Oscar Shortlist Interviews: Directors Laura Gonçalves & Alexandra Ramires Share Their Favorite Shot From ‘Percebes’ (Exclusive)
Cartoon Brew invited the filmmakers behind each of this year’s 15 Oscar-shortlisted animated shorts to share their favorite shot from their film and explain why it’s special to them. The pieces are being published in the order that materials were received.
In this piece, we’re looking at the Portuguese/French short Percebes from directors Laura Gonçalves & Alexandra Ramires.
Between sea and city, the Algarve region in Portugal is home to a special shellfish called percebes, also known as goose barnacles. Percebes tells the story of this specific shellfish and the people interacting with it, from the creature’s formation to the dish, and through this documentary journey, the directors unveil the region and its people.
Below is Laura Gonçalves and Alexandra Ramires’s favorite shot from the film and their explanation of why it’s significant to them:
This shot is around one minute long. It’s one of our favorites from the film and also one of the hardest to put together. Most of the team put their hands on it, which is one of the reasons why it’s so dear to us.
It represents the first transition between two of the different places we see throughout the film, transporting us from the raging waves at the beach, where the percebes are fished and the fishermen talk about the sea, to the terrace of the house in the city, where their routine continues as they put [away] the swimming suits to dry and initiate the cleaning of percebes to be ready to sell.
The animation team spent time with us in Algarve to see the waves, draw the percebes, and this was the culmination of their visions, as well as afterward the painting in watercolor, watercolor pencil, and comp.
It was a game changer when we decided to add this camera movement in the animatic. From there on, metaphorical animation and humorous visual plays made sense throughout the film, and we wanted it to add that particular characteristic of animation to the “talking heads documentary” style.
It took a long time to make, from the layouts throughout the inbetweening, masking, painting, and then compositing; at some point we called it “THE SHOT!” Every time we had someone visiting the studio, we showed them this work-in-progress. It was always, “Show them THE SHOT.”
It brings good memories to see it on the screen, because it brought all the team together, we laughed together a lot about this shot, and also we really saw the effort and the belief they had in us and the film. It was very special for us as directors to see the team so involved.
The first music was done for this shot, inspired by a specific feeling of the characters in the movie, many of whom have exhausting jobs during the day where they have to look presentable, but after their work they find moments of release in heavier music. It’s a kind of anger and discontent, but with a dance on top. There’s also an Arabic tonality to the music that underlines the identity of the region portrayed, because the Algarve had a very strong Arab presence that can still be felt today.
Read the other entries in the series:
