Windlanders Studio: A New Hot Spot in the Canaries

If you’re looking for a top-notch, full-service 2D/3D studio offering production productions around the world, you should keep Studio Windlanders in mind. The Canary Islands-based studio offers access to professionals in Europe.

“ videogame production studio which not only produces its own works, but offers full service and coproduction to production companies around the world who want to get access to the Canary Islands - bate of up to 40%, which is considered the best in Europe.” He adds, “Our studio is a one-of-a-kind company, established in several islands. We rely on one of the and distributors which allow us access to software licenses and equipment (workstations, tablets, mo-cap technology). I should also point out that in the Canary Islands, the VAT is 0% for audio-visual productions, equipment and licenses.

Founded in 2018, Windlanders Studio - duction requires, be it 2D, 3D, stop-motion, etc. “We update our team on a regular basis,” notes Hernandez. “We can also acquire the working space, any required equipment and software licenses. We do that through our production c o m p a n y, which acts as a legal representative of the incoming foreign pro- duction in the islands, to manage the ac On the other hand, if a foreign production we can act as co-producers as well”

Windlanders also produces its own properties as franchises for cinema, TV and 12 months, the studio has tapped ten professionals who specialize in their specialized artistic modules, who will train the Islands-based students through Windlanders Art School.

One of the studio’s upcoming production is a children’s series called Proyecto Amigo (Friend Project). “The show’s concept received the highest rating from the Canarian Govern assistance for AV productions in 2017,” says Hernandez. “Several international public broadcast companies have shown interest, and we hope to launch it in 2020. It is a transmedia franchise which includes a mobile game and AR apps to interact with. The story centers on a young girl and her invisible friend, who travel together to imaginary and real worlds and help other children, while teaching moral and social values. The show has a big educational component as the characters help children around the world with their local issues. our invisible friends and interact with them and the TV series.” For more info, visit windlanders-studio.com

The digital animation sector in Ecuador may be young, but its - tially in the past three years. Animated projects of Ecuador have won major international festivals like Animago, Mundos Digitales, Siggraph Asia and have successfully been part of markets around the world.

The strength on the region´s animation sector comes from a decade of hard work from the private industry and the strengthening of the academy. Ecuador has one of the oldest animation programs in South America that awards Bachelor degree on animation.

- dustry in Ecuador has mostly worked on providing services for the advertising industry, - ry on world-class projects under international standards. Animation studios in Ecuador are providing services for Latin America, United States and Europe.

A new generation of - perienced studios and producers, to make the move into the content industry, create co-producing opportunities to strengthen its rising industry. “The stories told by our creators don’t just focus in their cultural roots, they also offer modern and global perspectives based on their own personalities and styles, which would be ideal for international broadcasters and distributors” says Ecuador.

This increase in output from the country’s producers and creators has caught the attention of international animation markets and festivals such as this month in Annecy Festival, where animation from Ecuador isn’t new.

Booby” by Gino Baldeon (produced by MATTE CG) was screened out of competition. In 2017, Daniel Jácome from Alicia Studio was selected for the MIFA Pitches of Animation du Monde with his project “Chakay, Master Line” by Fabian Guamani was selected for the Perspectives category.

Because of this accomplishments Mifa - Annecy commissioned to the producer Paul Vaca from Alterego a selection of Andean countries projects for Animation du Monde 2018. The event was named “Andean Call” and took place in QuitoEcuador the second week of January gathering artists and producers from Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador. They participated on chats and workshops with Mifa delegates to take their projects were submitted for selection and 2 won accreditations to be in this year Mifa event.

This year Ecuador comeback to Annecy with several awarded projects and a nour directed by Luis Uson and Andres Aguilar, produced by MATTE CG has 10 international - in the festival and the only Latin-American team will also be represented by producer Juan Fernando Terán at the Mifa with the very human life of old cartoons.

The Smoking Mirror directed by Eduardo Villacís and produced by Arturo Yépez com- bines astonishing artwork with a very strong premise, how would the world be now if instead of Europe colonizing America, the Aztecas colonized project comes as part of the Mifa´s Andean Call selection.

Daniel Jácome repeats his presence at Annecy with his transmedia panel “FLOW: People for the Water”. A public-private project to raise water consumption awareness with a hooking apps, games, and series.

Other Ecuadorian projects on the market include: “Kelaku, the jaguar woman” Rodríguez; “The Crakoshan” series project directed by Paul Morales and Esteban Erazo, and “Will and his little monster,” series project directed by Karla Chiriboga and the Ecuadorian-Bolivian series project “UGAMU”, directed by the Fabian Guamani, winner of the Andean Call, will be pitched in Aimation du Monde section of Mifa pitches.

This year, Ecuador attends Annecy’s MIFA creators and producers whose objective is to seek co-production deals for their projects in development, offer their services to studios and broadcasters, and continue to consolidate their international presence as a country that offers business opportunities with young creators and world-class quality work.

Accompanying the delegation are professors from the COCOA – USFQ (Communications and Contemporary Art College), the university with the oldest animation school in the country and a representative of the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Creation of Ecuador (ICCA) with the purpose of striking agreements with universities, funds and audiovisual institutions to put Ecuador in the map of world animation. paul.vaca@alterego.ec, juanfer@matte.cg, daniel@aliciastudio.com, eduardo.villacis@gmail.com

tion and Family Entertainment. “We are thrilled to have visionary directors such as Alessandro Carloni, Vicky Jenson and Nathan Greno leading the creative teams on our upcoming movies.”

M That is, working on a creative team that

tor of such a team and want to climb even higher, utilizing this one strategy may be all it

look much further. However, shifting your mindset toward that of a business owner vs. more smoothly.

forms marketing and advertising on a consistent basis. Treat the rest of your ents. Use advertising and marketing techniques to reach out to each and you have to offer and how you can

There is almost always a discon quarters in one city and there are sev have a clear idea or even cursory understand ing of what you and your team have to offer or how to get it. Hence the need for marketing and advertising.

tations to your fellow staff as if you were try ing to land new clients. Make it as interesting of your services, but excited to request them. not mean it has to be dull.

Chances are they would not become a client. On the other hand, if you wow them with a forms them of what you have to offer, but how business, the more requests you have for your services, the more work you will receive, the more valuable you will become to your com to swallow wasting hundreds or thousands of

Create a menu of services and send it to ev to and trying to stay in touch with new and existing clients.

Make this menu as accommodat wards to request your services. Re questing your services should be as easy as ordering food from a menu at your favorite restaurant. Alongside a should include how many hours it erage turnaround time looks like.

Even if you are not directly involved ing your mindset from that of a team leader to a business owner, thinking of it business, and treating your fellow for you and your team, contribute more to the bottom line of will more than likely fast track your next Uncle Scrooge treats everything as a business.

cents so you start becoming more aware of to identify how much your menu of services to deliver each service.

The more you focus on your work effort

“For all our attractions, we work closely

though technology researchers are looking at versal for this article didn’t reveal any details regarding those growth areas at this time.)

should be something the audience cannot get whether they’re based on a theatrical fran chise or TV shows. In the case of “Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway,” which features two of Disney’s signature characters, Carter

“This is a unique story and all of the anima vision Animation to bring the characters to world made famous in the Mickey Mouse shorts. Characters like Mickey Mouse, Minnie they do on screen, thanks to the artists and screen and ride along on the adventure. There are some amazing visual effects and transfor eyes, all through the magic of animation — and a little of our own Disney magic.”

The same was true for Universal when the team set out to bring the Minions into their but they also add something for viewers who’ve seen the movies.

“We worked closely with Illumination En tertainment on everything from the storyline of the attraction, to the details in the queue, to these amazing stories and characters to life. In many cases, they have already seen the

Though neither Universal nor Disney would designs, it’s clear they have to work with the

animation we use when designing an attrac will be at a higher resolution,” says Carter. “We also have to think about how our guests will our dimensional environments.”

At Disney, the creative team sometimes work with animators and visual effects artists from

the character animation for ‘Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway.’ We’ve also worked with Walt Disney Animation Studios to bring characters like Aladdin, Ariel and Moana to other offerings original animators like Glen Keane and Mark

careful to honor the style and feeling of the tions. And there’s one sure way to make sure

larity, storytelling and characters featured in the creators.”

elements. How do you shoot in a city downtown in the daytime? You could stage it all on a blue that. David’s mindset and my strong belief was

David Scheunemann was clever about coming it on weekends,” he say. Fortunately, the natu ral elements were agreeable. “We were in credibly lucky for Vancouver, which is famous for rain and weather variability. That sequence ultimately came together well.”

Glass. “There were only a few situations where we needed to override that.”

the human torch,” says Glass. “I wanted to do something that felt different and somehow grounded in reality. What if what he’s really ble? We did some tests early on with these

as Colossus relatively late in the game, and so

This time around, the metallic mutant was constructed using actual geometry for his differently as their angles changed, but also “We built a helmet with a series of these met height and the metal was treated, aged and be cautious, because in reality the effect would dominate the image.”

Angeles for the battle between Colossus and a taken with the blood and gore. “That’s one more like a comic book.”

rus shots, and also did a sequence featuring of Us looked after some fully CG environment shots and environment extensions, while El Ranchito did some work on Lockwood’s manor.

Animatronics were also utilized extensively. grate animatronics and CG. If we didn’t have a and for our actors to run away from.”

Audiences will actually be able to see some ic because the scale wouldn’t allow for the hanced to get the intimacy and sensitivity of a

The sequel introduces a new hybrid called nosaur to be able to get down on all fours and could also go incredibly slowly and get ex tremely low.”

The design for the new creature needed to found that it couldn’t run elegantly because shorten the front arms slightly because the mode was created that looks amazing on an tersection of gums and teeth required careful convincing.”

Vickery and his team unarchived all of ILM’s models, textures and backgrounds built for Jurassic World designer Andy Nicholson. “He worked with his art directors to create this destroyed vision of holes in the ceiling so that he could get his around in order to avoid greenscreens as much in visual effects. It makes for a lot of roto.”

The team aimed to create as much of the but it gave us this wonderful interactive light the windward coast of Oahu). ILM enhanced the huge volcano behind us. We had to intro be in. It would have been no good afterwards to be in Hawaii with blue skies and in full, hard sunlight.”

The close collaboration between visual and ect. “It was something that Neal said was ab solutely unique to him,” remarks Vickery. “We to be the one that remained on the screen. It and animatronics to make sure that they both do what they do best?”

A lot of assets and shots were shared among going backwards and forwards between all of the vendors. ILM London as the hub of the tency of look and movement.” Vickery adds, “J.A. Bayona has nothing but the utmost re Jurassic Park and