‘Olivia & the Clouds' Director Tomás Pichardo Espaillat on the Wild Collaborative Animation Process of His Annecy Player: ‘It Was Chaotic and Crazy'

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Through the thoughts and memories of its cast, Annecy __ player 'Olivia & the Clouds' leaps across multiple animation and live-action formats. This film — only the third animated feature produced in the Dominican Republic, according to its director Tomás Pichardo Espaillat — is made from paper, film, scratched animation cels, stop motion, 2D digital animation, rotoscoping, cut-outs and more.
The story itself is about a quartet of people — Olivia, Barbara, Mauricio and Ramón — all connected by past and present relationships with each other, the film's different methods representing the emotional distance between them.
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Director Pichardo comes from a background of live-action film, video and fine arts. 'Olivia & the Clouds,' both in its style and its story, draws upon that breadth of experience. Upon the film's screening at this year's festival, Variety spoke to the director about his mixed-media approach, the landscape of Dominican animation and learning to animate on the job.
What sparked the idea for 'Olivia & the Clouds'? Was it always intended to be animated across different mediums?
As for the story, it was a few short films that never happened, where, with time, I realized, 'Oh, these characters connect with one another,' and then I started creating a path between them.
It was a long process from the idea to the end of production — about 10 years. Most of it happened because, coming from the Dominican Republic, we have a very small animation industry and small animation community, and during the first years, it was even smaller. You could count the number of professional animators on one or two hands. So there were not a lot of opportunities to get projects like this done. But as time progressed, there were more opportunities.
In terms of the different styles and techniques, we quickly realized at the beginning that most of the animators that we had didn't have the same background or the same education in animation.
We understood that that wouldn't work for us to make a feature that was just one method. What we tried to bring was each animator working in their own style, and it fit really well with the points of view of the characters.
In terms of the idea and how the project came to be, I came from making short films. Most of those short films were a way for me to learn a new technique, as we didn't have an animation school at that time.
I also did freelance for TED-Ed. They have this segment on YouTube where they put a lot of animations, and I was taking each project as a way to learn one specific technique, something new. I took advantage of that in the sense of using it as my school. So if they gave me creative freedom, I'd think, 'I wanna do something as a cutout animation.' Or I'd do one in stop motion. So I was learning in that sense, too.
How did you figure out where to place these different animation styles within that story?
I was always taking all my short films and, even if they were very different, I tried to put them together as an edit for myself. So I was playing a lot with remixing my own work. But it's also because most of the people working on the film were former students of mine. I knew them well — how they work. So for some animators I gave them the script with a full animatic and everything and said, 'this is what you're going to be animating.'
And with others, they would be dealing with more abstract animation or playing around with feelings, and I would just give them a word or one expression. One sequence, the bachata sequence at the bar, was made by six animators, and all of them were working apart from each other. So I was giving them different ideas and asking them not to see what the others were doing. Then I received all this material; it was chaotic and crazy.
Speaking of material, one fascinating thing was the different textures you were using, like the cutouts that looked like they were made from invoices.
Cardboard is something that I've been using quite a lot — not in my films, but I come from fine arts, so I did a lot of pieces made out of cardboard, sculptures and all that. As for the invoices, that's because some of the elements of the story are from my past or the people around me.
And when I was building Ramón as a character — my father is an engineer by trade — he was always making sketches on invoices, on any kind of paper he could get, making all these doodles. So I figured, 'what if I take all these invoices and all these elements and all these letters and everything and make them into this person?' So I was taking all these different textures, seeing what they could bring to the story or maybe remind me of something from the past.
You mentioned how much the Dominican animation scene had changed, even during your time working on the film. What about the industry was reflected in the production of the film?
We had many challenges and so many things happening. For example, being in the Dominican Republic, we are very influenced by American culture and the films and animation they produce.
So the concept of animation here is traditional Disney animation and Pixar, 3D animation. Making things outside of that is very rare, and sometimes they don't understand it when you try to explain it to them. For example, when I was trying to get funds for 'Olivia & the Clouds,' for the sequence shot on Super 8 that had animation elements on top of it, we had to ask permission to record at this specific street in this area. They were like, 'Isn't this an animation? What are you doing?'
We also had the head of the film commission change during the project. The new one is half-Dominican, half-Russian, so she grew up watching a lot of different Soviet animation. She understood quite well that animation has all these ways of being made. And she incorporated a lot of programs and funding into the film industry, and that helped quite a lot, everything growing and evolving at the same time.
With that concept, when we released the film, we made an exhibition at the contemporary museum in the country. What we did was deconstruct the entire film, and we did an exhibition for an entire month. It was that whole idea of new people being able to understand how to make animation, but also all these different processes.
Do you think these mixed techniques are a mode you'd want to work in again, or do you imagine you'll focus more on one?
It depends. In my short films, I do like to play with different techniques, but I sometimes try to understand what the concept needs from the animation. 'Olivia' had that idea of different points of view of the same memory, so it worked for me to have varying styles.
And now I'm writing a new project in collaboration with one of the animators from 'Olivia.' She's the one who did all the clay animation, like the sequence of the couple kissing and the scene turning abstract. The story that we're working on has a lot more natural and more 'crafty' elements: more charcoal, pastel colors, textiles, more hand-drawn, as that's what the story is asking for. I think mixing media will never leave me, because it has been in my entire filmography and short films as well, but it changes depending on the story and what it means.
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