Animation Magazine's 35 Year Anniversary Issue

Page 34

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Features

Teddy Bears vs. Unicorns!

Director Alberto Vázquez answers our burning questions about his new movie Unicorn Wars.

F

ans of Spanish graphic novelist and animation director Alberto Vázquez (Birdboy, Homeless Home, Decorado) have been counting the days until the acclaimed auteur’s new movie Unicorn Wars arrives on the big screen. The film, which was part of Annecy’s Work in Progress program last year, will premiere at this year’s edition of the animation festival in France. Produced by UniKo, Abano Pro­ ducións and Autour de Minuit, the feature is set again a terrible war between religious fanatic teddy bears and environmentalist unicorns. We had a chance to chat with Vázquez about his latest animated spectacular, which is bound to be one of the big crowd-pleasers at the 2022 festival: Animation Magazine: Can you tell us how you came up with the idea for Unicorn Wars? Alberto Vázquez: The feature film is based on a short comic-book story I created more than 10 years ago. Then in 2013, we made the short film Unicorn Blood based on this comic book. And finally, the film Unicorn Wars was made. This same process happened in my previous project, Psiconautas (Birdboy: The Forgotten Children) and I thought it might be a good idea to do the same, use what I think is a good idea and work with it as a base — but have the freedom to make some changes along the way. Besides, the passage of time also allows the story to mature and help evolve the artistic finish.

I like to create small universes, choral works with many characters where we are presented with a world with its own rules. It seemed to me that the short film Unicorn Blood had many thematic and narrative possibilities and I decided to extend it. Anyway, the short film is just a seed to start working on, since the ideas, plots and themes of Unicorn Wars are different, although I think the essence of the short film is still maintained. How long did it take you to finish the film, and what animation tools did the studio use to produce it? Making this film has been a process of about six years of work. At the beginning I worked alone, then a small team of people joined in pre-production and then, the production, with all the equipment, has lasted a year and a half. The animation is made in Blender, specifically with a tool called Grease Pencil, with which you work in 2D within a 3D environment. All the bears and characters are made in traditional 2D, except the unicorns that are made in 3D. One of the main challenges at the beginning of the production was to animate the unicorns. In this movie there are quite a lot of them, since there are several battles and sometimes we can have 40 unicorns in the composition. To solve this, we decided to animate them in 3D and integrate them with the 2D by animating them at twos or threes and silhouetting and lighting the unicorns in a very graphic way.

Blender allowed all the studios involved in the film to work with the same software and we all had the same work methodology. Besides, Blender is a free software and, being open source, it keeps evolving. Where was the animation produced and how many people worked on it? Unicorn Wars is a Spanish and French production made by Abano, UniKo and Autour de Minuit. We had a studio in La Coruña (where I live), Bilbao, Paris and Angoulême, as well as small studios in Valencia, Barcelona and Almendralejo that helped us in processes during production. In the end, if you count all the people who have worked on it, there will be about 200 people between all the phases. What do you like most about this film? Well, I like the script, the themes and the artwork. I think I have made the film I wanted to

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Articles inside

Animated Musings

4min
pages 150-151

Autonomous Animator

3min
pages 148-149

Creative Connections

4min
pages 152-153

Tech Reviews

10min
pages 144-147

Conjuring New Demons

6min
pages 142-143

Experiencing the World of Tomorrow Today

49min
pages 118-139

Unleashing the Dinosaurs Again

7min
pages 140-141

A Few Words from Monsieur le Délégué

6min
pages 102-103

First Look: Netflix Animation Spotlights

3min
pages 116-117

Flight of Fancy

6min
pages 106-107

20 Movies to Catch at Annecy

6min
pages 104-105

Brief and Beautiful Visions

15min
pages 108-115

An Animation Legend Looks Back

6min
pages 96-99

35 Animated Shorts to Explore, Ponder Ignore or Enjoy*

8min
pages 84-87

The Strike That Shifted the Landscape

7min
pages 100-101

The Essentials:35 U.S. Studio Movies of the Past 35 Years

1min
page 82

On Representation and Diversity: How Far Have We Come?

7min
pages 80-81

Riding the Japanese New Wave

5min
pages 78-79

A Lot Can Happen in 35 Years

9min
pages 76-77

Reflections on 1987 and the 35th

4min
pages 74-75

A Crowd-Sourcing Pioneer

4min
pages 72-73

35 Years of Great Quotes

11min
pages 68-71

Blue Skies Ahead for Red Animation

6min
pages 66-67

Drawn to Excellence

6min
pages 62-63

Cyber Group Expands Its Giant Footprint

6min
pages 64-65

Daughter of Invention

6min
pages 60-61

On Being a True Warrior

7min
pages 58-59

Crouching Teen, Hidden Powers

6min
pages 56-57

A Hero Who Keeps on Giving

6min
pages 54-55

And Never Feed Them After Dark

6min
pages 50-51

From Stage to Animated Screen

6min
pages 52-53

A Toon Town Trailblazer

6min
pages 44-45

Sophisticated Sci-Fi Is Back

8min
pages 46-49

The Red Ribbon Army Returns

3min
pages 42-43

Mavka, the Spirit of Ukrainian Culture

5min
pages 40-41

The Tiniest Movie Star

7min
pages 36-37

The Way of the Feline Samurai

6min
pages 38-39

Teddy Bears vs. Unicorns

6min
pages 34-35

Whatever Happened to Those Chipmunks?

6min
pages 32-33

A Real Disney Heroine

7min
pages 20-23

A Toy’s Origin Story

10min
pages 16-19

Here Be Monsters

9min
pages 24-27

Make It Extra — with a Side of Optimism

8min
pages 28-31
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