The Don's Diary: Behind the Scenes of Jose Cuervo

Released yesterday, Albion's latest campaign for Jose Cuervo, 'Who's In', is an absolute slammer - delving into the brutal, romantic and heroic backstories of three real-life Dons of Tequila through a trilogy of contrasting animations. BlinkInk's Elliot Dear helmed The Battle for Tequila and The Margarita while new signing Stephen McNally created some magic with The Alchemist. 

Watch the fascinating 'Making Of' film above, while below the directors talk us through the myriad influences and techniques used to create their 'mini film festival'. 

What were your initial reactions on receiving the scripts?

Elliott Dear: I was excited when we got the brief because Albion had said they wanted the campaign to have the feel of a film festival - lots of different techniques and aesthetics. It seemed a perfect project for Blinkink to take on as it's what we love doing and the scripts were a perfect playground for experimenting with styles. 

Stephen McNally: When I first read the script I loved the texture of it, the sense of atmosphere in these still moments, and how cinematic it felt. 

Did you immediately know how you wanted to approach the films?

ED: I knew how each film needed to feel right away; Margarita was intimate and moody and really focused on characters, so I searched around for a style that would suit the story tonally. I went through my scrapbook and eventually got on a research spiral that lead to Frank Miller and film noir/ neo noir. Battle had to be epic: it was less about characters and more about the town of Tequila as a whole, working together to defend their home. I wanted to make the town itself the hero of the story and a great backdrop for the events to unfold on. I looked at Albert Bierstatd's landscape paintings from the mid 1800s as well as old western movies.

SM: While reading the script for The Alchemist I could picture every moment quite vividly, feel the dust in the air and the light and shadows at play, so at once I knew how I wanted it to look and to feel, so then it was a process of exploring how best to achieve that.

You visited the real town of Tequila, Mexico in the name of research...

ED: It was a great trip and really allowed us to bring authenticity and accuracy to the films. I photographed and filmed just about everything - from the wide vistas to cracks in the walls. I felt that I needed to be thorough so that I could get things right and do the place justice. I even made sure the floor tiles of the bar in Margarita were correct.

The Battle for Tequila showcases your signature mixed-media approach; can you shed some light on the process?

ED: I'm always striving to find invisible techniques. I wanted to find a look that felt dreamlike, like a memory. Since the real details of the events that happened are a bit cloudy and often embellished I wanted to find a visual language that suited that. I was also being pragmatic: there's very little architecture remaining from 1873 in the town of Tequila, so there's no way of filming battle scenes there, and with the budget we had it was impossible for us to film an actual battle scene, so it made sense to re-use the same actors - sometimes the same guy appears twice within each shot, but you (hopefully) can't tell. 

Margarita has a very different feel – what made you opt for a 2D/CG approach?

ED: In traditional 2D animation there's usually a bespoke image for each background, which takes a long time to produce. I figured that with the aesthetic I was using we'd be able to use a CG set and move a camera around in it to find the shot. It also came with the benefit of subtle 3D camera moves and accurate shadows that matched the graphic nature of the characters. I think it works because it was used with restraint. It's tempting to go wild with CG because you can. I wanted to keep it within a visual language that we're used to seeing with 2D hand drawn animation.

And what about The Alchemist?

SM: The animation process was a combination of 2D and 3D CG animation techniques, evoking a dramatically led character and environment, but where all the lighting is drawn by hand and layered meticulously onto the 3D models. We actually made several versions of the Don's model to work optimally depending on whether he was front on or in profile. Much of the lighting in several shots was drawn frame by frame into the CG.

How long did it take to make the spots and what was the most challenging aspect?

ED: The Battle shoot took four days on the model builds and a day to shoot the live action. We only had five weeks to build all the miniature sets and the result was fantastic. Margarita ran alongside this timeframe. The challenge was not having a favourite film and leaving the other one out in the rain. I wanted to make both of them to a high standard and divide the time evenly. Juggling two stories and aesthetics at the same time can take its toll.

SM: The biggest challenge of The Alchemist and the most rewarding part at the same time, was creating the character of Don Francisco, realising him in such a way that he was an expressive, animated, stylised and distinct character, but still reflective and true to the spirit of the real Don Francisco Hajnal Alfaro. We used extensive reference material of the real Don, but were keen to avoid dry photorealism, looking for something more painterly and expressive. We went through quite an iterative process to get to the final incarnation.