COMICS
NADINE PROMES GARCÍA
STORY ARTIST
Making of AL Otro Lado
Rolls: Director, Writer, Storyboard Artist, Designer, Co-Producer
Al Otro Lado translates to 'At the Other Side' in Spanish. This five-minute-long short done in only ten weeks was inspired by real events in my life. Like many children around the world, my parents fought a lot. I would shelter my siblings in my room and put loud music to drown of my parents' discussions. One day however I took my little brother to the safety of a closet and told him a story to further distract him from reality. Although in the real event, the story had nothing to do with the situation, I took the initiative to make Al Otro Lado's fantastical story a parallel to the reality the characters are living.
My goal with this short is to inspire children and adults alike to be their own best friend and try and find their inner-strength by telling oneself "I'll be fine, everything will be fine," in moments of difficulty, whether you are alone or in company. Parallel to that, this short tries to embrace Venezuelan culture with its locations and original score created by composer Leslie Pozo who focused on cultural sounds from my natal city; Maracaibo, Venezuela.
Finding the Look... quick!
Background by: Jacqueline Haboon / Animation by: Sally Luo
Making a five-minute short in only ten weeks is an intense amount of work, especially having in mind that 24 drawings make one second in smooth animation, meaning if I wanted the whole short to be animated smoothly I would have to produce around 7,200 drawings to create that smooth illusion. Instead, I opted for making the story-world like an 'animated comic' with a different enough style so that it would not throw the viewer off.
Along with my amazing crew, we were able to pull it off! Here are some of the awesome pre-production work done for the short.
Character Designs
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By: Nadine Promes
When two styles come together!
Finding the right style for the short was a challenge. I'm personally more comfortable with story so when Claire and Eesha gave their artistic sensibilities to the project things started flowing like never before! Their styles were totally different which ended up working perfectly for the short as the explorer story goes from very happily graphic and fantastical to dark and realistic as it approached closer to harsh reality. The communication between both art directors was an honest one, which was key to the success that was the backgrounds of the short.
Below are some of Eesha's backgrounds and some of the extensive color studies and guides done by Claire.
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By: Claire Belyea
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By: Claire Belyea
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By: Claire Belyea
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By: Claire Belyea
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 PASS_03_A_Page_1 |  Color_Pass_5_Page_7 |  Color_Pass_5_Page_6 |
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By: Claire Belyea
 Angel Falls |  Sinamaica |  Los Cayos |
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 Merida's Cable CarLongest cable car in the world. |  La barca |  Sky |
 Maracaibo Lake |  Screen Shot 2018-07-01 at 12.41.43 PM |  Screen Shot 2018-07-01 at 12.42.04 PM |
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 Cave |  shot_31 |  Celestial Fight |
By: Eesha Chavan
The Tri-Color Concept
The Venezuelan Flag sometimes is referred to as 'La Bandera Tri-Color' or the Tri-Colored Flag. While trying to find a simple style to beat the huge limitation that was the time and budget for this project, I tried this graphic style where I limited the palette to only having Black, White and the main colors of the Venezuelan Flag; Yellow, Blue and Red. I really enjoyed the simplicity of it, however it ended up being distracted when Claire Belyea brought her amazing work in.
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By: Nadine Promes
Early Concepts
Settings & Characters
 MedanosBy: Nadine Promes |  Cave ConceptBy: Eesha Chavan |  AOL_CurrentColorScriptSome concept art done by Casey Pardue before Claire and Eesha came on board. |
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 AOL_abstract |  story_2_1 |  Screen Shot 2018-07-01 at 2.32.39 PM |
 AOL_Niñito_SM |  AOL_Niña2 |  AOL_Niña |
 parentsParent / Celestial - Parallel |  Tri-color Concept 1By: Nadine Promes |  Tri-color Concept 2By: Nadine Promes |
 Tri-color Concept 3By: Nadine Promes |  Post CardBy: Nadine Promes |  Concept 1By: Nadine Promes |
 Concept 2By: Nadine Promes |  style_1_2 |
Inspirations
The short was inspired by Venezuelan artists and locations alike. Throughout the short the explorer travels all around Venezuelan iconic locations such as Angel Falls (the tallest waterfall in the world), the Medanos sand dunes (a UNESCO site), and many more.
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Production
In order to keep everything organized I created a Google Drive account where all artists would insert their work. Likewise I created an online sheet which contained every shot, their asset and sound requirements and their level of difficulty and assignation. Likewise, I also created another document with extensive director's notes on the animation subtleties to prevent the animators from getting confused with continuity and acting. We strictly followed these two documents throughout the whole production and were able to finish in time!
The Endless Storyboard Passes
Aside from finding the look, another huge challenge was finalizing the storyboards. Personally the storyboarding process is the most important to me as a director because it is then when you find out if the message will come across or not. I had great story mentors in Sony Pictures Animation, two of which I consulted regularly; Marcos Mateu-Mestre and Mark Sperber. The angles in my shots are all straight to the point and the short as a whole is successful, I surely learned a lot! However both Marcos and Mark were so good and invested in helping that three weeks before the deadline I was still getting notes from previous story edits! But I later learned that in productions that's totally normal. Ha!
After twelve storyboarding passes of my five-minute short, it was green-lit! Finally
Animatic - Pass 12
Pass 1
Pass 4
Warm-up Skit
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On my flight to LA right before the program started I coincidentally read Marcos' book; "Framed Ink," a book famed in the industry amongst storyboard and comic artists. I would later find out the author of such an amazing book would be one of my mentors!
Having that in mind, it's no surprise that Marcos gives you notes he goes all out!
The Script
