Trailer: Alike

The Alike team has just released their trailer and it's beautiful. Not only that, but in only fifty seconds is sets the expectations for a wonderfully interesting story. I had a quick chat with Daniel Lara Martinez from Pepe School Land today about the project.

As you may know, Pepe School Land is a Barcelona-based animation school. Students take nine months to complete their training and work with both Blender and Maya. For most assignments they can choose their favorite software (and Daniel's passion for Blender works in the favor of Blender), but for some they are required to use Maya as it's still an industry standard for animators. Take a look at their Vimeo channel to get a sense of the quality of the students' work.

But, back to Alike! Daniel told me this project has taken over four years(!) to complete. Daniel and co-director Rafiki Cano worked on it with 16 ex-students. The first year was entirely spent on developing the story. After that, the team collaborated in the studio in Barcelona for another three years. The entire production has been done in Blender.

For now, Alike is playing on international film festivals: it has already won its first prizes at the Mundos Digitales festival and it will continue to travel around the world for about a year. In fact, Daniel will come to Blendiberia in Spain and to the Blender Conference in Amsterdam to talk about his work and show the movie.

Once all the festivals are over, Alike will be released on the internet. Until then, enjoy the trailer and visit their website for more information!