Rekindling La Flama

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La Flama (a.k.a. Luis Torres, who used to go by Flameboy) is a well-known motion designer and art director in Mexico City who’s worked all over North America. His new site shows off a broad range of skills, from beautifully strange illustrations to twisted, Dave McKean-ish motion works. Coitus Interruptus is a cool section (with a clever title) that showcases boards, treatments and animation tests for projects that never saw the light of day.

While we’re on the topic, can anyone explain to me why I get so few links to Mexican studios and freelancers? I’m not trying to stir up shit; I’m genuinely curious. Off the top of my head, two studios, Cluster and Rushes Mexico, spring to mind, but I haven’t come across many others. Any help/explanations would be appreciated.

With the growing cultural exchange between Mexico and Los Estados Unidos, I have a feeling we’ll start seeing more cross-market work that increasingly ignores political borders. In such a world, I’m wondering where the creative work will chiefly be carried out: here, there… or somewhere in between?

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.

8 Comments

Mario

Hi Justin

Thanx for sharing the awesome link. Regarding your question (as far as I know) there aren’t any motion graphics studio as we all know them. There are Post-Production studios, like the ones you mentioned. They are more focused on live-action and CG imagery and not that design driven.

Most of the times the companies when they need top-notch work, they contract studios abroad. (like the Chevrolet commercial posted a few days back at feed)

There is the market and the industry is starting but somehow it hasn’t exploded yet. (very unusual because Brazilian work is everywhere and amazing)

I found this link though, he’s a freelance motion designer from Mexico.

http://www.kultnation.com

Tom

Hi

I’m from Mexico and i work in an Animation Studio called Toro Animation, thought we might not be as big as the Studios from abroad, we are doing just fine in the local sector. Another great Animation and Post site is Ollin Studios, if you want to check here are the links.

http://www.torofilms.com/
http://www.ollin.com.mx/

thanks for the great work in your blog

luis

Hi Justin, first of all, thanks for posting my site here in Motionographer, really appreciated, regarding your question I can tell you that, as Mario said, there is no motion graphics studios in Mexico as there are in other parts of the world, that is changing and I hope to see more design driven studios coming from Mexico. Sadly, right know motion design in Mexico is consider as part of the post production process, rather than a discipline of it’s own, studios like Cluster and Rushes Mexico, are more dedicated to produce Visual Fx, CG Animation and Post Production, and hire designers as staff or freelance to solve their motion graphics needs but they are not design driven so motion design gets more into a commodity for their clients rather than the main objective of their studios, also I can tell you that there are a lot of graphic designers doing amazing work, but sometimes it is not intended for the mainstream, so they don’t get much attention as other studios doing work for a well known brand. In my experience working abroad and in Mexico, I can tell you that there is an exodus of graphic designers from Mexico to other parts of the world, that move from Mexico to find an opportunity to do work as Psyop, Lobo, Logan to name a few. Some times they are behind the lines, working in major studios but you don’t hear their names very often, that was my case when I was working at Spin Productions in Toronto and also the case of my friend Hector Herrera, who was creative director of the design department at Cuppa Coffee, and made amazing award winning work for them. Other case is Nacho Peon, a well known graphic designer, typographer and illustrator that is working right now in Toronto.

In all the years I have been working as freelance designer in motion graphics I’ve seen everything, actually I used to work at Rushes Mexico in the design department and also worked with Cluster for some projects [funny you actually mention those two], and for me it has been a struggle to take motion graphics to be recognized as a discipline of it’s own, but I can tell you that the perception is changing, right now there are a lot of amazing work been done here in Mexico, the design team at Once TV wins every year at the Bda’s, more clients are looking to solve their communication needs through motion graphics.

Here are some links of people I now that are working here in mexico and are doing amazing work:

http://www.mediamates.com
http://www.organika.tv

This to mention some other studios, besides the ones already mention above.

Esteban Madrazo

Hi. I want to say that is a very great news to see the Flama stuff in this website. He is a closer friend of mine. We worked together in many projects inside Mediamates. I’m the Creative & Design Director, and a Live Action Director too of Mediamates. We have made lots of projects of motiongraphics where our must is the Art and Graphic Desin inspiration and rules. We make Broadcast Design and Music Videos.

I’m writing now because i saw a mistake in the website adress. The correct one is: http://www.mediamates.tv.
Thanks.

Franco Barroeta

Hola! I’m also a mexican graphic and motion designer fresh out from school. I migrated to Toronto in search of more opportunities and I’m currentrly working at 4stroke as a designer and animator. Like Luis said, there are lots of mexican people working in the industry or getting ready to work, but because of the lack of market in Mexico, sometimes we have to migrate and integrate to studios abroad, which is a great experiece by the way.

Fernando Cabestany

Hi Justin ;)
I’m the Creative Director and Design Director of Cluster Studio, there is actually some talent here in Mexico talking about motion graphics, I would say I like Esteban Madrazo’s stuff as well as Toro’s. It’s a young industry here in Mexico but we’ve got good stuff.
Rushes is actually a big post production facility, here in Cluster we’re dedicated to motion graphics, 3D and VFX.

See you.

http://www.clusterstudio.com

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