The Making of Chico and Rita

In 2007, Javier Mariscal gave Fernando Trueba a sketchbook full of drawing from his trip to Cuba in 2000. The sketches were of interior and architectural drawings of various areas in Cuba. This was used to gather inspiration for what would become Chico and Rita.

When Fernando Trueba was told that he would be working with Cuban actors for his animation, which surprised Trueba especially with this being his first animated film. It kept the film under control and allowed the animators to have a specific way of portraying a character as when just animating alone could give multiple interpretations.

The director had worked with Cuban people in a previous course which allowed him to see the quality of their acting. Also, it would be more authentic to have Cuban people acting as the characters who are as well Cuban. Most of the film was recorded on set (indoors) except when they need to film part that included things like exterior shots of vehicles or anything that didn’t fit on set.

200 animators worked on the film altogether, including Javier Mariscal. It was a challenge to make it seem that only one (Javier Mariscal) out of the 200 animators was actually animating. It was important for Javier Mariscal to work on the film as it followed by his art.

Havana and New York were described as “the star of the film” because it was “one of the nice things about making the film”. Fernando Trueba took notes of Havana with observational drawings when visiting Havana and Cuba himself. Which was then given to Javier Mariscal to use for the animation. The colour chosen in the animation allows you to distinguish the two cities (Havana and New York) due to the different weathers and climate. It also gave you an insight into the culture and economic differences between the two cities.

Chico and Rita try to tell another story of all the Cuban musicians in that era that Chico and Rita were based in. That being the 1940s-50s when Cuban music such as bebop and Cuban Jazz rose to popularity in the U.S. Fernando Trueba felt that using the original music would make the film into more of a “compilation disc” of music. However, recreating the music would be a lot more fun for the production and gave the film a “unique edge”.

In the making of Chico and Rita, they used a technique called Rotoscoping.

Rotoscoping is a technique of animation where animators trace over photos in order to create a realistic animation of a movement. This technique was first and famously used by Eadweard Muybridge for his animation which was used in a zoopraxiscope projector to create the illusion of movement. Nowadays the technique is aided by various programs for digital animators.

Javier Mariscal is a Spanish artist who did interior design, landscaping and painting. He use to study design in Barcelona which is he lives and works today. Originally became famous during the 70s and 80s for designing a logo for “Bar Cel Ona” but further to become well known for the creation of the duplex stool and even designing the mascot Cobi for the 1992 summer Olympics in Barcelona.

Javier Mariscal was also co-director of Chico and Rita which he was given the Award of the Hungarian National Student Jury.