Claw Machine Film Spotlight

Today’s film spotlight focuses on the short film Claw Machine directed by Marcos Becerro Barrera.

What is the title of your film and what inspired said title?

The title of the short film is Claw Machine. We used this name because it’s the most important object of the short film and the trigger of the story.

Tell us a little bit about the story and origins of your film.

Claw Machine tells the story of two brothers who are about to live the most incredible (and traumatic) experience of their lives just for trying to get… a simple plushy?

It’s an animated short film developed by a group of students of UTAD university. Marcos Becerro Barrera, the director, created the main idea, but the story evolved greatly when we built a strong and passionate team.

Any films or filmmakers that inspired this film?

We think that our short film was highly inspired by old Cartoon Network or Adult Swim shows, with SpongeBob Squarepants type of visual comedy from Nickelodeon.

Zatch Bell was an anime that inspired the brother relation of the protagonists in claw machine, and in some way the voice dubbing tradition here in Spain inspired the voice acting of our short film.

What is the goal of the film for you?

Telling a short and funny story, which makes the people connect with the characters and have a great time. Also, we tried to make the short film visually fresh and stunning as we could.

What has the journey been like getting the film into production?

As the short film director, I would say that the first obstacle and the most satisfactory to deal is the development of the story and making the storyboard and animatic work in the preproduction stage.

But as a team, I think the most complex stage was making the animation, because all the teammates had a different animation style, and we were all students, so it was difficult to follow one animation style when there is only one person who wants to be a professional animator. But the animation’s result was interesting.

And Claw Machine have some secrets that we aren’t going to feature in public, you’ll have to wait to watch it by yourself, the only thing that we can say is that “Claw Machine” is a mixed technique short film, we used 2D and 3D in some shots, but there is some crazy stuff that we are not going to reveal :D.

One thing you learned from this project?

We all learned that making a short film or even a small piece with quality requires a lot of work. Communication it’s the key to develop a team project, and especially in an animated project that requires years of making and there are also new obstacles that can affect the production.

How can folks find you and your film online?

They can find us on our Instagram called @clawmachine_shortfilm! In this account, we posted an individual post for each member of the short film crew, but also, we post more stuff like the trailer and preproduction drawings.

The short film will go to different festivals for the next two years. We hope you’ll be able to watch it soon online, but it’s recommendable to follow us on Instagram so you can find the specific way to watch it! In the future, we will also make it public, but at festivals is the only way to watch it at the moment.

Also, we have an email, feel free to contact us at clawmachineteam@gmail.com

Any last pieces of advice for fellow filmmakers?

As we said, communication is the key in teamwork. Also, it’s important to stay true to the project that you are making, keeping the ideas that make the film beautiful and real in some kind of way.

Also, remembering which were the projects that you love and make you create new stuff.

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