Recently you guys had the opportunity to ask some questions to Fede Alvarez, a filmmaker from Uruguay who is soon making is feature film debut after having a short film of his become a viral hit (a career of making commercials). Many of you did, and like last time, we were also supposed to submit only 10 but couldn’t really turn you down! So here we go for some answers:

Fergus: Are you self taught? If so where does one start?

100% self taught in everything related to computers and animation. But I went to the Communications university in Uruguay, that its like a film school but more theoretical than practical…

JoaoNeto: What commercial did you enjoyed the most doing, and why? And also (you prolly can’t anwser) would you prefer your upcoming movie with Sam Raimi to be spoken in spanish or english? Some times, the ones I enjoyed the most, are the ones with no SFX on them! ;) Because its always great to do something different to usual for a change…

The project its gonna be spoken in both languages.

Chris Lee: I’d like to know a little more about the giant robot vid that launched your career… what was your motivation? Inspiration? Who did you work with? How long did it take?

We where inspired by dutch short “Tyrants from Afar”. It took me and Mauro Rondan, about 6 months of 8hours a day work. But that time wasn’t a continuous plan. We start in 2006, we abandoned the project during 2007, and almost restarted from scratch in 2008. We got the final version by november last year… We couldn’t have done it the way we did back in 2006, the software wasn’t there yet. New and updated stuff like FumeFx and RayFire made it possible.

Nath: What are some of your influences?

90ties fanzines, Spielberg, Terry Gilliam, early David Fincher stuff, Anime and StarWars.

Nath: What kind of things were you into as a child, like did any of your hobbies then effect what you do now?

Since Im 7, and I got my first camera, my hobbie is to shoot stuff. I did stop motion short movies with my playmobils, and starwars shorts with my action figures collection. That probably had a huge impact on what I do…

Nath: When did you realize you wanted to get into this type of industry?

6 months ago maybe….. Before that, I use to fantasize with the idea but it wasn’t something that I was aiming to, or having plans to get in… If you live in Uruguay, you consider getting in to hollywood industry as much as you consider joining the nasa…. Its seems like its not gonna happened tomorrow…

Nath: How did you get started in the industry? Did you just get discovered or did you have internships, preexisting jobs, etc.

Not at all. It was friday, I posted the short video on youtube the day before, I was thinking about selling my car… And, out of nowhere, Hollywood start calling… That was pretty much it. Less than two weeks after that, I was signing a 30 million dollar contract here in hollywood. Amen…

[ed. note: the following is a video Youtube launched a few days ago to celebrate its 5th year anniversary and to show lifes that were changed by it, and explains in further detail the previous answer]

Nath: What other skills do you have that others may not know about? For example do you paint or play an instrument.

I studied 13 years of classic piano. That was meant to be my career until I turned 19 and my piano teacher kicked me out of the class… Now I’m learning some jazz too. I also fly an RC plane. FPV mode, where you put a small camera inside the plane, so you fly whatching a screen in your laptop… Kickass hobbie let me tell you. (rangevideo and hobbyking its all you need to build your own) 

William Rockwell: How did your video get 6 million views? Did you promote it, or did it just go “naturally viral?” What is your favorite method for promoting a video, and getting it seen?

I started by sending it to motionographer.net, and they posted it. It went naturally viral from there, Of course the deal news helped a lot. But the video got 200.000 views in the first 5 days anyway. Major factor, half of the views are posts in Facebook…

Ricardo: If you were stranted on a desert island and could only have 3 films with you, which would they be… in the following categories:

* a sci-fi movie: Back To the Future 2

* a Sam Raimi movie: Spiderman 2

* a spanish language movie: Muertos de Risa (Alex de la Iglesia)

Gary Cutter: Do you think its better to have broad skills when starting out, a kind of jack of all trades, that way keeping everything fresh new and exciting and a larger potential client list, or do you think its more imprortant to specialise in one area as soon as possible and create a distincive style that you become known for?

What worked for me at least, was starting like a Jack of all trades (trades related to music, video, graphic design, animation) and then eventually, specialise in one area, so people can understend what you are.

Gary Cutter: Do you still activly seek work and promote youself with webfolios and social networks or do you find that the work now finds you?

I was trying to “promote” my short videos and music videos before starting working in this movie, sure.

Gary Cutter: Through the experience you have gained and the huge sucess you have had, if you could offer one single piece of advice to somebody new trying to get noticed in the industry what would it be?

Come up with a unique idea, or do a short movie that you think its unique… I mean, thats whats hollywood its seeking now all the time…

Ricardo: Given you background in being hands-on with animation, and guessing in the feature yo won’t be doing much of that, will it be hard for you not to do so?

Great question… It is hard yes, I really enjoy doing sfx and stuff… But well, I dont know, I think that if I have the time, I can always do some stuff in my spare time… I hope I’ll keep doing it.

–

Great answers! So there you have it for one more Pro Interview series! We’d like to thank Fede for his time off his busy schedule for answering these questions, and of course wish him the best of luck with his feature film and future projects. Thanks also for all the creatives who submitted questions.