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Your new movie Shimmer - in a few words, what's it abou?
Shimmer is a film about a man far too obsessed with his work to be a good
dad and a daughter too proud to admit she’s out of her depth when it comes
to striking out on her own. It’s about two characters with too much hubris
and too little grace for one another entrenched in a struggle that will
tear them apart. It’s about repentance and understanding that come too
late to fix what’s been steadily eroded by neglect.
What were your sources of nispiration when writing
Shimmer,
and was any of it based on personal experiences?
I was going through the breakup of a 10 year relationship. She wanted
children, I didn’t, and that’s not the kinda thing where a compromise can
be achieved. So, I was not in the best of headspaces when I started to
kick around the idea of writing a script that revolved around the father I
feared becoming if forced into the role. Ricardo was written not as an
evil man, just a selfish one that put his work before his children until
it was too late to get them back.
Shimmer started out as a way to explore, and eventually expunge, a lot of
my apprehensions around the idea of fatherhood as a man that was once
vehemently against it. But then, as we started working on it, life flipped
the script on me: my own father started slipping in and out of dementia,
eventually requiring not only full time care but also a lengthy and
painful legal process to determine who could be his guardian. It was an
excruciating time in my life, where my family and I had to make difficult
choices that I often regret when I look back upon them.
Dementia is not a linear, binary process. Some mornings he would seem to
be back to his capable old self and by the afternoon he could not even
remember my name. I did what I thought was right, and the fact that he’s
still alive and healthy has given me some comfort, but making choices on
his behalf on the presumption that I knew better than he did is something
that I struggled with for a long time.
If my fears about the kind of father I’d become shaped the character of
Ricardo, my guilt about my own failures as a son gave life to Lucía, the
daughter character who also thinks she knows better than her own father
and is willing to risk it all to prove it. So the whole short became for
me an exorcism regarding stuff I needed to work through regarding parent
and child relationships.
I believe it was a resounding success in that regard: two months after the
first screening for team members I found out my significant other was
pregnant. My son Tiago was born in February this year and I couldn’t be
happier to be his dad.
You've wrtten Shimmer together with Santiago Maza - so what can you tell
us about him, and what was your collaboration like? Maza and I were friends long before we ever started working on the script
and had the best of times writing it. I wrote a first draft of the first
half of the short in about a weekend, and sent it to him for revision,
only to get back a complete rewrite a couple of weeks later. We spent
about a year of back and forth revisions that changed almost everything
without any friction. We might
have had a couple of mild disagreements on the way but on the whole we
were always welcoming of one another’s ideas and criticisms.
What I noticed about Shimmer - there's no backstory or
explanations for many things that are going on - so was that always your
intention, or did you have a backstory on paper or at least in your mind
that you then discarded?
I love this question. We did a much bigger outline that answered some
lingering questions that are never addressed, like how did the characters
end up stranded on the beach, or how the father started working on the
lighthouse, or what happened to the kid’s mother, but on the whole we
wanted to plunge as soon as possible into the conflict between father and
daughter and felt that the short film format did not leave a lot of room
for exposition of anything that wasn’t essential to their struggle.
You were also responsible for Shimmer's production design - so what can you tell us about
your film's overall look and feel and your inspirations for the film's
aesthetics? The biggest inspiration was Jeunet and Caro’s The City of Lost Children. I
remember watching that film as a teenager and it left a big mark on me. It
was my favorite film for a long time.
Shimmer owes a lot to it. I wanted a
setting that felt strange and dreamy without sacrificing a sense of
solidity to it; an atmosphere that could feel darker in tone without
veering into scary territory; and sci-fi elements clunky enough to feel
relevant but not advanced enough to make it feel high tech in any way.
The other really big sources of inspiration were American artist Lee
Bontecou, with her fantastic ability to turn industrial refuse into
delicate artworks; and Polish painter Zdizslaw Beksiński, who created
haunting landscapes that could be both seductive and hellish at the same
time. Do talk about your directorial approach
to your story at hand!
To me the great joy of working in animation is how deeply collaborative it
all is. I was blessed with the opportunity to work with gifted artists in
the making of
Shimmer and I tried my best to let them make it their own
whenever possible. I see my role as defining for myself a narrative
intention - why this story feels important and meaningful to me - and then
once I’ve conveyed that to the team getting out of the way, intervening
only when things start to run in a way that undermines that original
intent. What can you tell us about
Shimmers voice cast, and why exactly these people?
Poncho Borbolla, who gave voice to Ricardo, has been my best friend for
over two decades, and a frequent reference for all the stuff I’ve
animated. He’s a gifted actor that is better known for comedy, but has a
knack for making characters that can start showing cracks under pressure.
Also, he loves playing villains. I wanted the audience to hate Ricardo’s
guts in the first half, and then to at least be able to grant him some
mercy as he unravels in the second part, so casting Poncho was a no
brainer for me. I was delighted to find out he brought along Maria
Penella, who was a joy to work with and who could reach for a voice much
younger than her own and portray it with the wounded pride that Lucia’s
character needed. The $64-question of course, where can
Shimmer be seen?
At the moment it can be seen on
Gizmodo’s io9 platform, and come December
8th it will also be available on Short of the Week!
Anything you can tell us
about audience and critical reception of Shimmer?
It’s been amazing so far to see so many people connect to the material
from a similar place to the one it was created from. From internet
comments such as “this hits me right in my daddy issues” to incredibly
thoughtful articles that got everything we were trying to convey and then
some, the reception we’ve gotten has been tremendously rewarding for all
of us as the project’s creators.
Winning the Ariel, Mexico’s equivalent to the Oscars, also marks a high
point in my career and a confirmation for all the team that worked on
Shimmer that the project we spent so many years working on was a worthy
investment of our time and effort.
Lastly, listening to Jorge Gutierrez debate whether the ending is a
hopeful or mournful one has been for me the biggest compliment I could
have hoped for from a colleague I respect and admire.
As far as I know, Shimmer was your directorial debut - so
why did you choose exactly this story and do it as an animated short, and could
you be persuaded to ever try your hands on animatiion again? And any other
future projects you'd like to share?
I’d say the story chose me! Or rather this was the story I couldn’t see
myself not attempting to tell as soon as I started on it, and it was
conceived from the get-go to be an animated one. I’ve been lucky enough to
work in several live action features, but if I’m in the director seat I
can’t imagine a different medium than animation, with its boundless
possibilities both as a visual medium and as a storytelling one.
As for future projects, I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment. We’re in
early development for a fully animated feature film to be directed by
Arturo Hernández called Los Balcones set in present day Guanajuato, and
we’ve also got about twenty or so animated shorts coming out from the
studio and the school in the next three years or so in a wide variety of styles, genres and subject matters.
I’m working as a producer on all those projects, but I’m also tinkering
with a sculpture project centering on my personal experience with grief
after the loss of several people close to me who
died between 2015 and 2021, and spending an inordinate amount of time
mulling on a feature animation project that I would love to adapt from a
comic book I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since reading it a
month ago.
What got you into the filmworld to begin with, and did you receive any formal training
on the subject? I was originally trained as a traditional artist, focusing on painting,
sculpture and engraving, but I’ve always loved film and most of my career
has been spent working in film in one way or another. I did get quite a bit of training as an animator after finishing art
school. The craft of animation is so complex that I don’t think I could
have made even some headway without good mentors along the way.
What can you tell us about your
filmwork prior to Shimmer?
I did a lot of work as a VFX artist and production management roles for
both live action and feature animation. It was definitely good preparation
for taking on
Shimmer, where I had to change hats on a daily basis between
director and producer. How would you
describe yourself as a director? Cinema transcends entertainment, even when it is meant only to entertain.
It can resonate and connect on an emotional level as no other art form,
and gives shape to so much of how we see ourselves. As a director I’m
interested in stories from my own life that can give me a greater sense of
how my heart and my mind work, and hopefully better tools to understand
the hearts and minds of others. Filmmakers
who inspire you?
Oh man, that particular list is huge. Off the top of my head, I’d say
Hirokazu Kore-Eda, Wong Kar Wai, Kaouther Ben Hania, Michael Haneke, Bela
Tarr, Lynne Ramsay, Guillermo Del Toro, Thomas Vinterberg and David Lynch
top my live action list. On the animation side I’m a huge fan of Adam Elliot, Chris Sanders, Brad
Bird, René Laloux, Andrew Stanton, Tomm Moore, Phil Lord, Chris Miller and
obviously Hayao Miyazaki. Your favourite movies?
This is going to be an eclectic list. Kore-Eda’s Monster,
Amour, In the Mood for Love, Four Daughters, The Hunt,
Pan’s Labyrinth, Mary And Max,
Fantastic Planet, The Wild Robot,
The Iron Giant, The Secret of Kells, Chicken For Linda,
Spirited Away, Ratatouille,
Silence of the Lambs
and Mulholland Drive.
... and of course, films you really deplore?
You know, getting a film made, any film made, is such a miracle, that it’s
hard to truly deplore any of them once you’ve taken a stab at making one
of your own! Your/your movie's website, social media, whatever else?
https://www.shimmershort.com/
My website, which has a lot more drawings than films, is
https://andrespalma.com/
My Instagram is @andres.palma.c
Thanks for the interview!
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