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La Noria is an animated short film directed by filmmaker/animator Carlos Baena and produced as an online collaboration with artists from around the world.
Carlos was born and raised in Spain. He moved to the US in 1994 and has been living and working there ever since. La Noria is a very personal story for him and is very different than most animated films that he's worked on. It combines suspense, horror, and emotion. It's about a little boy who likes to draw and build toy ferris wheels who after a devastating loss encounters some creatures who turn his life upside down. Having found himself in a dark and difficult emotional situation at one point in his life, Carlos always wanted to tell a story based on the dark and emotional journey in a very visual way.
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We wanted to do horror in animation. However, given the dark nature of the story as well as the psychological backstory of the main character, La Noria has a quality that is very different from most animated films. Creatively, we wanted to create a horror film that creates tension through horror rather than making people jump. La Noria has been inspired by the work of great spanish filmmakers such as Victor Erice, Alejandro Almenabar, Guillermo del Toro and Juan Antonio Bayona. Being from Spain and given the quality of their films, Carlos looked up to their work often. Other filmmakers looked at for inspiration were Tomas Alfredson, Kim Jee-Woon, Ray Harryhausen, Stanley Kubrick and Roman Polanski. Art wise, we studied the work of artists Clive Barker, Zdzislaw Beksinski, Nirasawa Yasushi, H.R.Giger and Francisco de Goya to name a few.
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We found that when pitching the film to the artists we wanted to collaborate with, that universally everyone could relate to a story of struggle and finding ourselves in a dark place at some point or another in some personal way. We have all had that moment in our lives when everything went wrong. It's in those moments when all you see are broken pieces around you, your courage has the ability to turn something dark into something unexpectedly beautiful. That is the essence of La Noria.
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La Noria is bringing a new vision to animated films by exploring darker themes, elegant visuals and producing it using online production technology.
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"Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength."
August Wilson
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Carlos Baena is a filmmaker/animator. He’s worked at studios such as Industrial Light & Magic, Paramount Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios, on films such as Jurassic Park III, Star Wars: Episode II, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, Wall-E and Toy Story 3. For his work in the film Cars, Carlos received a 2007 Annie Award nomination for Best Character Animation. Carlos is also a co-founder of Animation Mentor, the Online Animation School.
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Sasha Korellis is an animation and VFX producer. She has been producing commercials and films for over 25 years. Some of her past projects include the iconic Hershey's Kisses campaign, Brisk Stories featuring Eminem, Ozzy Osbourne and Danny Trejo plus VFX on numerous films. Sasha partnered with Carlos Baena in 2011 to start NightWheel Pictures.
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Johan Söderqvist is a Swedish composer who has written music to more than 60 films and television series, including Let the Right One In, Oscar winning In a Better World and Oscar nominated Kon-Tiki. Most recently he has written the music for the third season of the hit television series The Bridge. He has earned many international awards and nominations for his music.
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Oriol Tarragó is a movie sound designer. He has been the sound designer for over 30 movies, includingThe Orphanage, Enemy, Devil’s Backbone, The Impossible and Crimson Peak. He has won the Barcelona Film Award, Gaudí Award, Goya Award, and Golden Reel Award.
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Tale Twins Studio consists of artists Carlos Zaragoza and Aurora Jimenez. Carlos has worked in live action and animation. He designed the worlds of movies like Pan’s Labyrinth, Madagascar 3 and Mr. Peabody & Sherman and is currently Production Designer at Sony Animation. Aurora Jimenez is a visual storyteller in feature animation and games. You can see her latest works at Hotel Transylvania 2, and the upcoming Get Smurfy, at Sony Pictures Animation.
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Ramón López Seco de Herrera is an environmental modeler at Blue Sky Studios, he has worked in Rio and Rio2, Ice Age 4 and 5, Epic and Peanuts. He worked at Ilion Animation Studios in Spain for the film Planet 51 and has participated in several short films. He has been in the industry for the last 20 years modeling but also drawing, shading and lighting. He's very enthusiastic about everything.
As the IndieGogo Campaign continues, we'll be adding more of the key crew and artists who have done incredible work. Many of these artists have worked at studios such as Pixar, Disney, Paramount, Dreamworks, Sony and BlueSky.
We have also been fortunate to have the backing of key software and tool developers who have supported our film and our vision, such as Artella, Autodesk and Solid Angle to name a few.
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For anyone that adds an additional $5 or more to their contribution we are offering a beautiful piece of FAN ART by artist/animator Alex Alvarez as a digital movie poster. We will send this to you before the campaign is completed on Sunday.
We were so excited to see that other artists were getting inspired by La Noria and adding their own interpretations to it. Check out Alex's portfolio to see more of his work.
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It was important for us to offer our backers original, authentic artwork that is from or inspired by the story of La Noria. We want to honor the artist and the important contribution that they make to the process of filmmaking. None of our perks are mass-produced and are pieces we ourselves would like to own. We hope you do as well.
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$5 You will receive 2 digital buttons for you to post on Facebook and Instagram to show that you have supported La Noria. We will also add your name to the Thank You page on the official website.
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$15 You will receive the previous perk plus a Digital Download of La Noria as soon as it is completed and a selection of 4 exclusive desktop and smartphone wallpapers.
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$25 You will receive the previous perks plus an official Movie Poster PDF and Exclusive access to our blog so you can see our process and get sneak peaks of work in progress.
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$35 You will receive the previous perks plus the Art of La Noria ebook that compiles the very best of our early sketches and artwork all the way through to the final renders.
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$50 You will receive the previous perks plus an opportunity to join us in one of our online production dailies with Carlos and the crew.
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$75 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus the official La Noria Crew T-Shirt with the front graphic by La Noria's main character designer Dei Gaztelumendi and back graphic logo by Artist Alex Pardee.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 10"x 24" signed print by illustrator and story artist Pascal Campion. This was one of the first inspirational concept artwork pieces when La Noria began pre-production and it's a very special one for us. Each piece will be numbered.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 12"x 30" Limited Edition signed print by artist/illustrator and character designer Dave Correia. Dave has been a contributing artist to our film from the very beginning. Each piece will be numbered and only 50 will be available.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 12"x 30" Limited Edition signed print by Art Director and Visual Development artist Helen Chen. Each piece will be numbered and only 50 will be available.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 12"x 30" Limited Edition signed print by character designer and concept artist
Michael Kutsche. Each piece will be numbered and only 50 will be available.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 12"x 30" Limited Edition signed print by animation studio Headless Productions. Each piece will be numbered and only 50 will be available.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 12"x 30" Limited Edition signed print by La Noria Production Designer and Concept Artist, Eve Skylar. Eve was the first artist to join our crew in 2011. We owe her a great deal for how much she's helped us over the years and are grateful to have her on our film. Each piece will be numbered and only 50 will be available.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 10"x 24" Limited Edition signed print by La Noria's main Character Designer, Dei Gaztelumendi. Each piece will be numbered and only 50 will be available.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 10"x 24" Limited Edition signed print by Swiss director, writer, and visual designer
Amos Sussigan. Each piece will be numbered and only 50 will be available.
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$100 You will receive the previous perks up to $35 plus a 12"x 30"
Black & White Limited Edition Digital print by Jon Wayshak. Each piece will be signed, numbered, and only 24 will be available.
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$250 You will receive the previous perks up to $75 plus you will be invited to join a Live Online Talk by animator/filmmaker Carlos Baena. He will talking about physicality, acting and performance though animation. There will also be time for Q&A and group discussions.
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$300 You will receive the previous perks up to $50 plus a Limited Edition sculpture of the Boy created by Invictus Designs. The height of the sculpture including the base is approximately 6 inches
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$500 You will receive the previous perks up to $50 plus a Limited Edition Deluxe stunning sculpture of the Boy and one of the key creatures in the film created by Invictus Designs. The height of the sculpture including the base is approximately 12 inches.
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$2500 You will receive the previous perks up to $75 plus an Executive Producer Credit on the final film, attendance to Crew Dailies with Carlos & Crew, Special Autographed Movie Poster and a Limited Edition special Print signed by Carlos Baena.
SHIPPING & HANDLING: All physical perks will have an additional shipping and handling fee added based on region. For original artwork pieces and sculptures a special handling fee will be added for secure packing and insurance.
Over the past 3 years, we have relied on our personal savings and the donation of time and materials by all the artists involved. The entire crew has contributed their time and talent every day to keep pushing this film through. We all have a personal stake in La Noria and making something different in our industry and that is what keeps us all going. Animated films take a tremendous amount of resources and at this point in our production we need additional support to get us to the finish line.
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The funds that we are raising will mainly go to key full time artists to get us from Animation through Lighting and Final Compositing. We will also need funds for completing music/sound and mix. Both the music and the sound are key characters in this film and we want to make sure we put money aside for this.
Last but not least, each frame needs to be rendered. Given that we are using a global illumination renderer with layers and h-ires images with a lot of details, we are needing render farm power to be able to process all this data.
Production support is also very valuable when a film is nearing completion. These are our production managers, coordinators and assistants. They are key in keeping everything organized and on schedule.
Our crew has collectively joined the film because they wanted to see and work on something different. Our hope after La Noria is to continue making the films we believe in.
Every dollar will be used exclusively for finishing the film. No matter what, we are committed to finishing this film as it's very important for us. We are ready to share La Noria with our audience.
