“It is the blackest night in the suburbs and everything is quiet, except for a strange presence that lurks in the dark. Something in the Garden is an animated short film about curiosity and danger, in which a bored teenager trespasses into his neighbor’s backyard to confront a strange shape shifting creature.” Director Marcos Sánchez on SOMETHING IN THE GARDEN which screens at SxSW 2022.
Welcome to SxSW and congratulations! Is this your first SxSW experience?
Yes it is and I am really excited for it. I find it great that the film is in a festival that includes no only film but so many other artistic and cultural expressions. Animated short films tend to be screened a lot within animation festivals for a niche audience of animation fans, I love the diversity of people that will get to see the short at SXSW. Also, I am excited to get to discover new films, art and music myself.
How did you first hear about SxSW and wishing to send your project into the festival?
I have known it for years but I have been paying special attention to it in the last five years or so, since I have been making a lot of music videos. I submitted many them with no luck, so I am happy I finally made it to it with SOMETHING IN THE GARDEN.
Tell me about the idea behind your project and getting it made!
It all started with the animation technique, really. I am a painter and visual artist and was making this animated projections where I would draw figures with black backgrounds to be projected on the walls. When projected, the black background would disappear and the figures would appear “floating” on the walls. Watching this videos on a screen made me realize that the black background created this mysterious dark negative space that I loved, so I decided to draw a story that had this space as a protagonist. The story is about watching, discovering or seeing things in the dark, which led me naturally to a horror story.
I animated it and painted the whole short myself while doing other jobs and projects, so getting the film made took a lot of time. The process was very slow at the beginning and some of the first sequences were animated four years ago, but the process sped up with lockdown in 2020, where I picked it up and decided to finish it. It was an interesting process, with the story being vague and open, a lot of it had to do with creating a mood. I wanted a specific mood that was scary but beautiful and somehow peaceful at the sea time. To reach that mood I added visual elements and shots even after having put the film together. The carefully crafted sound design by Luis Pérez and John Dieterich’s amazing score contributed enormously to achieve that mood too.
Who are some of your creative inspirations? Any particular filmmaking talent or movie that inspired you for this project?
I didn’t think on any specific movie while making it, but it is impossible for me not to recognize certain influences after seeing it finished. Animé in general informed the style of animation a lot. I love the care and attention to detail of animated movies by Satoshi Kon, Miyazaki or even classic Disney. I have always loved Noir and Horror movies from the 30’s or 40’s with it’s dramatic use of light and shadow. Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter and it’s use of graphic shadows and silhouettes is always inspiring to me. Finally there is the horror genre, which I have been a fan since I was a kid, specially 80’s horror and it’s obsession with gooey creatures.
How did you put this together from a technical viewpoint? What sort of cameras/lenses did you use and/or did you have any creative challenges in making it?
The animation is made using several techniques, though they all finally look the same. I started drawing with ink on paper and scanning but finished (years later) drawing digitally on a tablet. I painted the frames digitally using several animation softwares. I used a very traditional style of animation, actually.
What would you suggest to film festivals as a way to show more short films or make them more accessible to audiences across the country?
I am not sure I have a recommendation or recipe. I do think short films have the ability to be strange and undefinable, which I like a lot. They touch a subject matter but are forced to leave it open because there is no time to develop it properly, and I mean this in a good way. They open your eyes to a reality but leave you to develop it or think about it afterwards and find no real answers. That makes it for a really fun watch, I think, specially if you group shorts by subject matter, like some festivals do.
If you had one piece of advice to offer someone to get their start as a creator or filmmaker in the industry, what would you suggest?
Having been working on this for a while, I’d say being patient. Then insist in making things the way like and enjoy.
And finally, what is your favourite short film of all time?
There’s no one favorite. Some that have stayed with me are Raul Ruiz’s DIALOGUE OF DOGS, Maya Deren’s MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, Alexander Payne’s 14ME ARRONDISSEMENT and Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit short THE WRONG TROUSERS.
This film and many others like it will be showing at South By Southwest taking place March 11-20. For more information point your browser to www.sxsw.com!