Alberto Mielgo, animation director: "I cannot financially afford to be nominated for an Oscar"
This March 27 the Oscars are delivered, where the Spanish presence in the nominations is surprisingly forceful. Having Alberto Iglesias and Penelope Cruz for parallel mothers already Javier Bardem by be the Ricardos enough to immerse oneself in national pride, but the name of Alberto Mielgo should not be ignored in the category of Best Animated Short, where he competes with The Windshield Wiper). And it is that, as soon as the recent evolution of animation has been attended to, Mielgo is a basic name. His work in one of the most spectacular shorts of Love, Death & Robots (The witness) proves it. Unfortunately, will not be included in the gala the delivery of the prizes to those who choose Mielgo and Iglesias.
"It was a before and after in my career. It has had an impact even within Hollywood, with great producers telling me that they have been blown away," says Mielgo (Torrelodones, 1979). But this milestone is just that, a milestone, within a two-decade trajectory that includes the founding of his own studio (Pinkman.tv, "name with no meaning beyond being a kind of superhero that I have yet to develop") and the artistic direction of an animated film so revolutionary What Spider-Man: A new universe. Although Mielgo left the production, his mark is indelible. A mark that the Oscars could consecrate.
His resume is impressive, going back to Spanish productions (El Cid and Dragon Hill) that won the Goya. How were those beginnings in the industry and what motivated you to start working abroad, between London and Los Angeles?
I can tell little about the beginning because I was a youngster and I left early. I have good memories, since I had no experience and they gave me an opportunity that I may not have given in my studio right now. But I have always been abroad until three or four years ago, when I settled in Madrid. I started by going to London and doing gigs. Racing is always like that. You go from a good project to working in a restaurant, and then to another good project. It was like that for years, but there came a time when my career stabilized and I founded Pinkman.tv. I wanted to show the staff that I could direct animation, a different kind of animation, and I developed several 2D pieces that moved quite a bit. From there they began to call me, and I was getting bigger responsibilities.
One of his first jobs was the intro from the video game The Beatles: Rock Bandwhere lysergic influences of the film are perceived Yellow Submarine. It can help us to investigate your style. What references would you highlight?
I've grown up with comics; the first thing i read was tintin or Asterix. All of that has influenced me, but never as a springboard that pushes me forward, like 'I'm going to be directly inspired by this'. I never finished a course in a school or in a university. As I have always learned everything by myself, my style was the result of a person trying to solve his artistic problems as best he could, without having a clue what he was doing.
Even so, violence and female nudity are constant in his work. It is what leads me to think of Ralph Bakshi and how he worked animation as dissidenceopposing the usual consideration that its destination is the family audience.
I agree that animation must shock to get out of the childish mold. Look, for example, when trying to make animated films not recommended for children under 13 years. That never works, that audience doesn't exist: you have to make children's movies or movies for adults, so that 13-year-olds see the latter. Love, Death & Robots It was revulsive: nobody expected something so violent and explicit, and it was a success that has changed everything. I'm having conversations with producers that no one would have thought of four years ago. You have to enter giving a strong blow that wakes up the staff. It is something that makes me proud because animation fascinates me and for a long time I saw that it was in crisis. I mean, on a commercial level it was in full swing, but on a creative level it seemed to me that we were trapped in the same little animal that always has to save the world.
Now we should talk about Spider-Man: A new universewhose production you abandoned but which we did review the sketches it is evident that the most famous shots of the film were your idea, like that of Miles Morales "plunging" in the city. How do you feel about the phenomenon that this film has brought about?
In the animation industry everyone knows me, they know the role I had there. I was called to visually develop the entire project, so I traveled to New York, climbed skyscrapers, took photos… I established the basis for the art direction. I was there for almost two years and I left a very brutal mark. The artists that remained did, of course, a fine and brilliant job, and we all got along very well and knew how to honor the work that I left them done. And indeed spider-man It was another radical change. Not that it was awkward or visceral, but aesthetically it did feel like something very new. When I proposed the graphic language, very similar to comics with the use of speech bubbles and onomatopoeia... well, let's see, accustomed to Frozen and to look from Pixar, that looked super cool and worked really well.
We finally arrive at windshield wiperwhich stems from a collaboration with animator Leo Sanchez and Pastel, a producer for Barry Jenkins (Oscar-winning filmmaker for moonlit). How was the process?
Leo and I met in London years ago, and ran into each other again in Los Angeles. I started to develop windshield wiper with the Framestore studio, but I didn't quite get the benefit I wanted from it and I went to Leo. I showed him the storyboard and Leo, who was starting his own studio at the time, liked them. We thought 'come on, let's do it together'. Leo is specialized in character modeling. He has worked for everyone, from Disney to DreamWorks, and the result is what you see: basically the two of them putting in thousands and thousands of hours, working hand in hand. It's a co-production between Pinkman.tv and Leo Sanchez Studio, but it's more of a fusion. What Pastel has done, on the other hand, is above all to sponsor us. Pastel people saw The witness back in the day and they told me they would love to work with me. so i passed them windshield wiper almost finished. They promised to help us in any way they could, to help me go far. Go to all the events with Barry Jenkins, arrange conferences with him, things like that. Something that always comes in handy because we are very independent, and we don't have a penny to promote the short film.
windshield wiper revolves around the idea of love, and has a tone that is a drastic departure from your previous works. What moved him to do it?
I just wanted to talk about something as current as love. That is to say, love is always up-to-date, but it is always a bit behind as well, trailing how society evolves. If it were ahead there would be no wars of any kind, after all. In this society, not so long ago, the important thing in relationships was to create a strong family to work the land and help at home. Today that is no longer so important. Today the important thing is your individual development, your role, your career. Since relationships are now not based on commitment and individualism rules, I wanted to speak in windshield wiper of what love is today, of what relationships are. How love evolves, alienates.
It is very striking, within the short, the skeptical image that it gives of Tinder...
Tinder makes clear the vision of what I was commenting on, how commitment is no longer important. People are not ready for commitment, and why? Because there is a lot of supply: before you had your neighbors, your friends, a few square kilometers, but now people contact other countries. It is a little what the scene reflects. I'm not criticizing it, because there is also something valuable that is precisely that, accessibility to people you would never have met if it weren't for one of these applications. I just want to talk about what love is today; is not a criticism but an objective view, almost voyeuristic. The camera does not interfere, it only shares the vision of that external character who is looking for an answer to what love is, and who finds a phrase that seems to work for him: "love is a secret society."
when they nominated windshield wiper there was a very curious contrast, aspiring to an Oscar while he had not even been nominated for a Goya, and shortly after controversy will break out about who had directed the award-winning film, Valentine. What is your current relationship with the spanish animation industry?
The Goyas did not nominate us because we could not present ourselves. Pinkman.tv is Spanish and the intellectual property is mine, but my projects are very international because in animation you can work with all kinds of people around the world, without any centralization. For seven years for windshield wiper People from Australia, USA, France, Germany, Italy have passed by... so the short could not be registered as Spanish. The truth is that I don't have much to do with the Spanish industry and I don't know how it works. My clients are foreigners and I am my own company that works and is listed here, but without Spain financing anything. I do believe that the professional field is very good, although there is not a situation to spend fifty million on a feature film. There are very good people, with a lot of talent.
Finally, do you think windshield wiper can take the Oscar?
It all depends on whether people like it, and for that to happen they have to see it. That is why I want to make the best possible campaign, within the resources we have. We cannot afford the 10,000 or 20,000 euros that an ad can cost, without exaggeration, in the hollywoodreporter. It is very expensive, we are playing in a league that surpasses us. I can't afford to be nominated for an Oscar. That's why the campaign has to be interesting, that's why I have my short film for free on the internet. I want it to be free everywhere, and anything I'm organizing is non-exclusive. The most important thing is that the short is seen.
