Table of Contents
Managing people is the most beautiful skill and at the same time the greatest challenge of a producer. They have to possess many other skills.
Today post about the interview with Víctor López – a veteran animation producer for Ánima Kitchent, Vodka Capital, Secuoyas and 737 Shaker. He’s currently Managing Director at Zinkia Entertainment. His name and fame is associated with Pocoyo, Cleo y Cuquín, Piny Instituto de Nueva York, Jelly Jamm and Shuriken School. He is also a professor at U-tad University. We provides you the interview details below.
Q1. How did you start the job of an animation producer?
The truth is that it was born from a slightly naive vision of the world: we wanted to turn our hobbies, cinema, television and video games into our way of life, to work on what we liked, we thought (and we continue to believe it at all), it could only result in pretty things. Also, and not least, we wanted to do it while having fun along the way. The truth is that I think we are succeeding. And the beginning of everything is in Zinkia , with David and Colman López Cantolla, who founded the company after leaving Teknoland where we work.
Q2. What exactly does animation producer do?
Well, look, a producer is for a creative a guy without talent, for the production team someone who never brings enough money, for a financier who gets into trouble with the banks and never sells what he promises, and for a shareholder, the begging friar who offers eternal salvation but that if, for when you have died.
And instead, a producer sees himself, as a guy who brings the most valuable creativity because he is attached to reality and not to daydreams of medium hair buns. The one that makes fortunes that the production guys squander on erratic and poorly managed processes. The one that sits at the table executives of large corporations to whom it “places” its contents and convinces the banks of its unique and privileged vision of entertainment, generating a value, close to infinity, to the partners of the companies.
I don’t know if it answers that to your question, but it gives you a clue of the presence it should have in the entire process of creation, production, sale and management of a work and, if possible, harmonizing profiles and managing talent. Perhaps the best producer is the one who is precisely capable of getting the most out of talent .
Q3. What qualities do you think an animation producer has to have?
I studied Law, so I don’t know if I am the best one to determine which profiles are the right ones. The entertainment industry welcomes very diverse profiles. I have worked with people who came from Fine Arts, with engineers, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, opponents of diplomats and boys who had not finished high school but had a talent for drawing , animating or selling.
Our industry is eminently vocational , those of us who are in it adore our profession. So perhaps the best of the qualities is wanting to be, wanting to work here, loving cinema, television, video games, animation and this industry will welcome your abilities in one role or another.
Q4. 3 things you have to do to work as an animation producer in the animation industry?
The first study, see a lot of content, understand what works and try to discover why it works, even what we personally do not like.
Know the different processes that make up a production, their profiles, the technical and human resources. Go to international fairs and markets , get to know the industry, companies and key people (businesses are closed with people, not companies), the financing and exploitation models. Curiosity is another of the virtues of a producer.
Q5. What is the most special or proud project you have ever worked on as an animation producer?
That is like asking a parent which child they love the most. All have given me and some have taken from me, but I love them just the same. Pocoyo opened the doors of the industry for us. Shuriken School , taught us what a co-production was.
Jelly Jamm , that music is very important and even more so to hit the target audience you are targeting. Bugsted , the fun of the most “adult” content. Pirate and Captain experience the meaning of Kwai. Cleo and Cuquín from the Telerín Family, the transformation of a classic, the strength of a concept. PINY (Pinypon) the power of the soap opera, that is, of having plots that ran through entire seasons in the face of the dictatorship of self-conclusive episodes. And now Yanko & Nina and Bumpy arrive and … more that they won’t let me count. As you can see, it is very difficult to choose one. There are thousands of minutes produced in these 20 years.
Who says solving problems is not a very creative process? Resolutive, enthusiastic, proactive, a good communicator, organized, adaptive,… Animation producer ought to know well the profile of each one and try to motivate them until the end of the production and exploit their strongest points.
–
Animost – Vietnam 3D Animation Studio
hello@animost.com
–
Consolidated by Animost in collaboration with Branding Simple
Reference Sources:
- Animation World Network: https://www.awn.com/
- Cartoon Brew – Technology: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/tech
- Befores & Afters – Visual effects and animation journalist: https://beforesandafters.com/
- Bloomberg News: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
- Insider: https://www.insider.com/
- Crehana Blog: 3D animation
- Notodoanimacion: Animation production