Josep Calle Buendia, The Devil’s Nephew and a Fairy Tale!

Josep Calle Buendía produced and directed the MUY low-budget yet MUY creative music video for the song “Fairy Tale”. The song was composed and sung by El Sobrino del Diablo, which in English means “The Devil’s Nephew” :-) Josep submitted the music video to the ROFFEKE festhome.com page, together with the following synopsis: “The song deals with the world economic and values crisis, especially in Spain, and how it is affecting children.”

I was so impressed and blown away by the music video that I just had to interview Josep! He was gracious enough to answer my questions.

ROFFEKE: Gracias por su película maravillosa! I loved it! I would really like to know how you did it, the process of making it. How long did it take you? How much did it cost?

JOSEP CALLE BUENDIA: Thank you for your words. I did it with an animation process called "stop motion". It's like a cartoon, but I took photos instead of making drawings. I took 12 pictures per second.

ROFFEKE: How long did it take you? How much did it cost you?

JOSEP: The making was long, about 2 months. It costs less than 100 euros (the cost of some material, photocopies and prints). You can find the videoclip on Youtube too.



ROFFEKE: What was the most challenging part of making the video?

JOSEP: The most challenging part was the animation process. It is difficult to move the objects the right millimetres at the right time!

ROFFEKE: Milimetres. Wow! Why did you particularly use the stop motion technique to make the video? Was it your first time to use this technique or have you done other similar projects?

JOSEP: I am animator and the stop motion technique is my favourite. The musician also loves this technique. He gave me total freedom to adapt his song into images. I have done more animation shorts films. You can check my webpage

ROFFEKE: Were you the one who approached the musician or was it the musician who approached you? In other words, how did you guys find out about each other's work?

JOSEP: I approached the musician because I am a fan of his music. He was very kind and our collaboration was a success. He made other video clips in the past, but this was the first with the stop motion techniques, and it was very exciting. The song is so visual that it was easy for me to imagine the stories for each verse.

ROFFEKE: If someone wants to get into stop motion animation, what words of advice would you give them? What tools would they need? What qualities, apart from the obvious one - PATIENCE - would they need?

JOSEP: The tools I use for modeling are clay sculpting tools. I capture every movement with a DSLR camera connected to a laptop through a stop motion software.The main word of advice for anyone to get into stop motion is determination. It's very common to have unfinished projects because of the hard work required, especially in the beginnings... With patience and determination you can do anything.