Big Lazy Robot on the making of iDiots

Which elements of Spanish culture do you find in the short?

We really wanted the short to be understood all around the world, that’s why we chose such universal icons as a toy robot and a mobile phone. Though as I’ve said before, the applications that show up have really existed in Spain, don’t know if this is the case in other countries.

Which autobiographical elements do you see? Do you use Smartphones? Would you buy one for your children?

Autobiographic and meta artistic, of course. We all have Smartphones, we all use them for things that have nothing to do with making a call, and we were the first ones we wanted to laugh about [with this film]. I would never buy one for my son! Not true at all. I’ll have to buy one when he is old enough to ask for it, and I’ll have to do so because he’d have seen me use it all the time, so I’ll have no way of refusing; it’s all part of the game: we need it badly because it’s absolutely unnecessary.

The short has touched a nerve at a global scale and has generated passionate reactions. How have you felt about all this feedback from people?

We are very surprised with how the short was received. There are many things that have drawn our attention. The video has received more visits in two weeks than Keloid (our master piece, which was released only a few months ago) since its launch, almost double the amount. One has taken almost two years to complete and being well cooked, the other barely 5-6 months. One features techniques that we didn’t know we were capable of, the other one started as a game, a joke.

Most of the people write to congratulate us, to ask for permission to post it on this or that publication, web, TV channel, etc. Though we have received some emails from people that haven’t taken the message too well, I have to say that the reception has been overwhelming.

Any interesting or funny anecdote from the production of the short that you’d like to share?

We have real life models of the robots in our office. I bought them on the net, they’re made of tin and we keep them on shelves as a souvenir and decoration. The grey robot really throws fumes through its mouth!

You clearly enjoy making films at BLR. Would you like to work on a feature length in the future? Do you have scripts ready for this (such as Keloid)?

Keloid is the biggest and best we’ve done so far at BLR as a studio. We wrote the story, we produced it, the effects, we shot the footage and edited it as a trailer. We obviously can’t make the effects for a whole feature film at this point, ours is a small studio and it’d take us years. We would like to work on films, though, it’d allow us to work in a bit more relaxed way, with time to think, and being constrained more by the limits of art and creativity than those of money and deadlines.

Keloid is being incorporated into a package in the US that has a director, a writer and us as creators and VFX studio. There’s isn’t anything solid yet, but we’d love to see it turned into a movie.

Many thanks to Juan José Palomo for answering our questions.

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iDiots short film & analysis

All images provided courtesy of Big Lazy Robot. (c)2013 Big Lazy Robot.