The Story
We all know there are undeniable inequalities in many countries around the world.
As Latinos, we've witnessed the fierce struggle of our countrymen who overcome situations of extreme poverty day after day. This drives them to work hard in order to survive in all possible ways within their reach. Some may do improvisation in the streets and others sometimes come up with all kinds of circus acts to perform in strategic crossroads with the intention of entertaining the traffic and earning some money.
El Malabarista is a modest recognition of the audacity and courage of all these hard-working people who try to escape their daily struggles even in the midst of their harsh realities.
Joaquín
The inspiration for our character is based off Latin household names such as Don Ramon, El Chavo del Ocho and Cantinflas whose characters were created to make people laugh but that looking past their humor value they are characters that come from a humble background and this was the main idea that we wanted to translate into Joaquín.
Initial Sketches
Advanced Sketches
Once he had decided that our character would be a juggler, we reached out to our sketch artist, Guillaume Chamberland, so he could start sketching him up.
We brainstormed different types of clowns that Joaquín could be but in the end, we decided that he should appear as a normal person wearing clown make-up rather than a circus clown so that it would be easier to empathize with him.
The final sketches ended up being a stylized version of a real-life street performer.
Final Sketch
Modeling
In order to save some precious time for production, we decided to build our character off an existing one.
In this case, we used the Malcolm rig which we re-sculpted and re-rigged to cater the proportions that we needed.
Conveniently, Malcolm also includes various costumes that we were able to adjust to match the character design.
The Environment
We really wanted to play with a 2D style for our short and so we decided to create our entire background as a matte painting then use the 3D cameras in After Effects to create depth.
The Choreography
Finding a circus performer was a very important part of our process in order for us to understand the timing, motion and complexity of the juggling movements.
We needed a specific routine that would help us convey the story and have the right impact in specific moments.
We started to develop our choreography by filming Francisco at our local park and thinking of camera angles that would work with some juggling tricks we had in mind.
But everything came together with the help of Sam Hollis, a juggler extraordinaire and student at the École du Cirque, with whom we developed an engaging and believable juggling choreography.
We talked through the different tricks we had planned and Sam was able to incorporate the performance aspect and accents that we wanted in the routine.
The End Result
Creating this short as a two person team was definitely a challenge but such a big accomplishment for Francisco and I. We put a lot of heart into this short and learned many things along the way. We thank every single person who lent a hand so we could make this short possible.
In the end, we wanted to create a story that had meaning and I believe that is what we achieved with El Malabarista.
Credits
Francisco Berrios: Matte Painting and Compositing
Sonia Hernandez Aguayo: Project Lead and Coordinator, Animation and Rigging
With the help of
Dana Darie: Project Supervisor
Sam Hollis: Circus Artist
Marie Claire Saldivar: Animation
François Côté-Paquet, Jessy Veilleux and Brent George: Mentors
Oscar Coyoli and Rafael Corzo: Music and Sound Design
Leticia Maya and Carmen Oceguera: Consultants
Dora Castillo and Catherine Buteau: Copywriters
Guillaume Chamberland: Sketch Artist