Mexico's Pixelatl Festival unveils 2020 Exodo Animation Studio trailer (exclusive)

As in the past, the brief was to create a Pixelatl poster inspired trailer for the year. The manifesto of this edition, which can be read here, alludes to the cultural divisions, environmental degradation and ravages of capitalism and calls for unity. Below, Zamudio, a co-founder of Exodo, tells us how he and his team began to interpret this theme and how he sees the state of Mexican and Latin American animation…

Cartoon Brew: this year's slogan is “We are children of the same land”. How long did it take you to create a concept based on that theme? What was your process - did you try any other ideas?

Paco Zamudio: I worked on different concepts until I developed a version that I really liked; I thought it would be really interesting to work on an idea that could give us a glimpse into the hero's journey, as well as tell some of his story through the video.

I took inspiration from the ideology of yin and yang to merge our story with the concept of #MismaTierra (#SameLand). We discussed it with the Pixelatl team and agreed it worked well.

Have you been given other indications by Pixelatl or have you had complete creative freedom?

Yes, we had complete creative freedom, but since we have an excellent relationship with the Pixelatl team, we were in contact with them whenever we had questions about the overview behind the slogan.

Produce both 2D and 3D animations. Why did you choose to shoot this 3d movie?

Because 3d is our core business and where we feel more comfortable. In addition, this technique is the one that we considered could have the greatest visual impact, because we can go into the smallest details when creating resources and animations. Our 2d pipeline is small and we wanted to make an excellent film for Pixelatl, so we invested all our human resources in 3d to produce it.

How has the animation scene changed in Guadalajara and Mexico since you founded your studio in 2006?

It is a huge change. When we started, there was only one other 3d animation company in town. Guadalajara has a long tradition of animators, especially in stop motion; when we entered the market, cgi was new and not all manufacturers and marketing agencies knew how to approach this new technique.

Fast forward to date, and we have over 30 companies in the region. We have created an association for the animation industry and some companies, like us, work exclusively for international clients.