Bien Parecidas
Mariel Cortés wrote and directed “Bien Parecidas”, a short film based on personal experience where she tells a story about family relations and crossroads in life.
After having a successful campaign in Kickstarter, Mariel began putting together a team of allies that would help with production. It was then, after having worked closely for over 3 years in the marketing industry, she invited me to create the credit sequence for her short film. I was delighted and accepted immediately. I looked for Erika Flores’s help, my post-production battle buddy, asking her to be my partner in this project.
Fortunately, Erika joined me and we began working remotely in our spare time. Together with Mariel, we established our main goals: Mariel's visually stunning style was meant to stand out, and the movement of names had to somehow mirror the relationship between the mother and daughter, who are the main characters of the story. Lastly, I was amazed when I saw pictures of the shooting location, which is a house with large windows covered in striking wallpaper that I knew had to be included.
At first, representing the mother-daughter relationship was an immense challenge. It seemed too complex to make.
However, when I began sketching and playing with movement in After Effects I came up with some interesting ideas little by little. I prepared three different proposals based on the “mother-daughter” concept by making the position or department the ‘mother’ and the people’s names the daughter, which then move in opposite ways. At the beginning the daughter mirrors the mother while keeping its own style through the font. Lastly, both texts grow together in size.
All texts are on digital backgrounds that keep the textures of the location such as wallpapers and upholstery. There is also a slight frame movement such as that of a hand held camera and this makes the sequence more appealing. Erika had worked on the graphics and color for the credits and she contributed the most valuable piece of the project—she added some plant shadows which enhanced the project in a magnificent way. Only someone like her could make such a small detail become such an important one.