Animation Guild | We are 839 Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/944397
F E AT U R E JORGE GUTIÉRREZ Capture the power of culture. Time and time again, Jorge Gutiérrez was faced with rejection. The director of Book of Life and co-creator with his wife, Sandra Equihua, of El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, says, "My culture has always been this thing that I was warned would hurt me and I thrive on being told I can't do that," he says. Gutiérrez has always been inspired by Mexican folk art and pop culture and it features strongly in his work. In fact, it helped him get into CalArts. "I showed up with a portfolio [of] a bunch of art work that I thought was what Americans wanted to see," he says. He had drawn cartoons that were his version of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse and The Simpsons. So when CalArts reviewed his work, he was told: "All your drawings are crap. You have no voice." It was his portfolio of Mexican paintings that garnered him admission to the school. However, once there his teachers told him: "You're making this Mexican stuff, no one's going to hire you." And they turned out to be right. When he showed his portfolio to the studios, they would admire his work and then ask for his "other stuff." At one point, he was told: "If Scooby-Doo goes to Mexico, you're the first guy we're going to call." Gutiérrez was determined to stay true to his vision and a piece of advice from a producer at Nickelodeon helped guide this effort. The executive took him aside and encouraged Gutiérrez to pitch his own shows, "because if you don't pitch it, no one is going to make this type of stuff." What he initially thought would be his weakness, being from another country and an outsider, turned out to be his strength. He adds with a laugh, "It's like animation judo. I just said, 'Well, I'm going to turn that into my strength.'" Gutiérrez first started pitching ideas for movies and hit a wall — no one was interested; however, he gained traction with a concept he co-created with his wife, Equihua, about a teenaged Mexican superhero. El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera received multiple awards and studios started approaching him to do a movie. "At that point studios were basically saying, hey, now that you have a TV show, would you be interested in making movies? was going to exist as just the web comic, I was going to execute it somehow," she says. The work paid off. When she first pitched Star to development executives at Disney, Nefcy went in with all the characters drawn out and lots of illustrations. Disney initially responded well to the style of the drawings and Star's character. But right before she went in to pitch it to Eric Coleman, SVP of Original Programming, Nefcy was asked if Star could be older, a teen, and if her imaginary magical powers could be real. She was thrown, but she went in to pitch it on the fly with these new elements. Her impression afterward was that it didn't make sense and that she'd blown her opportunity. She went away for a week, took all the notes and created basically the version you see on TV today. What was important for her was that she felt her character, Star Butterfly, had not changed in essence — she was still a very quirky, determined, confident teen. "It's important to try to use every note you get to make the show better," she says. "As long as it doesn't change the essence of it, or what's important to you, I think it's worth exploring." Nefcy believes that you need to be able to strike a balance between being flexible and able to make changes, but also to stand up for your ideas. She emphasizes that your vision has to be strong and you need to recognize when change can improve it, or when you feel it won't work. When pitching, she says, well-developed characters, who have an interesting rapport with each other, are essential. The task is to convey why anyone would want to watch these characters week after week, or as happens nowadays, for a whole binge-watching session. She feels pitches shouldn't be longer than five to 10 minutes to get your idea across. Nefcy prints out of her bible so she can flip through it during the pitch; she finds it's easier to remember what she wants to say if she has a drawing at hand. The pictures keep it fun and exciting and help others remember it too. She thinks it's helpful to have a short paragraph below each character explaining who they are, how they interact, as well as a few sentences describing the world of the show. And, she adds, try to look at pitching as a positive process — even if your idea is rejected, you've at least made a connection. "I think that if you're coming up with an idea just because you think you might sell it, it's probably not going to resonate with people," she says. "It has to come from your heart. It's kind of like a child in a way, I think you have to really love them." "My culture has always been this thing that I was warned would hurt me..." F E AT U R E 24 KEYFRAME