I get these-- I finish my CG film.
| | 00:46 | It did really well in festivals, it won the
Student Emmy. I got to go to the Cannes Film Festival.
| | 00:51 | It was amazing but I didn't want to do CG.
| | 00:53 | So I start getting these job offers to
work as a CG look development artist
| | 01:00 | or CG layout.
| | 01:03 | I remember telling my dad like, "Dad,
I am going to turn all this stuff down
| | 01:06 | because I want to do my own stuff"
and he was livid. He couldn't believe it.
| | 01:11 | He says, like, "Jorge, you are telling me
that you are graduating from school, you are
| | 01:15 | getting these great job offers, but
you want to pursue your own stuff?"
| | 01:19 | Like "What's wrong with you?"
| | 01:20 | "You need to pay your dues, you need to
get a work visa, you need to assimilate
| | 01:25 | American culture, then maybe 20 years
you can give it a shot and do your own stuff,
| | 01:30 | but you need to stop dreaming
and jump in there into the workforce."
| | 01:37 | And at this point I've been
dating Sandra for eight years.
| | 01:40 | She put up with me all CalArts and
I had proposed to her without having a job,.
| | 01:45 | And I felt, oh man, this is going to be big
if I'm turning down all these jobs but I really
| | 01:52 | wanted to do my own thing and I don't
think Sandra will respect me if I'm like a
| | 01:57 | miserable CG animator.
| | 01:59 | So I turned down all these jobs.
| | 02:01 | I finished this tiny Internet cartoon
called El Macho vs. The Mariachis of Doom!
| | 02:08 | And there was a website back then called Icebox.
| | 02:13 | And they had an amateur thing. And so
I submit my little Internet cartoon to that
| | 02:18 | and it goes up and it gets like
200,000 hits in a day and immediately
| | 02:22 | I start getting job offers to do Internet stuff.
| | 02:26 | But they weren't like "We want to do
your shows." More like "We are looking for a
| | 02:29 | Flash animator, we are
looking for a Flash director."
| | 02:32 | And I was like no,
I want to do my own thing.
| | 02:34 | Meanwhile the window of CG jobs are
closing and I started to get nervous and
| | 02:39 | I start calling people back and they're
like "well, the job's gone," and so I have
| | 02:44 | started to feel like,
oh no, maybe I missed it.
| | 02:47 | And sure enough, my old boss at Sony
who was the guy who gave me the
| | 02:52 | internship, says, "Sony Pictures are
starting their own Internet division and
| | 02:58 | they're doing digital entertainment,
and we're actually looking for shows and
| | 03:03 | we saw your thing on Icebox.
| | 03:05 | What if you come to Sony
and you make your cartoon here?"
| | 03:07 | I was like, "Well, let me think about it. Yeah!!"
| | 03:11 | So I called Sandra. I go over to Sony.
| | 03:14 | I was super excited. It's like a room
with executives and back then I had no
| | 03:21 | idea what I was doing.
| | 03:23 | So they sat me down and they are
like, "Okay, we want to buy your show.
| | 03:29 | We wanted to do 36 episodes.
| | 03:31 | How much do you think budget-wise
it will cost to do one episode?"
| | 03:40 | "Take your time."
| | 03:41 | I started thinking about it and in
my head I am like well, it costs nothing
| | 03:46 | to make the first one.
| | 03:46 | So if I told them $10,
then it's $10 profit already.
| | 03:52 | It's amazing because the first one it was
like myself and a friend from CalArts,
| | 04:00 | and Sandra doing voices with me.
| | 04:01 | So I go "I think it's $30,000?"
And all the executives looked at each other and
| | 04:09 | they are like, okay, so they approve it.
| | 04:14 | Years later I found that the budget
was $150,000 per cartoon, but obviously
| | 04:19 | no one told me.
| | 04:20 | So it was like going back to film school.
| | 04:24 | We ended up doing all the music, all
the voices, all the designs, all the
| | 04:28 | animation and at this point I am
thinking, this is the greatest country on Earth.
| | 04:34 | So Sony paid for my work visa, they
gave me cartoon, they let me write it
| | 04:38 | and direct it.
| | 04:40 | I thought like this is the
greatest country on earth.
| | 04:41 | They just-- you go to school and
graduate and they just give you a cartoon!
| | 04:46 | This is amazing!
| | 04:48 | So I proposed to Sandra, we get married,
she moved up, it was like the American dream.
| | 04:53 | It was the greatest thing on earth.
| | 04:54 | What was it? Like a year into it, they
bring us into a room. 9/11 had happened in
| | 05:03 | September. This is a month later and
the president of the company, he was crying.
| | 05:09 | He has two lawyers and we're
all in this room and he was like,
| | 05:14 | I'm sorry. We have to
close down the studio at 3 PM.
| | 05:18 | All the hard drive will be locked.
You guys have until then to grab
| | 05:22 | everything you can from the network
and that was it. That was the end of Sony.
| | 05:28 | So I had a work visa that
only allowed me to work for Sony.
| | 05:33 | I had just married Sandra, she had
just moved up, and I had no job and
| | 05:39 | two shopping carts full of equipment
and I remember like looking up at the
| | 05:43 | heavens going like,
"Is that all you got? Come on!!"
| | 05:47 | So we setup our studio in Culver
City. Thanks to having made a cartoon,
| | 05:52 | immediately I was sort of branded
as a creator. Like having had your own
| | 05:57 | internet cartoon, a lot of doors
opened and then I've got an agent and then
| | 06:01 | it all changed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Breaking into the industry| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Jorge Gutierrez: While I was at
CalArts, I kept exploring Mexican culture.
| | 00:13 | My long life love affair with Mexican
popular culture, Mexican wrestling, Day of
| | 00:19 | the Dead, everything that I love
about Mexico I kept exploring in school.
| | 00:25 | And so all my films
literally dealt with all that.
| | 00:28 | And I had two bands of teachers.
| | 00:31 | The more artistic teacher says this is
fantastic that you are exploring your culture,
| | 00:35 | and some of the more realistic
teacher said, well, you are going to get
| | 00:40 | in trouble when you start looking for
work, because this work is so specific to
| | 00:46 | that country, that people
are not going to see past it.
| | 00:50 | At that time, I thought well, either I
am going to get really good at pretending
| | 00:54 | I am not from Mexico or I am going to
get really good at being a Mexican artist.
| | 00:59 | So I rolled the dice on my country and
on my heritage and I would go to the
| | 01:05 | studio and I got the same
response I got from back in CalArts.
| | 01:09 | People would tell me like, "you have no
TV experience and all we see in your
| | 01:14 | portfolio is all this Mexican stuff
and frankly, while it's great to look at
| | 01:19 | and it's great for diversity, we are
not making any shows with those themes or
| | 01:24 | those looks. So we can't hire you."
| | 01:26 | And I got rejected at Warner Brothers
and Nickelodeon, Disney, literally every
| | 01:30 | place turned me down.
| | 01:32 | And one producer at
Nickelodeon took me aside and said,
| | 01:37 | "Hey, I love your stuff and I am
going to be 100% honest with you.
| | 01:43 | No one is going to hire you to do this stuff.
| | 01:47 | The only person who can hire
you to do this work is you."
| | 01:51 | And he said, "you have to pitch your own
show and then you can hire yourself to
| | 01:57 | do all this Mexican stuff."
| | 01:58 | It's up to you to get something in
the air that looks like this and then,
| | 02:02 | that's it.
| | 02:04 | You hire yourself.
| | 02:05 | It seemed so easy at that time.
| | 02:07 | I thought well, of course! That's all
I need to do, just sell a TV show and
| | 02:13 | I'll hire myself.
| | 02:14 | So meanwhile, we got approached based on
El Macho by Warner Brothers, who at that
| | 02:21 | time they were making a cartoon called
Mucha Lucha and it was the first ever
| | 02:26 | Flash animated cartoon and
it was about Mexican wrestling.
| | 02:29 | But the creators, who were
awesome, were from New Zealand.
| | 02:33 | So I thought, if those guys from
Australia can pitch a show about Mexican
| | 02:39 | wrestling and get to do it in the US,
I should be able to get something going
| | 02:43 | on this side.
| | 02:44 | So that really encouraged me.
| | 02:45 | So thanks to Warner Brothers,
we started making enough of a living that I --
| | 02:51 | Sandra and myself--
literally started pitching shows.
| | 02:54 | The first place we went to pitch was
Disney and I pitched them this crazy idea
| | 03:01 | called Pepe le Bull about a Mexican
super macho bull, and they optioned it and
| | 03:06 | it was one of those because I had done El Macho,
| | 03:10 | that opened that door.
| | 03:12 | By that point, we were represented by an agent.
| | 03:14 | So the agent got us in at
Disney to meet the executives.
| | 03:17 | The executives there liked the
show. I went through all the proper
| | 03:22 | channels and then they optioned it,
and thanks to that, all these doors
| | 03:26 | are opened immediately.
| | 03:28 | As soon as you had a show
optioned, everyone else was going, wow,
| | 03:32 | who is the new guy?
| | 03:33 | It was like the Internet.
| | 03:35 | I had no idea how to do a TV
show, so we started from zero.
| | 03:39 | It was a crazy, crazy process.
| | 03:41 | Sandra put up with me
during those crazy times.
| | 03:43 | They let me write it and direct it.
| | 03:46 | The show was about this super macho
bull and by the time it was done
| | 03:51 | they said, you know at the Disney
channel we're looking for shows for girls.
| | 03:56 | So what if this show is about Pepe the
Bull's sister, instead of Pepe the Bull?
| | 04:02 | The show we were competing with was
called The Buzz on Maggie, and it was about
| | 04:08 | a girl who is a fly.
| | 04:09 | So it fit exactly with what they were
looking for and that director, Dave Wasson,
| | 04:14 | liked Pepe the Bull so much, that he
hired me and Sandra and everyone on our
| | 04:17 | crew and basically took us in.
| | 04:20 | So literally I got to work at that
point on the first ever Flash show at Warner
| | 04:25 | Brothers, and this was the
first ever Flash show at Disney.
| | 04:30 | So that we were kind of a generation
where we were coming in and we were doing
| | 04:35 | things a little differently.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| El Tigre is born| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Sandra Equihua: Jorge and I decided to pitch
something to Nickelodeon, a brand new project,
| | 00:11 | a brand new idea.
| | 00:13 | And we decided to come up
with it and base it on ourselves.
| | 00:19 | Jorge Gutierrez: Let's put literally all our
lives into this and the superhero stuff will be the
| | 00:26 | frosting on the cake, but the cake will
be our lives, and so with El Tigre,
| | 00:32 | that conflict came from my family.
| | 00:36 | When I was a kid, I idolized two people.
| | 00:39 | The two biggest heroes I've had in my
life were my grandfather and my father.
| | 00:45 | My grandfather was this big
name general in the Mexican army.
| | 00:49 | He was literally in charge of the
Mexican army in the late 1960s and he had
| | 00:54 | this crazy office.
| | 00:56 | The carpets were red and all these
animals on the walls and murals of guys
| | 01:01 | getting their heads
chopped off and guns everywhere.
| | 01:03 | And I remember thinking like my
grandfather is a super-villain.
| | 01:06 | I would go talk to him and he would
have these private meetings and stuff.
| | 01:12 | He dressed like with all this military stuff.
| | 01:14 | And he literally, I thought
like he was a super-villain.
| | 01:18 | On the other side, I idolize my
father and I would go visit him at his
| | 01:23 | office when I was a kid and he was an
architect and it was a polar opposite
| | 01:27 | of my grandfather.
| | 01:28 | The carpets were white.
| | 01:31 | They had all these clear tables of
wood everywhere, all these drawings on the walls,
| | 01:36 | and I remember like I would go
to him and I would say, "Papa, can you
| | 01:40 | draw me a dinosaur?"
| | 01:41 | And he would like be drawing a
house and he would literally like go
| | 01:45 | "Yeah, yeah," and he would grab a piece
of paper and draw me like this perfect
| | 01:48 | dinosaur, give it to me,
and then continue drawing.
| | 01:51 | My dad would draw me these things
and I thought, my dad has super powers.
| | 01:55 | So that's kind of how I saw my
grandfather and my father, as a superhero and
| | 01:59 | a super-villain.
| | 02:00 | All my aunts would grab me and I
had giant cheeks like now as a kid and
| | 02:05 | they would say like, "You are so much
like your father and you are so much
| | 02:08 | like your grandfather.
| | 02:09 | What are you going to be like when you grow up?"
| | 02:12 | So that was the question I
got asked all the time as a kid.
| | 02:15 | Are you going to be a general or are you
going to be an artist like your father?
| | 02:20 | So that's where the El Tigre story came from.
| | 02:23 | In the story, in the show, El Tigre
has a best friend named Frida and Frida
| | 02:29 | is based on Sandra.
| | 02:30 | Sandra: We're like why don't we just
go off of the relationship we have, which is
| | 02:35 | very like friends?
| | 02:37 | He is my best friend, honestly he is my
best friend, and I'll back him up with
| | 02:41 | whatever he wants to do.
| | 02:42 | That's what the
characters are technically about.
| | 02:44 | Jorge: And we said, you know, this new show,
let's invest ourselves in it completely.
| | 02:55 | And what I mean by that is, obviously
we are going to be working on it and
| | 02:58 | killing ourselves on it.
| | 02:59 | But let's put our -- literally cut
our veins and put our blood into this
| | 03:04 | project and let's base it on our lives
and let's base it on who we are and
| | 03:08 | everything we grew up with
and our personal experiences.
| | 03:11 | And so we start with these little
nuggets of things that happened to us and then
| | 03:15 | we elaborate and embellish and then
add the superhero stuff at the end.
| | 03:18 | And the look of the show is very
much a love letter to Mexico and Mexican
| | 03:26 | culture and Tijuana.
| | 03:28 | And it's the celebration of
everything that's Mexican and this idea that
| | 03:33 | Mexicans have sombreros and mustaches.
| | 03:36 | Well, every man in El Tigre
has a mustache and a sombrero.
| | 03:39 | We basically start, we celebrate all
the craziness. And the idea was,
| | 03:44 | you think Mexico is crazy?
| | 03:46 | It's way crazier than you ever thought.
| | 03:47 | Sandra: Nickelodeon had
never really had a show so Latino filled.
| | 03:52 | I mean it was almost like
having salsa pushed into your face.
| | 03:56 | It was so Latino, it really was and
they were loving it, because it was so
| | 04:00 | colorful and the characters were so
out there and so different, that they
| | 04:03 | decided you know what, let's give it
a shot and it got on the air and
| | 04:07 | they loved it.
| | 04:08 | There are a lot of roots in
El Tigre and the characters.
| | 04:13 | Our aunts are in it, our uncles are in it.
| | 04:15 | The world that we grew up in is in it.
Tijuana is where I grew up and he grew up
| | 04:20 | in Mexico City.
| | 04:21 | There's a lot of that, and there's
like a merging of the two worlds.
| | 04:24 | Jorge: Eight Emmys later and a
bunch of Annie Awards, including Best Show.
| | 04:30 | The National Cartoonist Award.
| | 04:32 | The show was canceled after 26 episodes.
| | 04:35 | Sandra: And when you dedicate so much
time to something for such a long time, it hurts
| | 04:39 | when it's taken away from you.
| | 04:40 | It kind of became our pseudo child,
because you invest so much time into it and
| | 04:44 | you love it so much and it just hurt me.
| | 04:47 | Jorge: The way Sandra reacted to
the show was a little more emotional and
| | 04:54 | she literally was devastated.
| | 04:57 | The way I kind of approach stuff
like this is in a way the way I approach death,
| | 05:03 | and Day of the Dead, which Day
of the Dead is a celebration of that person's life.
| | 05:10 | It's not a loss.
| | 05:11 | It's not mourning for their death.
| | 05:13 | You are not even
acknowledging that they are dead.
| | 05:15 | You are celebrating all the goodness.
| | 05:18 | So literally my grandfather passed away
while we were working on El Tigre and of
| | 05:23 | course I was bummed out, but I was so
happy to celebrate his life and in a way
| | 05:29 | when El Tigre get canceled,
that's exactly how I felt.
| | 05:32 | I thought we got to make 26 episodes.
| | 05:35 | A giant studio gave us all this money,
we got to blow it making cartoons, we got
| | 05:38 | to hire our friends.
| | 05:41 | To me, the getting canceled
part didn't really matter.
| | 05:43 | It was, we got to make it
all this great stuff and wow!
| | 05:46 | Now, we get to make even
more stuff somewhere else.
| | 05:50 | It's this time in our lives that just
brought happiness to everyone and has done
| | 05:56 | so much for everyone's career.
| | 05:57 | It's pretty spectacular.
| | 05:59 | So, I mean looking back,
I don't remember any of the bad stuff.
| | 06:02 | And even when we got canceled,
I kind of thought, that's great,
| | 06:07 | we got to make 26.
| | 06:08 | I was just thankful.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Designing characters| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Jorge Gutierrez: Some of these villains, they
were based on personal things that we grew up
| | 00:12 | like that might have not made much
sense to anyone else but us, but it made
| | 00:17 | them really unique.
| | 00:19 | When I was growing up, my father had
this bear rug on the wall and he always
| | 00:24 | told me the story as a kid and it's
that he was somewhere in the mountains in
| | 00:29 | Mexico and he saw a bear coming,
and he said, "I'm not going to run away
| | 00:33 | from a bear."
| | 00:34 | So the bear came after him and then
bear stood up on two legs and he raised
| | 00:40 | his paw and he slapped my father in
the face and apparently they had a
| | 00:46 | slapping contest.
| | 00:48 | Until finally my dad was all bloody.
| | 00:50 | This is the story my father
told me when I was six.
| | 00:53 | He was all bloody and he said the blood
of his hands just boiled through him and
| | 00:58 | he slapped the bear one final time and
killed him with that slap and then took
| | 01:02 | him home and took the skin off, put
it on the wall and that was his trophy.
| | 01:07 | I loved hearing that story from my father.
| | 01:10 | So when we came around to making El
Tigre, we made this giant big, thuggy guy
| | 01:16 | that has literally a bear skin on his back.
| | 01:19 | That's, for example, something where
it's a very personal story and it just made
| | 01:24 | the design very unique.
| | 01:27 | I do think the fundamentals of figure
drawing and construction and anatomy,
| | 01:33 | all those things apply. At the same time,
| | 01:35 | I think designers are born with
a sense of, we call it, the flair.
| | 01:43 | That's like a style and it feels
unique and has a point of view.
| | 01:46 | And it feels different.
| | 01:47 | I was taught by this great designer,
Maurice Noble, to not draw until you knew
| | 01:53 | who the character was.
| | 01:55 | So I really, really took that to
heart and what he meant was think about
| | 02:00 | who this character is.
| | 02:01 | Think about what's his life.
| | 02:03 | Where is he from, what part in his
life story, what part of that are you
| | 02:09 | in right now?
| | 02:10 | Like his great days behind them?
| | 02:13 | Is he on his way to doing something,
is he about to fall, like where is he
| | 02:18 | in this timeline?
| | 02:20 | And I really think about
all that stuff before I draw.
| | 02:23 | Sandra on the other hand seems to be
more about finding the voice of the
| | 02:27 | character as she is drawing it
and there's no right and wrong.
| | 02:29 | I mean everyone designs in a different way.
| | 02:32 | It seems that she finds her stories
after she has designed and I tend to think
| | 02:36 | about the story and design
the character around that.
| | 02:40 | One of the things that I learned in
experimental animation, especially from
| | 02:44 | Jules Engel, was not to look at
other cartoons and not to look at other
| | 02:50 | animation for references.
| | 02:52 | Obviously we're all going to look
at things and we'll be inspired by
| | 02:56 | everything we see.
| | 02:58 | But he specifically said, look away
from what's being done and what's been done
| | 03:03 | before and look into other disciplines.
| | 03:07 | So for me, I looked at
Mexican folklore, Mexican folk art.
| | 03:11 | I really got into certain painters and
Jules would say, "Oh, you love Picasso?
| | 03:17 | Then look at African masks."
| | 03:18 | If that's the stuff, that period of
artwork that you're into, look at his
| | 03:22 | influences and keep going back and keep
going back and that really informed the way
| | 03:28 | I draw and the way I design things.
| | 03:31 | Hopefully, when you looks at
my designs, you don't go,
| | 03:33 | "Oh! He likes UPA and Hanna-
Barbara and 1940s Tex Avery stuff."
| | 03:40 | You go, oh, he likes Miguel Covarrubias
and Day of the Dead and oh, look.
| | 03:46 | There is a little Goya in this color scheme.
| | 03:48 | So hopefully you will see a little more
outside of what people see in animation.
| | 03:53 | If drawing perfectly, beautiful
constructed drawings was all that mattered,
| | 03:59 | then all the TV shows will look exactly
the same and I think it's those different
| | 04:05 | point of views, those different
perspectives of how to approach artwork that gives
| | 04:09 | us all that variety.
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| Designing characters: El Machete| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Jorge Gutierrez: Designing a
character for El Tigre had its own process.
| | 00:14 | For example, the process on this guy
was I had an idea in my head of what he
| | 00:19 | was going to look like.
| | 00:20 | And he is a skeleton villain and I
wanted him to look like what Manny, our main
| | 00:27 | character, El Tigre would look like if
he had turned evil and all the goodness
| | 00:32 | in him had been corrupted.
| | 00:34 | This is the actual sketch that I did
with a crappy pen while we were talking
| | 00:40 | about the character.
| | 00:41 | And then I took that doodle
sketch, I brought it into Flash.
| | 00:45 | And this was my digital sketch and then
I go to my final ink and color and
| | 00:51 | at that point, I finesse everything.
| | 00:53 | I finessed all the little lines.
| | 00:55 | Then it goes into what
is known as a turnaround.
| | 00:59 | The character gets cleaned up and
we see what he would look like from
| | 01:04 | every point of view.
| | 01:05 | As a character designer I said
storyboarding is a hard enough job.
| | 01:09 | I don't want my board guys to ever
have to worry about designing anything.
| | 01:12 | What I'm going to do now is I'm going
to design-- Django of the Dead was the
| | 01:17 | nephew of Sartana the Dead,
the main villain on the show.
| | 01:21 | And much like Manny, who had a father and
a grandfather, Django has a dad, but we
| | 01:29 | never saw the dad in this series.
| | 01:31 | He's kind of mentioned and I always
had an idea what he would look like.
| | 01:35 | Because El Tigre had so many Day of the
Dead characters, I've already done a ton of
| | 01:41 | skeletons for the series.
| | 01:44 | And I got to play around with crazy
proportions, the classic chubby guy,
| | 01:49 | the giant guy with the giant jaw.
| | 01:51 | The midget skeleton, crazy facial hair
guy, so I have explored that universe a lot.
| | 01:58 | So trying to figure out,
okay, so who is this guy, right?
| | 02:03 | He's got to be more powerful than his
son and his son is pretty bad ass and
| | 02:07 | he is got to be, because they are all
Day of the Dead, skeleton cowboy themed.
| | 02:12 | He should be a little bit
themed to the western aesthetic.
| | 02:16 | I'll grab a really light gray and then
I like my smoothing all the way down, so
| | 02:22 | that everything looks crappy, so
I don't fall in love with the details.
| | 02:26 | I am only trying to
figure out what my shapes are.
| | 02:30 | All that matters to me now is his proportions.
| | 02:37 | And because it's all crappy vector,
| | 02:40 | I can pretty much play around with
stuff and I can say like smaller legs makes
| | 02:44 | it even more powerful.
| | 02:45 | So in one hand, he is going to have a
machete because his name is Machete and
| | 02:50 | that's a giant knife.
| | 02:53 | The other hand, he is
going to have an open hand.
| | 02:55 | The other hand is going to have a
fist and he is going to be holding his
| | 02:59 | little sombrero.
| | 03:00 | So let's say that's my sketch.
| | 03:03 | All right!
| | 03:05 | Super crappy.
| | 03:08 | And then I do my second pass with a
darker gray and I make my stuff a little
| | 03:16 | bit smaller, my brush pen a little
smaller, and I start sort of finessing my
| | 03:21 | shapes and I am like okay.
| | 03:23 | So these are the eyes, that's the nose,
and I think his top jaw is like a skull
| | 03:31 | from an animal, so it's
more beastly and more evil.
| | 03:34 | So now kind of the head is
sort of starting to come together.
| | 03:38 | Of course all El Tigre
villains have to have a moustache.
| | 03:45 | I decided that good guys and bad
guys have moustaches, because I felt
| | 03:49 | moustaches had been wrongly
represented as evil things and I wanted to give
| | 03:54 | them a fair shot.
| | 03:56 | And so now starting to get my shapes
a little clear, so I go into a darker,
| | 04:01 | darker gray and I can start even
finessing the stuff even more.
| | 04:05 | And I start sort of cleaning stuff,
finding my shapes, figuring out, where
| | 04:12 | stuff is going to go.
| | 04:17 | In our El Tigre universe we make
sure all the villains had red eyes.
| | 04:23 | Now I want to make sure my shapes read
really clearly, but at the same time
| | 04:27 | I want to have details everywhere.
| | 04:31 | And you can start seeing sort of the
different choices I am making where maybe
| | 04:39 | I wasn't thinking about stuff and I am
starting to get a little more specific
| | 04:45 | about where I want things to go.
| | 04:48 | I like to use gradients to sort of
imply depth and imply a little more volume
| | 04:56 | and I like things to look a little dirty.
| | 04:59 | So, instead of the skull just
being white, I add little dirty sort of
| | 05:04 | orangey stuff on the sides.
| | 05:06 | Same thing with his jaw.
| | 05:07 | A gray jaw is pretty boring.
| | 05:09 | So I am going to add a little
bit of red in there to imply rust.
| | 05:15 | And this is all sketch.
| | 05:16 | Like this doesn't matter as far as
how clean I am or how pretty stuff is.
| | 05:24 | So, doing the beard, so why
not add some crazier shapes?
| | 05:34 | So after an initial rough sketch
of Machete, I made some decisions.
| | 05:40 | Maybe in the rough the sword was kind of
wimpy and I made it giant, made the claws
| | 05:45 | a little bigger and then
after that it's ready to go.
| | 05:49 | Then the character will be inked with
vector lines, all perfectly colored to
| | 05:55 | match all the other characters.
| | 05:58 | And again this is a character that we
never got to make on the show, but here it is.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Designing characters: Amelia| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:07 | Sandra: We have a new
show, a new project with Disney.
| | 00:12 | And I am proud to say that I'm
taking a little more of a lead in that.
| | 00:16 | So I am going to give an example
of kind of what they look like.
| | 00:20 | For example, if Carmen, our main
character, was supposed to have a best friend
| | 00:26 | or a new friend, the friend would
technically have to look good next to our
| | 00:31 | main character.
| | 00:32 | Our main character's
proportions are technically a lollipop.
| | 00:36 | It's a circle, a positive thing, and
then she is just a stick technically.
| | 00:41 | So we're going to give her a round head,
a stocky body, and tiny little feet,
| | 00:52 | but she's kind of punk rock herself.
| | 00:53 | So let's say we are going
to give her boots later on.
| | 00:56 | This is just a quick sketch of
what it's going to look like.
| | 00:58 | Now, once we have the outline, what we
are going to do, I start building based
| | 01:05 | on the shapes that already exist.
| | 01:06 | Like I'm totally going for an outcast
because our main character Carmen is kind
| | 01:14 | of the champion of all outcasts.
| | 01:16 | She is like the patron saint.
| | 01:18 | So the cuter and more outlandish the
characters are on Carmen the better.
| | 01:25 | So we go into the hair and
that's when the fun begins.
| | 01:28 | You can make it a little more like this.
| | 01:43 | And then, more like-- Oh,
the eyes are a little too big.
| | 01:49 | So we go in, make them a little smaller.
| | 01:56 | Let's give her black hair,
like so, and they have a uniform.
| | 02:07 | So we're going to take her skin tone, like so.
| | 02:14 | And we're going to give her a nice gradient.
| | 02:21 | We can put it under her stuff, under her eyes.
| | 02:30 | It's a fun thing about Flash is that
it's very much like clay, I like to say.
| | 02:37 | And we have got a character.
| | 02:42 | We could push her a little more.
| | 02:44 | Like this character I've decided to
call her Amelia, just because it's kind of
| | 02:47 | like an old school name, kind of
like a lonely kind of person, shy.
| | 02:54 | We could still push her a little more.
| | 02:55 | We can get this design to work a
little more in making her look like
| | 02:57 | her character.
| | 02:58 | Let's say for example her
background story is that she had no brothers
| | 03:02 | and sisters.
| | 03:04 | Her parents were too busy to take
care of her, so therefore she had to make
| | 03:08 | imaginary friends by herself.
| | 03:10 | Her only friend and true ally was a
stop sign back then, and our character
| | 03:16 | looks like a stop sign.
| | 03:17 | So therefore she finds some strange
sort of attraction to her and follows her
| | 03:20 | around everywhere.
| | 03:21 | And she doesn't really like her, but
she doesn't care and she will trail her
| | 03:25 | forever and she will be her psychic
for the rest of her life, even though she
| | 03:30 | doesn't want her, right?
| | 03:31 | So we can make her even nerdier by
taking her features, bringing them down.
| | 03:40 | Let's just bring down, make her a
little bit hunchback, even making her body a
| | 03:46 | little smaller, meager.
| | 03:50 | Maybe even bringing in the eyes a little more.
| | 03:56 | Maybe she will look a little
weird if she wasn't that feminine.
| | 03:58 | There you go.
| | 03:59 | Immediately she loses that cute quality
with the eyelashes, to make her wonky.
| | 04:07 | And there we go.
| | 04:09 | She is that weird person that hangs out
with you and hides in the back of bushes
| | 04:12 | and follows you around.
| | 04:14 | And if we want to make it more
nerdy, we can go in and bow leg,
| | 04:20 | make her bowlegged.
| | 04:23 | Make her more of an outcast in the world.
| | 04:25 | Okay now let's use
a big tool here, like so.
| | 04:32 | It's really bowlegged.
That's awesome!
| | 04:35 | And there you go.
I got her legs.
| | 04:38 | We get the same color of socks.
| | 04:40 | Let's make one sock go down, and the
other sock go up, because Amelia doesn't
| | 04:46 | notice these things, but sometimes she
is walking and her socks tend to go down.
| | 04:50 | There we go, and there you have Amelia.
| | 04:55 | And by looking at her, you can
instantly tell by her bowlegs and her hunched
| | 04:59 | demeanor and her freckles and her
crazy zits and her own dark circles,and her
| | 05:03 | buckteeth that she is an ugly duckling.
| | 05:05 | But at the same time, she is kind of lonely.
| | 05:06 | She has got this happiness around her.
| | 05:08 | And she had got that humongous dome
of a head that's just saying, I'm a good
| | 05:14 | person, I'm just kind of lonely.
| | 05:15 | That's about it.
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| Cultural influences| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:09 | Jorge Gutierrez: Nothing fueled my fire more
than being told this a weakness in your work that
| | 00:15 | you constantly represent where you are from.
| | 00:19 | Like the more people told me
that the more I wanted to do it.
| | 00:22 | All of our favorite movies, favorite
books, favorite records, they all share one thing,
| | 00:27 | which seems to be that they are
all personal stories coming from those
| | 00:32 | specific artists, things that happened.
| | 00:34 | Like usually my favorite films are
filmmakers' first films, because they are
| | 00:40 | about where they are from or
their personal experiences.
| | 00:43 | And I thought, well I'm going to do that.
| | 00:45 | I'm going to concentrate on doing my
own version of what a cartoon is,
| | 00:49 | my own version of what a animated film is,
but just coming from my point view
| | 00:54 | of Mexico.
| | 00:56 | But then I thought, there are a ton of
Mexican films and a ton of Mexican art
| | 01:01 | that don't translate outside of Mexico.
| | 01:04 | So how do I make stuff that's super
specific to where I am from, but universally...
| | 01:13 | accepted and understood?
| | 01:15 | And I think it's in the stories and
just have the culture be the backdrop to the drama.
| | 01:22 | It's like El Tigre.
It's a kid but he could be from any culture.
| | 01:28 | It just happens to happen in Mexico.
| | 01:31 | (Animated kid: Ohhh, jet packs.)
| | 01:34 | One of the things that I loved
about Mexican folklore was that it was
| | 01:39 | popular art.
| | 01:41 | Artisans are constantly making it,
its constantly evolving and it's very accessible.
| | 01:46 | Kids buy it.
| | 01:47 | It's everywhere.
| | 01:48 | And you go to the butcher shop and there are
these amazing butcher painting himself murals.
| | 01:56 | So it was very relatable in that it
was for the people and it was popular.
| | 02:01 | And so the imagery that I was trying to
use was imagery that spoke to all ages,
| | 02:08 | that spoke to the most sophisticated
and educated of men, to the most small child.
| | 02:17 | Like these big giant
lessons were in these murals.
| | 02:21 | And I thought they use Mexican folk art.
| | 02:23 | They use all these iconographies.
| | 02:25 | I want to use them and I
want to use them in cartoons.
| | 02:27 | I have never seen them in cartoons.
| | 02:29 | And I was 14, 15, these Mexican bands,
Cafe Tacuba was one of the first ones
| | 02:35 | that I heard started using traditional
Mexican folklore music and they mixed it
| | 02:41 | with punk rock and techno.
| | 02:43 | They mixed it with sort of American
and European music and it sounded amazing to me.
| | 02:49 | It was like pleasing my grandfather and
it was pleasing me and it connected us
| | 02:55 | in a way that I'd never seen.
| | 02:57 | And I thought if they are doing that
musically, I want to do that visually and
| | 03:02 | I want to do that in films.
| | 03:04 | Now, I take it as a personal sort of
challenge to make Latin and specifically
| | 03:14 | Mexican culture not only something that
is accepted in the mainstream but looked
| | 03:20 | at as something normal.
| | 03:22 | That's just there.
| | 03:23 | Just a way-- I keep saying like, I
want Mexican cartoons to be like salsa.
| | 03:28 | Like people even question it.
| | 03:29 | It's there, they love it.
| | 03:32 | I mean the food, not the music.
| | 03:34 | It's just part of American culture.
| | 03:36 | I want to make my son proud of where he is from.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sandra's art| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Sandra Equihua: We're here in San Diego at
the Subtext Gallery where I recently had a show
| | 00:12 | with two other artist friends of
mine and the name of the show was called
| | 00:16 | Three, as you can see.
| | 00:18 | I'd like to show you what we did.
| | 00:19 | Come on in.
| | 00:21 | In this case, the entire story behind
the paintings was the joy and the whimsy
| | 00:26 | and the happiness that a new life brings.
| | 00:31 | Last year, the show that I had here at
the gallery had to do with a loss that we had
| | 00:38 | and we had just finished doing
our show at Nickelodeon Studios and
| | 00:43 | unfortunately, it came to a halt and
when I did, it really broke my heart.
| | 00:47 | I had felt like something in my life
had died, a part of me had died, so I
| | 00:51 | really needed to release in a
certain form and I did it with paintings.
| | 00:55 | I was fortunate enough to have friends
here in this gallery that allowed me to
| | 00:59 | show my work to a lot of other people.
| | 01:02 | After the loss, came the birth of
something new and wonderful, which was my baby boy
| | 01:07 | and he was the total
inspiration for this show.
| | 01:10 | So my first piece is called "Jean
Pierre Proudly Poses in His Skates" and I'd
| | 01:15 | like to think that he has a little flat
in Paris and he looks out every morning
| | 01:20 | and he drinks his little cappuccino,
and he goes outside and he flirts with the
| | 01:24 | ladies as he is skating and he skates
back and he spends the afternoon in the park
| | 01:30 | and he chases birds
as his job and so forth.
| | 01:33 | A very dog kind of life, very light,
and almost for a story for a child.
| | 01:39 | Mr. Ducks is a duck that wishes he was
a human and he is just a fictional
| | 01:44 | character and he just keeps on getting
into all these adventures and in this one,
| | 01:48 | he is sailing with his crew, just
sailing along in the moonlight and
| | 01:51 | his crew doesn't really even exist.
| | 01:52 | It's just in all in his head.
| | 01:55 | He gathers a bunch of people and he
puts them inside his boat and they go off
| | 01:58 | in the night.
| | 01:59 | Yeah, these things are going in my head
and the more I start painting, the more
| | 02:04 | ideas start coming in my head, and
I apply these little stories into whatever
| | 02:09 | paintings I may be doing.
| | 02:14 | I chose to study graphic design because I
was really attracted to what is graphic.
| | 02:18 | Initially, I wanted to go into
architecture because I hadn't heard of graphic
| | 02:22 | design yet but as I started nearing
graduation in high school, a friend of mine
| | 02:27 | actually told me that graphic design existed.
| | 02:31 | He introduced me into what is the
graphic arts and I really, really liked it.
| | 02:34 | So I decided to study graphic
design in the same school he did.
| | 02:37 | And I went in and the more time I
spend in the school, I realized that it
| | 02:40 | branched out into different things.
| | 02:42 | Industrial design, modeling, painting,
fine art and all that other good stuff.
| | 02:52 | I decided to take an Art Center at
night course with Rafael Lopez, who happens
| | 02:57 | to be an amazing artist centered here in
San Diego and he actually happens to be
| | 03:01 | from Mexico City as well.
| | 03:03 | His colors are so vibrant and amazing.
| | 03:06 | He was so willing to teach us about
his techniques and the subtext and the
| | 03:11 | substance behind a painting or what
it should have that really excited me.
| | 03:17 | I really wanted to start dabbling
this a little more and I really liked the
| | 03:21 | freedom it brought with it.
| | 03:22 | So I kind of started looking over
towards illustration and I started looking
| | 03:28 | into more people and more
artists that did this as well.
| | 03:34 | When I moved up, I found myself kind of
shedding my graphic design skill or my
| | 03:40 | graphic design skin.
| | 03:42 | And then I noticed that I was drawing
a lot of characters, painting a lot of
| | 03:45 | characters, and a lot of portraits of
characters and these were kind of telling
| | 03:49 | stories and with that, I began to help
Jorge design freelance for some animated shows
| | 03:58 | and I found myself submerged
again in another branch of the arts.
| | 04:08 | It's a different chapter in my life.
| | 04:09 | The last show that I had here at the
gallery was about tears and there was lot
| | 04:14 | of blue and there was a lot of hate too.
| | 04:17 | A lot of anger in the pieces and
then the pregnancy hit, the baby.
| | 04:21 | The newborn came and the joy began
to come out again and the colors began
| | 04:25 | to change.
| | 04:26 | The lines that I used were a lot
more free than the other ones.
| | 04:30 | The other ones looked like they were prints.
| | 04:32 | Everything looked like it was done with a ruler.
| | 04:34 | Very sharp, very angry.
| | 04:37 | This is like, you could see like there
are errors and I don't care because I'm
| | 04:41 | just so happy. Like it's
totally reflective of what I was feeling.
| | 04:45 | The colors, the joy, bubbles,
happy colors, people smiling, just a
| | 04:50 | total difference.
| | 04:52 | It's just happiness!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Interview with Lynda| 00:00 | (Music playing.)
| | 00:08 | Lynda Weinman: Hello! I'm Lynda Weinman and I'm
very excited to be here today with Jorge Gutierrez and
| | 00:14 | Sandra Equihua of the
animation studio Mexopolis.
| | 00:19 | It's a great name.
| | 00:21 | Where does it come from?
How did you come up with it?
| | 00:23 | Sandra Equihua: Well, it's a combination
kind of where we are from originally, which is
| | 00:28 | Mexico, and Metropolis.
| | 00:31 | We decided to just combine the two.
| | 00:35 | Jorge Gutierrez: And it's kind of the
world where all our characters live in.
| | 00:38 | Sandra: Correct.
Jorge: We were always shocked it was available.
| | 00:40 | Sandra: Yeah, it's so
basic and easy and simple and obvious.
| | 00:43 | We're like why is it?
| | 00:45 | Jorge: I think when we
tell them, oh, our company is called Mexopolis.
| | 00:47 | Sandra: Hey! Didn't you get a call
last week saying that somebody wanted it?
| | 00:50 | Jorge: Yeah,
somebody wanted to buy it.
| | 00:51 | Sandra: They called us and they said,
we'll buy off you and we're like no, thanks.
| | 00:55 | Lynda: Yeah. I mean, I can relate
to that with the name of our company too.
| | 01:01 | So I first learned of you actually
because I attended an event that was
| | 01:06 | honoring a CalArts professor, Jules
Engel, who had an amazing influence over
| | 01:11 | lots and lots of animators.
| | 01:13 | So obviously, you went to CalArts and
I'm curious what kind of influence that
| | 01:17 | had on your career and your life?
| | 01:19 | Jorge: Oh! It
pretty much changed my life.
| | 01:21 | Going there was an
incredible incredible experience.
| | 01:25 | Originally, I'm from Mexico.
| | 01:27 | So was I was kind of a-- in a
way I was Mexican until I went there
| | 01:30 | and when I was there, one of the great
things that I learned over there was they
| | 01:37 | kind of group all the Latino
kids together as one group.
| | 01:42 | So I got to meet people from Argentina
and Brazil and Colombia and like I don't
| | 01:46 | even know we had anything
in common, but they kind of grouped us
| | 01:50 | together and it was great.
| | 01:52 | I was telling Sandra it was like
a bunch of Earthlings when sent to
| | 01:56 | another planet.
| | 01:57 | Of course, you put the Earthlings
together and so I gravitated towards all those
| | 02:02 | guys and I really, really fell in love
with Mexico and having left Mexico
| | 02:08 | made me really nostalgic and really love
all the things that made my culture unique.
| | 02:14 | So when I was there, it was the one
thing that I grabbed that I said this will
| | 02:18 | be my shield and this will be the identity.
| | 02:20 | Sandra: My flag, yeah.
Jorge: Yeah, the flag that I will raise.
| | 02:24 | And thankfully, most of my teachers
really encouraged me to explore my culture.
| | 02:31 | At the same time, a lot of my
teachers were really worried.
| | 02:33 | They said, you got to be really
careful because, and they didn't mean that
| | 02:37 | in any negative way.
| | 02:38 | But they said, if you keep doing this
Mexican stuff, you're not going to get a
| | 02:41 | job because there is no
Mexican movies or Mexican TV shows.
| | 02:46 | There is no Mexican animation at all.
| | 02:47 | So you're going to-- and there
is no Mexican animation industry.
| | 02:51 | So you can't go back to
Mexico and there is nothing here.
| | 02:54 | What are you going to do?
| | 02:57 | I was drunk with youth and I figured
I'll figure it out but I know this is the
| | 03:02 | thing I love and this is the thing
that makes me unique and I'm going to--
| | 03:06 | Sandra: Embrace it.
| | 03:07 | Jorge: I'm going to find my way
through it and I told Sandra, like we will be
| | 03:10 | the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo of animation except
without the train running you over and the infidelity
| | 03:17 | and all that stuff.
| | 03:21 | Lynda: So I think it's so refreshing
to see you really embrace your heritage
| | 03:25 | and ethnicity.
| | 03:27 | I think it's really become in vogue
like-- Back in the days when you came to
| | 03:32 | America, it was probably, Mexicans were
sort of considered second-class citizens
| | 03:37 | and I think today we're living
in a much more global economy.
| | 03:42 | We have an African-American President.
| | 03:43 | We have a lot more respect I think
for different cultures and awareness.
| | 03:48 | So it's probably worked to
your favor at this point.
| | 03:52 | Would you agree to that, whereas
maybe in the beginning it didn't?
| | 03:55 | Jorge: Exactly.
| | 03:56 | Sandra: Definitely. I think like our
population right now for Latinos, especially in L.A., is so
| | 04:01 | humongous and it feels nice to be
able to contribute to them because as a
| | 04:05 | Mexican being in L.A,. even though we
are among so many Latinos, you feel this
| | 04:10 | nostalgia, feeling being away
from where you originally from.
| | 04:15 | I didn't know how much I
missed Mexico until I moved up here.
| | 04:19 | So when we create things for Latinos or
anyone in general, even if they aren't
| | 04:24 | Latino, and if it has a Latino touch,
it feel nice to know that people that are
| | 04:28 | Latino are thinking, Oh wow!
| | 04:31 | There I am. Here I am on the screen.
| | 04:33 | Here is a part of me and I relate.
| | 04:36 | Yeah. Especially little
kids, that's even cooler.
| | 04:39 | Jorge: Yeah, you've seen the Dora
generation, kids grow up watching Dora The Explorer.
| | 04:42 | To them a Latino cartoon is normal.
| | 04:46 | Like that's something we never had and
even if you're not, you could be of any
| | 04:51 | culture and you think a Latino
cartoon character is normal,
| | 04:54 | that's a better world
than the one we grew up with.
| | 04:56 | Sandra: Yeah, exactly.
| | 04:57 | Lynda: The two of you
have very different artistic styles.
| | 05:00 | How do you balance the two
styles and how does that work?
| | 05:03 | Sandra: We have a rule between Jorge and
myself that I say that the main rule between us
| | 05:08 | is he gets to draw the men
and I get to draw the women.
| | 05:12 | The reason why this is is because
when I try and draw males, they don't
| | 05:17 | necessarily turnout very masculine and
when Jorge draws females, they come out
| | 05:22 | looking a little more, I don't know.
| | 05:25 | Eighth grade fantasy, shall we say.
| | 05:26 | Jorge: Augh. Women of relaxed morals.
| | 05:30 | Sandra: Is that what you're calling it?
Jorge: Yeah.
| | 05:32 | Sandra: Yeah. So
that's one of our main rules.
| | 05:34 | When it comes to our actual style-
style I would say Jorge is a little more --
| | 05:38 | I don't know. Concrete.
| | 05:40 | I think you've like totally mastered
your style, the way it's supposed to look,
| | 05:45 | whereas I'm little more of a chameleon.
| | 05:46 | Jorge: I want my style to punch you in
the face and then kiss you in the mouth
| | 05:51 | and then you don't know what happens.
| | 05:52 | Sandra: What does mine do then?
| | 05:53 | Jorge: And yours is more like you
drop a little handkerchief and it's a little more
| | 05:58 | subtle and more refined.
| | 05:59 | Sandra: Well, okay yeah. That's true.
| | 06:02 | Lynda: You guys are so wonderful to
watch the way that you interact and that is sort of
| | 06:06 | part of what you're doing together.
| | 06:08 | You're a married couple.
| | 06:10 | You started your own company, you kind
of chartered your own course, you work with
| | 06:13 | a lot of your friends.
| | 06:15 | I mean, talk to us little bit about
what that's like to work with family.
| | 06:19 | Jorge: Well, at first
it was kind of looked down on.
| | 06:23 | Even at Nickelodeon.
| | 06:24 | Sandra: Oh, they wouldn't let us say anything.
| | 06:25 | Sandra: You can't say you're married.
Jorge: You can't say you're a couple.
| | 06:26 | Jorge: What if you guys get in a fight, what if
you get divorced? It could be problem with the crew.
| | 06:31 | Sandra: It's understandable.
| | 06:33 | It's a tremendous amount of money
that's being invested into a project and if
| | 06:37 | you get a divorce or --
| | 06:38 | Jorge: And I didn't help because
I was like, well you know we're hot blooded
| | 06:41 | Mexicans and it could happen.
| | 06:46 | So then we pinky-swear that none of
that would happen and in fact, we said we
| | 06:51 | want to hire all our friends and
you guys think we're hiring them because
| | 06:57 | they're our friends but it's because
they're really talented and the fact they were
| | 07:00 | hiring our friends will make them
work even harder because they love the
| | 07:04 | project, and they love what we
all want to accomplish together.
| | 07:07 | And in fact our crew had I believe six couples.
| | 07:11 | And so not only did we break the
rule but we broke it six times and
| | 07:16 | it worked out perfectly.
| | 07:17 | Sandra: Yeah, and actually,
one of them married my sister.
| | 07:20 | I think who is our --
| | 07:21 | Jorge: Yeah, one of our directors married Sandra's sister.
Sandra: Our director married my sister.
| | 07:23 | Sandra: So it really is in the family. Yeah.
| | 07:25 | Jorge: So when we say like
our crew is our family, it really was.
| | 07:28 | Sandra: It really was.
| | 07:29 | Lynda: I think it really
takes guts to stick to your own style
| | 07:33 | in the beginning when it isn't popular
and I think a lot of what you've done as
| | 07:37 | you said no to a lot of things.
| | 07:38 | Almost it seems more than
you said yes in the beginning.
| | 07:43 | For people who are starting out,
I think that takes a tremendous amount of
| | 07:46 | courage and sometimes it's
just completely impractical.
| | 07:49 | But could you talk a little bit to
the importance of saying no and the
| | 07:53 | importance of really
understanding what you want and going for it.
| | 07:57 | Jorge: Well, I think early on when
we first started out we sort of came to terms
| | 08:04 | with something and that's something
that Jules Engel really emphasized in school,
| | 08:08 | which was obviously you need the work
and you need to make money to make a living.
| | 08:13 | But the day you stop making your own
work, that's the day you die as an artist.
| | 08:18 | So whatever you work on, you have to
work on your own stuff at night and on the
| | 08:22 | weekends and that's the number one
thing we did when we first started out.
| | 08:25 | Sandra: As it is, in the industry, you
have to be like-- you have to have something
| | 08:29 | stable, so you can actually start
working on something on the side.
| | 08:32 | So you could actually--
it's almost like a seed.
| | 08:34 | You have to plant a seed and in the
background it's going to be growing.
| | 08:37 | So finally, you could show it to the
world, you know. Yeah, because there is no
| | 08:41 | other way around it.
| | 08:42 | Jorge: And at first, we turned down a
lot of work and obviously our parents reacted like,
| | 08:49 | "How dare you? You're in the US."
| | 08:52 | "You don't have all the support you
have here and you're turning down work."
| | 08:57 | It was one of those things where we
said if we're going to bet, we're going
| | 09:00 | to bet on ourselves.
| | 09:02 | Every time we say no to something, it's
because we have to justify it by working
| | 09:06 | on something of our own creation.
| | 09:08 | It sort of helped us in a way.
| | 09:12 | It kind of made us sexier that we kept
saying no, because the offers became more
| | 09:19 | intriguing and more interesting.
| | 09:20 | Lynda: Interesting, of course.
| | 09:21 | Jorge: Exactly and then we would say,
we are honored that you guys were asked this to
| | 09:26 | work on this, but we would
rather pitch you guys our own project.
| | 09:30 | That's how we started doing our own
pilots and our own work by turning work down
| | 09:35 | and saying oh, I know you guys want us
for this, but can we show you what we
| | 09:39 | would do with our own idea and if you
hate it, it's okay but just give us the
| | 09:43 | opportunity to pitch.
| | 09:44 | Sandra: You have to be kind too.
| | 09:46 | You can't be such a rock star to the
point where the companies actually starts
| | 09:49 | saying oh god, we don't want to deal with
those guys because they are total rock stars.
| | 09:53 | You have to be able to open
yourself up and play with them like
| | 09:57 | they want to play with you, yeah.
| | 10:00 | Lynda: Well, it seems like your past
projects, I might be wrong, were spearheaded by
| | 10:04 | you, Jorge, and I understand you have a
new project that you actually spearheaded
| | 10:09 | that is being produced at Disney.
| | 10:11 | Can you talk a little bit about that?
| | 10:12 | Sandra: Yeah, sure.
| | 10:15 | Previously we were working at
Nickelodeon and we had a show called El Tigre and
| | 10:20 | it was a little more focused on boys.
| | 10:22 | It was action packed and it was a comedy
and everything, but this new show is for
| | 10:27 | Disney and it's more for girls.
| | 10:31 | Fortunately, I'm the one in the
company that draws the girls a little better
| | 10:35 | and we presented it in my style and they
said, "We really like the way this girl looks."
| | 10:40 | "Can you start drawing a little more
around her, draw her friends, draw, I don't
| | 10:45 | know, her mom if she has one and whatever."
| | 10:47 | So I did.
| | 10:48 | Unfortunately, the men didn't
come out as well as I wanted them to.
| | 10:52 | So Jorge kind of hopped on board for that.
| | 10:55 | I needed it.
| | 10:56 | They said, "I think we need a little
more testosterone injected into our men."
| | 11:00 | Jorge: Then I was
like "I'm there!! Where do I start?"
| | 11:05 | Sandra: I'm fortunate enough to always have
Jorge like leaning up at the door with the glass.
| | 11:09 | You know like, 'Oh, they need me.
| | 11:11 | Okay, I'm there.'
| | 11:12 | So I always feel like I have somebody
catching me when I falling backwards.
| | 11:14 | Lynda: Yeah, that seems like a very
important part of your dynamic that you kind of
| | 11:17 | have each other's back.
| | 11:18 | You're each other's biggest supporters.
| | 11:21 | It's very inspiring.
| | 11:22 | I thank you so much for sharing your story.
| | 11:24 | I think a lot of people aspire to start
their own companies and live their dream
| | 11:30 | and practice their art.
| | 11:32 | You guys are living examples of that dream.
| | 11:35 | So it's great to hear your story.
Thank you so much for being a part of this.
| | 11:37 | Sandra: Thank you.
| | 11:38 | Jorge: Thank you Lynda. Thank you for
asking us to do this. We were really honored.
| | 11:42 | Sandra: It's a pleasure.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
Bonus ChapterJorge interviews Sergio Aragonés| 00:00 | (music playing)
| | 00:08 | Jorge Gutierrez: We are here in Ojai,
California, and I am super excited.
| | 00:11 | We are going to be meeting my childhood
hero and longtime idol, Sergio Aragones,
| | 00:17 | the great cartoonist.
| | 00:19 | It's been 23 years since I met him,
and he pretty much changed my life, so I
| | 00:24 | could not be more excited right now.
(singing)
| | 00:29 | (Spanish dialogue)
| | 00:38 | Jorge: This is the man, the legend. I am so excited.
Sergio Aragones: Is Sandra working?
| | 00:42 | Jorge: No, she is with the baby.
| | 00:43 | But she sends hugs and kisses.
(laughter)
| | 00:55 | Sergio, I am going to tell you how I
first saw your work. When I was, I think,
| | 01:01 | ten years old, and we moved
from Mexico City to Tijuana,
| | 01:06 | for the first time I found MAD magazine,
because I had never seen them in Mexico.
| | 01:14 | I didn't speak English very well,
and I remember my mom bought it for me, and
| | 01:19 | she sort of said, "This is really
good, because you like drawings.
| | 01:24 | You can practice your English."
| | 01:26 | So that was sort of my mom's
reason for getting me the magazine.
| | 01:29 | I remember opening it, and I
didn't understand anything.
| | 01:32 | I loved the artwork. And then I saw
your work on the sides, and I remember
| | 01:38 | thinking like, this is genius,
because it doesn't need any words.
| | 01:43 | I don't have to learn English to get
all these amazing, beautiful drawings
| | 01:48 | and jokes. And I kind of just became obsessed
with getting MAD magazines just for your stuff.
| | 01:54 | Sergio: Well, it's very curious, because
when it came out in Mexico, I was in high
| | 01:59 | school and I couldn't understand it
either, because I didn't speak anything of
| | 02:03 | English, and I would go after the guys
for them to translate the things, because
| | 02:07 | I loved the drawings, but I
couldn't understand anything.
| | 02:09 | And they would run away from me,
because, "Oh, there comes Sergio with the MAD
| | 02:12 | magazine," because they knew I got them
there to translate, and they couldn't,
| | 02:17 | because it was kind of complicated English.
| | 02:19 | It was not the school English.
| | 02:21 | But the same thing, I was
fascinated by the drawings,
| | 02:24 | Don Martin and Bob Clarke and all the
guys. I would just keep for hours looking
| | 02:28 | at it, and that's what really
motivated me to come to the States.
| | 02:32 | Jorge: So as time went by, eventually
I found Groo, you comic book, Groo the
| | 02:39 | Wanderer, and immediately I became
obsessed with it, and I started saving,
| | 02:44 | saving all my allowances to buy them.
| | 02:47 | I was reading one of them and I would
obviously like look at your drawings and
| | 02:50 | then like try to copy them.
| | 02:52 | At that point you were--the fact that
your name was Sergio Aragones, to me, was
| | 02:57 | like, that's someone like me.
| | 02:58 | There were not a lot of Mexican
cartoonists, especially in the U.S., so I
| | 03:03 | started copying your drawings.
| | 03:04 | I was really, really into it.
| | 03:05 | And my father walked in and saw me
drawing this, and he kind of gave me this
| | 03:10 | look of like, 'I am going to
humor you to see what you are up to.'
| | 03:13 | So he sat down and he picked up your
comic book, and I still remember, it's Groo
| | 03:17 | Issue 50. And he said, "Sergio Aragones,
Groo the Wanderer. Hmm, I know this man."
| | 03:24 | And I did not believe him.
| | 03:27 | I am still recovering from Santa Claus
and all these things, that, everything
| | 03:33 | that he said that hasn't been
true, so I don't believe him.
| | 03:36 | And he says, "Sergio went to
university for architecture," and that was the
| | 03:42 | biggest lie in the universe to me.
| | 03:44 | I said, "Papa, this is a
world-renowned cartoonist.
| | 03:49 | There is no way he went to architecture school."
| | 03:52 | And he said, "No, no, I went to school
with him," and that seemed like the biggest
| | 03:57 | lie in the universe.
| | 03:59 | So he said, "Jorge, since it's clear
you don't believe me, and you will only
| | 04:04 | believe me if you see it, I am going to
take you to meet Sergio Aragones, and he
| | 04:09 | will tell you how
important it is to go to school."
| | 04:12 | And I was like, "Come on, Dad!"
| | 04:15 | So my dad finds out about Comic-Con
in San Diego, and sure enough, we get up
| | 04:21 | really early in the morning, on a Sunday.
| | 04:24 | We are crossing the border from Tijuana
to San Diego. And the whole way there I
| | 04:28 | am really nervous, because I think
this is a big lie, and I am kind of
| | 04:32 | embarrassed for my dad.
| | 04:34 | I am like, I can't believe he is
doing all this just to make his point.
| | 04:37 | So we get to San Diego, we park, we go
into the Comic-Con, and this is the first
| | 04:42 | time I've ever been in the Comic-Con, or
my father, and there's people dressed in
| | 04:47 | Jorge: costumes and like really dirty-looking people.
Sergio: It's so crazy.
| | 04:51 | Jorge: It's super crazy, and my father is
an architect, right, so he is kind of like
| | 04:55 | a little--he is looking around, he is
going like, "This is what you want to do?
| | 04:59 | Like this is the world you want to enter?"
(Sergio laughing)
| | 05:01 | I am like, "Papa, these are my people."
| | 05:06 | So we go into the Comic-Con, and
literally he just asked like, "I am here to see
| | 05:12 | Sergio Aragones," and they are like,
"Oh, Sergio is signing over there."
| | 05:15 | So we go to your booth, and there is a
giant line of people on Sunday, because I
| | 05:20 | think it's family day, so
there's tons of kids, tons of families.
| | 05:23 | And we get in line, and we are waiting,
and my dad looks really serious,
| | 05:28 | like we are there to see the Pope,
like this is a pilgrimage.
| | 05:33 | And I don't know how it
happened. The way I remember it,
| | 05:37 | you looked up, and he saw you and you
saw him. My dad said, "Sergio," and then
| | 05:44 | you stood up and you said, "Jorge," and at
that moment my brain exploded. The world turned.
| | 05:52 | Every single thing I didn't believe my
father I thought like, maybe they are all
| | 05:57 | true. Maybe everything is true.
| | 05:59 | And you guys hugged and you said like,
to the line, you said like, "Hey, can you
| | 06:05 | give me a minute?" And we went behind
your booth and you sat down, and you guys
| | 06:10 | talked a little about school.
| | 06:12 | And then my father said, "Sergio, tell
him"--all this is in Spanish--"Sergio, tell
| | 06:17 | him how important it is to go to school."
| | 06:20 | And you sat me down and
you looked me in the eye.
| | 06:23 | You said, "I studied architecture.
Your father is right.
| | 06:29 | If you want to do cartoons,
it's a very hard career.
| | 06:33 | It's not something that's easy.
| | 06:35 | And look at this place,
| | 06:36 | it's full of people who want to be
cartoonists. And the biggest difference
| | 06:41 | between them and someone who succeeds,
or someone who is succeeding here, is hard
| | 06:47 | work, school, and even more hard work."
| | 06:50 | Sergio: It's education. What happens sometimes is
when you start in any field, we are
| | 06:57 | talking cartooning,
| | 06:59 | you start very young, and the
only thing you do is cartoons.
| | 07:02 | You talk cartoons. You meet cartoonists.
| | 07:06 | And there is nothing wrong with that,
but there is whole universe that you
| | 07:09 | can apply to your work.
| | 07:11 | So when you get an education, you go
to college, you meet people who are
| | 07:15 | interested in other things. You can
continue becoming a cartoonist, but all the
| | 07:20 | other influences that you meet in college,
| | 07:23 | politically, artistically, you
start up with at Cine Club --
| | 07:28 | Jorge: You did that club right?
Sergio: You expand your mind.
| | 07:30 | Sergio: Oh yeah! You expand your mind to
such extent that when you are doing your
| | 07:35 | cartoons, you have more material to
take from, and you just don't become a
| | 07:40 | worker that sits there and inks somebody
else's work, because now you can create.
| | 07:45 | You have a whole complete education.
| | 07:47 | So your dad was right. So was my dad.
| | 07:50 | My dad, same thing. He wanted me to go to
college, and I wanted to be a cartoonist.
| | 07:57 | I didn't want to go to college.
| | 07:59 | But one of things I will always thank
him is for the fact that he forced me to
| | 08:04 | go to college, and I did, and I
learned a lot. So to me it was very, very, very important.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Breaking into MAD Magazine| 00:00 | Jorge Gutierrez: What was it like leaving Mexico to
come to New York to break into cartoons?
| | 00:07 | Sergio Aragones: Well, it had arrived, the point
that I was doing the leading magazine in Mexico.
| | 00:12 | I had a page on the back, Manana Magazine.
I was doing cartoons for a gag magazine.
| | 00:18 | This was a political magazine.
| | 00:20 | So I had sort of like covered all my market. I did
record covers. I did everything that a cartoon could be done.
| | 00:27 | So I wanted to expand my horizons.
| | 00:29 | I wanted to meet the other cartoonists,
to find out what they were doing.
| | 00:36 | Sergio: I wanted to meet the people at MAD.
Jorge: Yeah.
| | 00:39 | Sergio: I knew I was never going to work
for MAD, because I knew I had no chance, but
| | 00:43 | I had to meet the guys.
| | 00:46 | And also because every place I
went said, "These are too crazy.
| | 00:48 | You should go to MAD."'
(Jorge laughing)
| | 00:51 | So it was very, very 'they
don't know as much as I know.'
| | 00:55 | You know how we are.
| | 00:56 | I know where I should be publishing.
And no matter how much I love it, I know
| | 00:59 | that I don't have a chance.
| | 01:02 | So when I went to New York I started
singing in a coffee house and reciting
| | 01:08 | Sergio: poetry and doing things to make a living,
Jorge: Wow!
| | 01:11 | Sergio: because I arrived here to this country
without any money, $20, and that went pretty fast.
| | 01:17 | But I was surviving pretty good.
| | 01:21 | Jorge: So how did you convince the MAD guys?
Sergio: Well, I didn't.
| | 01:24 | Sergio: I went to every magazine and the
sales were all right, but I couldn't make
| | 01:28 | a living out of it.
| | 01:30 | And I had met a lot of the cartoonists.
| | 01:33 | I had talked to them.
| | 01:34 | Every Wednesday, is I think, called
the rounds, then, for magazine cartoonists.
| | 01:39 | You will go with your batch of
cartoons and you go to a magazine, leave a
| | 01:42 | package, and take the other one, and then
you will read if they have bought something.
| | 01:47 | Then if they have then you have to
finish it and bring it over, but then you
| | 01:51 | leave a new batch. And then you'll go
to the next magazine, leave the batch
| | 01:54 | that you've left here, pick up the old one,
and do a little bit of juggling of what gags they saw.
| | 02:01 | You do the whole thing.
| | 02:03 | Every cartoonist did the same thing.
| | 02:04 | And then they would meet
at a bar, a coffee house.
| | 02:07 | We just ate and talked.
So I met every cartoonist, and it was great.
| | 02:11 | That was one of the reasons I was
there, is to meet all the people, but my
| | 02:16 | intention was, I am going back to
Mexico and from there I will submit cartoons,
| | 02:23 | because now I know the editors, I
know the process, and I can go back, as I
| | 02:28 | promised my parents.
But my basic idea was to go back to Mexico.
| | 02:33 | So I went to MAD to meet the guys, really.
| | 02:38 | I had my portfolio.
I had just made some of the rounds.
| | 02:42 | I asked for Antonio Prohias,
who was the guy who did Spy.
| | 02:45 | Jorge: And he is Cuban, right?
| | 02:47 | Sergio: He is Cuban, and I figured, well, he speaks Spanish.
(Jorge laughing)
| | 02:51 | So I asked for him, and luckily he
was there, because he lived in Florida.
| | 02:56 | So he comes in. And Cubans are
so--wonderful people and so warm.
| | 03:05 | So he called me, "My brother, hey, my brother,
my brother!" like we were lost friends of a lifetime.
| | 03:12 | "Hey!" We were talking about how he arrived
and how they liked his cartoons, because
| | 03:17 | Sergio: they were without words too.
Jorge: Yeah!
| | 03:19 | Sergio: So I was very excited about it.
| | 03:22 | I asked him all this in Spanish of
course, "Hey, introduce me to some of the
| | 03:26 | guys because I want to meet them."
| | 03:27 | He says, "Well, you have to introduce yourself;
| | 03:29 | I don't speak any English."
(Jorge laughing)
| | 03:30 | So I was said, "Oh no!"
| | 03:32 | So one of the editors, Jerry DeFuccio,
came out and we started talking, and
| | 03:38 | he kept calling me Mr. Prohias, because he had
introduced me as his brother from Mexico.
| | 03:43 | So it was very nice.
| | 03:44 | And he saw that portfolio and he took it in.
| | 03:50 | I was, "They were looking at my work,"
and Antonio was talking to me and I
| | 03:53 | wasn't listening to him.
| | 03:54 | I was just listening just what the
people are, and I could hear laughs.
| | 03:59 | And then one of the editors came out,
Nick Meglin came out, and he said,
| | 04:04 | "Do you sell your work?"
I would give it away.
| | 04:09 | But they bought two pages.
| | 04:10 | They figured it out that putting all these
single cartoons without words into pages
| | 04:17 | that will make a complete article,
| | 04:18 | call it A MAD Look At.
| | 04:21 | So a MAD Look At the astronauts.
| | 04:23 | And it was a two-pager and
they bought it, art and script.
| | 04:29 | They used to pay for art and script.
| | 04:31 | So, suddenly they made me a check for
such amount of money that I've never seen
| | 04:35 | together ever, and I was so excited.
| | 04:39 | One of the guys says, "Well, why don't you come
and bring another article. They're very good."
| | 04:46 | I said, "What about?"
(Jorge laughing)
| | 04:49 | And he says, "Well, you have a couple of
jokes here about motorcycle cops. Make more."
| | 04:57 | I go to the place I was staying which was Hotel de
Mala Muerte, the worst hotel in and out of the place.
| | 05:04 | And next morning I go to the office. Before they
opened, I was standing there with the portfolio.
| | 05:11 | He says, "Hey Sergio, what are you doing here?"
| | 05:14 | "I have the article that you guys wanted."
| | 05:15 | And it blew their minds, because usually
it would take guys months, a month, to bring that.
| | 05:22 | Jorge: Yes! And at that point I am sure
you were--you've always been really fast, right?
| | 05:27 | Sergio: Yeah. The subject matter, it lends to speed,
because it's the silliness of the cartoons.
| | 05:37 | When it's fast, it gives a
special movement. And again, I was 24.
| | 05:43 | I could come with ideas
like there was no tomorrow.
| | 05:46 | Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And now it takes me a little longer.
| | 05:49 | But I came out and showed the article, and they
loved it and they bought it. "This is amazing.
| | 05:55 | We have another article.
We don't have to worry about another two pages.
| | 05:58 | And that said, come in a few months."
| | 06:01 | I said, "Oh no, I am staying here."
| | 06:04 | So I started doing ideas for the covers
with Alfred Neuman the next day of course.
| | 06:09 | I came with a whole batch, and they bought
about ten ideas for their covers.
| | 06:13 | Jorge: Wow!
Sergio: They said, "Sergio, we've got enough."
| | 06:18 | Jorge: Take it easy!
| | 06:20 | Sergio: And within the issue--they told me
"Come again," or, "Mi casa es su casa," or
| | 06:27 | something like that, and I literally--
| | 06:30 | Jorge: Took it to heart.
| | 06:32 | Sergio: So they will invite me to
stay, so I stayed at the office.
| | 06:34 | I made very good friends
with everybody over there.
| | 06:38 | And I spent hours just looking at the originals.
| | 06:42 | They were working and I was
looking at drawers with originals and looking
| | 06:45 | at the lines and how they paste up everything.
| | 06:49 | So Bill Gaines, who was then the
publisher, he got everything bound, all the
| | 06:56 | books and the issues, and I spent hours
looking at the material that never arrived to Mexico.
| | 07:03 | And I was learning English as fast
as you can imagine, because I had to.
| | 07:09 | I wanted to, so badly.
| | 07:12 | One of the days I asked one of the
editors, Jerry DeFuccio, and say, "What this
| | 07:19 | means?" There were little
words at the bottom of the page.
| | 07:22 | He says, "Well, have you
seen that movie?" I said, "No."
| | 07:26 | "Well, then you won't understand it."
And I go, "What this other lines mean here?"
| | 07:31 | He says, "Did you read so-and-so book?" "No."
| | 07:35 | "Then you won't understand it."
| | 07:37 | So I figured out, well, why don't we put
cartoons there that everybody can understand?
| | 07:41 | Jorge: Ahh. That's where Marginals came through?
| | 07:44 | Sergio: Yeah, that's where
the Marginals came about.
| | 07:47 | So I drew them the same size, with
one of the clock wheels, and then I drew
| | 07:52 | them on top of the lines that they were
written, with gags up and down, all over the place.
| | 07:58 | And they show it to Feldstein, and he
laughs and he says, "This is very funny,
| | 08:04 | having all these 20
cartoons for very little money."
| | 08:11 | But they loved the idea and he says,
| | 08:15 | "We are going to run with it
until you run out of ideas."
| | 08:19 | Sergio: So I am still doing them to this day.
Jorge: Yeah!
| | 08:21 | Sergio: I never ran out of ideas.
| | 08:24 | But that's how the Marginals, the
little cartoons on the borders that you
| | 08:27 | mentioned, came about.
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| Influencing others and drawing cartoons for a global audience| 00:00 | Jorge Gutierrez: I mean, I am sure you see all
these generations have been influenced by you
| | 00:04 | and admire you so much.
| | 00:06 | It must be great to see--
| | 00:08 | Sergio Aragones: It is a great feeling.
| | 00:09 | It is a great feeling.
| | 00:11 | More to see people that you have met
when they were young and they wanted to be
| | 00:14 | cartoonists, and they become
cartoonists. That's probably one of the
| | 00:16 | biggest awards that a
cartoonist can get, above everything.
| | 00:25 | Jorge: Especially TV animation.
| | 00:27 | I met so many people who not only
admire you and admire your work, but you were
| | 00:31 | very kind to talk to them and give them
advice, and everyone would look to you
| | 00:37 | as like a really positive-- the
godfather of cartooning, but in a good way.
| | 00:43 | Sergio: People were nice to me when I was here.
| | 00:48 | And I realize how important it was to
me the way that people have treated me
| | 00:53 | when I went to places.
| | 00:55 | And I guess that's what you do.
| | 01:02 | It paid, it paid being nice, it is.
| | 01:06 | Cartoon is like generational.
| | 01:07 | We grew up with a bunch of cartoonists
and when we met them, I remember when I
| | 01:15 | met Otto Soglow, who was a
cartoonist, who did The Little King.
| | 01:22 | And The Little King in Mexico was a
comic strip, and he was great, because
| | 01:25 | it had barely words. I loved his work.
| | 01:27 | When I met him, I couldn't talk. I was mute.
| | 01:30 | So every cartoonist that have worked
on the comic strips, I met him at the
| | 01:33 | National Cartoonists Society, and I
met him, and I was completely null
| | 01:37 | about these people.
| | 01:38 | And slowly they died because of age.
| | 01:42 | So I am still alive, which I frequent a lot.
| | 01:48 | And now I realize that because of age
I am getting to a point that people are
| | 01:52 | coming to me and they like what
I do and they grew up with me.
| | 01:55 | And I tell them well, be nice to people,
because very soon you will be here and
| | 02:00 | they will being to ask you the same things.
| | 02:06 | Sergio: So it has been a terrific thing, and still is.
Jorge: Very nice!
| | 02:10 | Sergio: Also, I would say that one of the things
that I really have always admired about
| | 02:17 | you was that you are a successful
Latino artist who came to the U.S. and it's
| | 02:25 | never been an issue with anyone.
| | 02:27 | Like people talk about you like a
cartoonist. They never say like, oh, he is a
| | 02:31 | Mexican or a foreigner, or? Like you
kind of broke that barrier and your work
| | 02:36 | speaks to the world.
| | 02:38 | But at the same time, it feels
uniquely Mexican and a lot of your sense of
| | 02:42 | humor and a lot of your point of views
feel like they have that Mexican flavor
| | 02:49 | that is hard to describe.
| | 02:51 | Sergio: All my early influences
they were Mexican cartoonists.
| | 02:54 | Abel Quezada, Alberto Isaac. Many of the guys
that I grew were people that worked right there.
| | 03:04 | And what I read were Mexican comics and
Mexican strips and Mexican everything.
| | 03:09 | The thing international, it has become
-- because I don't think -- say okay,
| | 03:17 | I'm going to make this cartoon so now
everybody understand it. It is because in
| | 03:22 | the beginning, because I wanted
everybody to know the cartoon, I will
| | 03:26 | automatically do it.
| | 03:28 | So I don't think about it. I do a cartoon.
| | 03:30 | And when the cartoons are a little
too biased to one place, I would always
| | 03:34 | think well, what about my friends in
Malaysia, will they understand it?
| | 03:37 | Jorge: Okay. So you do think about the world, like --
| | 03:40 | Sergio: Yeah, in certain points, when it
becomes a little obtuse, the drawing, and I
| | 03:46 | say, wait a minute, will they get this?
| | 03:49 | And if it has a title, then I don't care,
because it's a series of cartoons about one subject.
| | 03:56 | So I figure, well, they will
understand it if they read a little more about
| | 04:00 | American culture or
something, so then it's fine.
| | 04:03 | But when it's a single cartoon,
I try to be in a complete way.
| | 04:08 | One of the things I do when I travel,
I love kids and I like to talk to them,
| | 04:14 | and I have gone to different schools to
talk to kids, and that has been a total
| | 04:19 | discovery because of what
they understand about cartooning.
| | 04:25 | And in many countries they are not
familiar with the cartoon word, so they
| | 04:32 | recognize fine art that looks more or
less like something but when you do an
| | 04:36 | abstraction, because cartooning is a complete
abstraction, to some people they don't know it.
| | 04:42 | That's funny.
| | 04:43 | They think it's well silly something,
but to them it's more like modern art.
| | 04:48 | Except you learn more about the culture
of the place by the reactions of the
| | 04:58 | kids of the cartoons.
| | 05:00 | For instance, I was in Kenya and we
were doing-- there was a school we were
| | 05:04 | visiting, and there was a-- they were
sitting on the floor and the teacher had
| | 05:08 | a board. So I asked permission to make
little drawings and I didn't get any
| | 05:14 | reaction from the kids.
| | 05:15 | And I realized well, of
course, they don't react.
| | 05:18 | They don't know what I'm drawing.
| | 05:19 | They are not familiar with this.
| | 05:22 | So I figured out that I drew the guy
running from a cow. A cow. They loved it.
| | 05:29 | They laughed so hard.
| | 05:30 | Like I go aaaah and the cow following,
because that they understood.
| | 05:34 | That little basic thing about their
world, their rural world, they understood.
| | 05:44 | And then I tried to do caricatures of
people and then they laughed because,
| | 05:51 | again, they recognize the characters.
| | 05:55 | And in certain places you make a
caricature of the teacher and the kids don't laugh.
| | 06:00 | They are quiet.
| | 06:01 | And they look at each other and then
they look at the teacher, and if the
| | 06:06 | teacher laughs, they laugh. But if the
teacher doesn't laugh, oh, no way they
| | 06:12 | can laugh about this exaggeration.
| | 06:15 | And in the United States when you
go to school, the first thing they
| | 06:18 | say hey, do the teacher, give him donkey
ears, dress him like a woman, make him naked.
| | 06:24 | It's a completely different approach
and you realize how things change from
| | 06:29 | country to country. But it's
fun drawing for kids. Oh yeah.
| | 06:33 | If you travel one day, just take a part
and you go to wherever there's kids and
| | 06:38 | sit among them and
start making drawings. It's a kick.
| | 06:42 | Watching their faces, seeing things.
The problem is that as soon as you're
| | 06:46 | finished drawing, they want to draw.
| | 06:47 | They take the pen from
you and they start drawing.
| | 06:50 | So you just sit there and
they just start drawing.
| | 06:51 | Oh yeah, all the time. It never fails.
| | 06:55 | They want to show how they can do it,
which is exactly what I want them to do. It's great.
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| Bringing pantomime and acting into cartoons| 00:00 | Jorge Gutierrez: As time went by, I remember
sort of finding out about your background also in
| | 00:06 | theater in Mexico, with like Jodorowsky.
| | 00:09 | Sergio Aragones: Jodorowsky.
| | 00:10 | Well, again, you are in college, you
are doing cartoons, and I loved pantomime.
| | 00:16 | Since I was a kid! My cartoons have no words.
| | 00:20 | Jorge: Then it's all acting!
| | 00:22 | Sergio: Yeah. Marcel Marceau came to Mexico and
because we were in the theater group on
| | 00:29 | architecture so we had a
pass, so I went everyday.
| | 00:33 | The university asked them to stay and
give a class, a pantomime class, so
| | 00:37 | I joined immediately.
| | 00:39 | And I told him well, I
don't want to become a mime.
| | 00:43 | I want to apply pantomime to my
cartoons. And he thought it was a very good
| | 00:48 | experiment, that I wanted to apply what
he was teaching, and that's what I did.
| | 00:54 | I learned mime, but not to become a performer,
but to apply it to work, and it did work a lot.
| | 01:01 | You understand balance, equilibrium,
weight, all kinds of things that a mime has
| | 01:08 | to learn, but to apply it to the drawings.
| | 01:10 | So it did work a lot.
| | 01:11 | That was another of the process of.
| | 01:13 | It was not because I wanted to
be an actor or anything like that.
| | 01:16 | Jorge: Well, you act with your cartoons, right?
Sergio: Oh yes.
| | 01:18 | Sergio: Not only you act in your
cartoons, you direct your cartoons.
| | 01:22 | You choose the costumes in your cartoons.
| | 01:25 | Everything that goes in the cartoon
except the music and when it is on paper,
| | 01:31 | but the rest your amenable traits, you have to.
| | 01:35 | Jorge: Eventually as I grew up I got into
CalArts, this cartooning animation school,
| | 01:41 | and I remember in one of our
storyboarding classes it was about you, and it was
| | 01:48 | about your cartoons and how
universally clear all the ideas were.
| | 01:54 | How you were speaking a language that
wasn't restrained to one spoken language,
| | 02:00 | but it was the visual language of
cartoons and how well you staged everything.
| | 02:05 | The pacing, how you had animation
pacing in your scripts, how like you had
| | 02:10 | anticipation and you had follow-through
and really good punch lines, and how
| | 02:14 | they were in movement without
movement, because they were printed.
| | 02:18 | And I remember I always wondered
like, why don't you do more cartoons?
| | 02:23 | Sergio: I come from gag writing
and then I illustrate my gags.
| | 02:30 | The problem with animation to me, not
that it is a problem, is that because of
| | 02:34 | what I do, is that I spend a lot of
time thinking, writing gags, and movies?.
| | 02:43 | My father was in the movie industry,
he ended up as a producer in
| | 02:46 | Mexico. He made movies.
| | 02:47 | So I grew up in the movie industry and I
remember since I was a kid going to the
| | 02:53 | sets to play. And that is not one
person's work. Because when I had my earlier
| | 03:01 | jobs, I was working at the studio,
doing different things, in editing department and...
| | 03:07 | But it's such a job that everybody is doing.
| | 03:09 | They have the writing.
| | 03:10 | They have the editing.
| | 03:13 | They have the filming.
They have everything.
| | 03:13 | So it's not one person's work.
| | 03:15 | And I realized that I didn't like any
of the jobs per se. I liked it all.
| | 03:22 | And I wanted to draw and write my own story.
| | 03:26 | So since I remember, I will sit down
anyplace with a piece of paper and write
| | 03:31 | stories and draw them.
| | 03:33 | And because I didn't know the format
of how to do comics, because these were
| | 03:38 | not drawings to be shown
to anybody. They were crazy.
| | 03:42 | In a place I am doing something and
then I will go like this, because I had
| | 03:45 | more space this way, and then in the back.
| | 03:48 | So when you see the pace, it was like a cacophony
of drawing. But it was a story, a complete story.
| | 03:54 | So animation, again, that was it.
| | 03:57 | It was compartmentalized, on
writing, on drawing, or things.
| | 04:03 | And I stayed to managing cartoons, because
it was what I did best and never regretted it.
| | 04:13 | Jorge: Yeah, I mean, it's weird,
seeing your books all over the world, like,
| | 04:18 | it's pretty amazing.
| | 04:19 | Sergio: But that's one of the great
advantage with pantomime, cartoons without words,
| | 04:25 | is like they sell at every place.
| | 04:27 | You go to Turkey and there it is, and
Malaysia, and no matter where you go,
| | 04:32 | they like the work.
| | 04:34 | Some people complain that they buy the
rights to publish my book and the only
| | 04:38 | thing they have to translate
is the title. They have to pay that and not do anything.
| | 04:44 | I used to go with a friend of mine
who also wanted to be a cartoonist.
| | 04:48 | We used to work in a hotel that sold
magazines, international magazines.
| | 04:53 | And we'd look at that English magazines
like Punch and I couldn't understand
| | 04:59 | anything, and Americans,
I couldn't understand anything,
| | 05:02 | because there were words on there.
| | 05:05 | But we have a French magazine,
Paris Match, or the German ones.
| | 05:11 | They had a page of guys at the back
and they were without words and I
| | 05:15 | understood everything, so it was great.
| | 05:18 | And that helped me a lot to also, again,
to tend to do cartoons without words,
| | 05:24 | because I could understand them
and so I figured out well, I want everybody to
| | 05:27 | understand what I am doing.
| | 05:29 | Jorge: Yeah. Sergio, you want to end with
like advice to the new generations?
| | 05:34 | Sergio: It's just loving what you do
and taking the money equation out of the
| | 05:44 | satisfaction equation.
| | 05:47 | You do something because you like
to do it, because you love to do it.
| | 05:52 | If you want to make money out of something,
study money, become a banker, become a salesman.
| | 05:58 | But if you want to be a cartoonist,
get into cartooning. Don't try to think,
| | 06:01 | oh, I am going to become a millionaire
doing this, because then you are sacrificing
| | 06:05 | a lot of the learning process.
| | 06:08 | So I think people should pay a little
more attention to it, or less attention to the
| | 06:13 | money part of it, but a little more
attention to the learning part of it.
| | 06:16 | Jorge: Well, Sergio, thank
you so much for doing this.
| | 06:19 | Sergio: Por favor! Ha sido un placer.
When they stop the cameras, we can continue talking.
| | 06:24 | (Laughter)
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