NERD Director Lucas Borras on His Passions, Inspirations and Loves

Lucas Borrás is an international award-winning director, artfully blending live action and animation in his mixed-media approach to storytelling.

Lucas has worked throughout Europe and the US with clients like Honda, Amex, Trident or Erno Lazslo among others. His work has been shown around the globe at festivals such as SXSW, Ottawa Animation Film Festival and St Kilda and has appeared in the New Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston.

Here, NERD Productions chats to the director about his background, his wide variety of styles and his recent signing.

Q> You’ve got quite an eclectic background! Please tell us more about you and how you originally got into animation and design?

Lucas Borrás> I started my career studying graphic design and art history between Madrid and New York so this is where the design element comes from, but I’ve always been really interested in typography, illustration, architecture and design. I followed designers such as David Carson, Neville Brody, Pentagram and The Designers Republic as well as some big typography houses which shaped a part of what was interesting to me at an early stage.

Cinema, animation and music videos have been another big inspiration. I was very connected to MTV and inspired by all the '90s/'00s directors like Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham etc…however the animation I viewed when I was younger was predominantly Japanese.

So my background is an eclectic mix of a lot of things. 

Q> Your style demonstrates a wide variety of techniques and styles. Is mixing it up important to you? Is there one area you prefer working in?

LB> I think I would say that I don’t approach a project in one single direction when I initially start it. The project drives itself to where it needs to go unless of course there is a commercial that an agency wants to do in a specific way. 

I have always been interested in experimenting, investigating, discovering and playing with new techniques and different ways of working. That has driven me to experiment across many mediums. 

I would say right now my portfolio is shifting towards live action and stop motion probably because that is where my main interest lies.

Q> The recent American Express campaign is beautifully art directed. Stopframe is considered a real art form which not many can accomplish well. Can you describe the process for those ‘not well versed’ in stopframe animation?

LB> I feel stop motion is a special art form. But there are many approaches to it. 

It is based on creating animation by taking photos one after the other and moving the objects each time you take a photo manually. It is a slow and tedious process that I love but it is now significantly easier thanks to digital photography and computers.

I would say my interest is mostly geared towards creating worlds with real size objects and people, for example.

It is that tactile and real environment that is particularly appealing to me. You can touch what you are creating and you animate one step at a time. So the art direction plays a very important role in all of this .

I like to submerge myself on every job in the initial pre-production part, designing and choosing elements for each of the scenes.

If I am honest, a big help comes as my wife has an exquisite taste and works as a visual art director with me on most of my jobs.

Q> You’ve recently signed with NERD Productions. What excites you about the future with Nerd? 

LB> I had a really great connection with Milana. I felt she understood my work and the direction I wanted to take which is crucial to me.

The team has a strong background in the UK market on which my work is pretty new. So I feel I’m in the right place. 

I’m really excited about what we can do in the near future together.

Q> What kind of personal development projects do you have in the pipeline. You are always crafting! What’s next? 

LB> Lately I have been working on some short films, some are in early development and some are more advanced in production.

I like to keep experimenting as much as possible. Generating ideas and discovering new things. I do also have a passion for digital tools and software that keeps me busy since every day something new comes out.

At the same time I try to create music which is a big side passion I have.

And my biggest personal project right now is to see my year and a half daughter grow up. Kids are an infinite learning machine and teach you so much since they are fuelled with love.