'Eva', Goya for excellence in the Best Special Effects

Arturo Balseiro and Lluís Castells beat Raúl Romanillos and David Heras ('Intruders'), Reyes Abades and Eduardo Díaz ('The skin I live in') and Raúl Romanillos and Chema Remacha ('There will be no peace for the wicked').

Arturo Balseiro and Lluís Castells have won the 2012 Goya Award for Best Special Effects for their work on the science fiction film Eva, beating Raúl Romanillos and David Heras (Intruders), Reyes Abades and Eduardo Díaz (The skin I live in) and Raúl Romanillos and Chema Remacha (There will be no peace for the wicked).

The film marked the directorial debut of Kike Maíllo (with extensive experience in advertising and video clips), and features as protagonists Daniel Brühl, Marta Etura, Alberto Amman, Lluís Homar and the introduction of the girl Claudia Vega as Eva.

Eva is the first robot film produced in Spain, and arises from the Ópera Prima project of ESCAC/Escándalo Films, the production company of the Film School of Catalonia, from which names such as J.A. Bayonne (The Orphanage) and movies like Three days with family. The film has a very high-level technical team trained at the ESCAC, among which Elena Ruiz, Lluis Castells and Oriol Tarragó stand out.

This 4.5 million euro production has been a true international success, sold to almost everyone in the world, including the United States, where the Weinsteins have acquired the rights for its film release. After collecting the award, Arturo Balseiro and Lluís Castells recognized Panorama Audiovisual, not without some sadness, that Eva, more than 'Made in Spain', has more of a Hollywood production halo. “A lot of work was done on the packaging, the production design of the film, the entire visual section, both photography, costumes and effects, trying to give a more classic appearance of a large production while still being a Spanish production, which shows that if you want, you can make this type of product and people respond.”

According to the special effects technicians of this film, among the most complicated aspects of the film stands out the automaton cat, "which was very difficult to manipulate, because there is no one inside - logically - and there had to be several people to manipulate it to make it move in a way similar to a real animal, something that was difficult. Likewise, in the case of the robot suit we had to make a suit that was as small as possible, that would fit on a person without hurting them, and that would be easy to carry in the body. filming.”

"The good thing about Eva is that both the physical effects during filming and the digital ones were handled very well and the result is quite decent and interesting. At the effects level there are more than 700 shots, which represents a record for shots treated digitally, and we are not just talking about color treatments, but also other elements such as screens or some robots, something that simulated that science fiction world to give a feeling of credibility. But if at the level of shots there were about 700, at the level of special effects they were more than 1,000. The most elaborate effect was the one we created together with Reyes Abades, who built a several-meter scaffold where Marta Etura is hanging and falls in the film. There were several montage variations that made us repeat that shot countless times,” added Balseiro and Castells.

The fact that it is not very common for there to be so much visual effects and digital effects in a Spanish film means that in our country there is not, as is the case in Great Britain, the USA or Canada, a single company capable of absorbing all this work, so to tackle the development of the effects of Eva, a total of 6 companies came together, each of which was destined to be in charge of a specific section.

Fassman was in charge of maintaining the look of all the companies, ensuring that all the effects remained the same in terms of style and finish, as well as the development of scenes such as the fall or the robot girl's back; Entrophy from Zaragoza took care of the ball system with which Daniel Brühl interacts; Infinia was in charge of integrating all the futuristic screens; Mixing Motion integrated all the motion graphics that appear on these screens; Dvein handled the opening credits; and Cubica designed the robot cat. "We all agreed and there was no problem. The fact that it was a debut film meant that Kike Maillo was supervising the visual effects all the time. He had very clear ideas and that simplified everything a lot," they concluded.