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FRANKELDA AND HER GHOSTS 1. (Part 2)

Seeing how more and more english-speaking audience is apparently watched Frankelda now, I feel like it's a good moment to post the translation transcript I did of the first live event with the Ambriz brothers, 'Frankelda y sus Fantasmas'. Posting on parts for easy reading because it's over 20 pages long. These are basically Q&A of making-of aspects of the series, going from concepting and design to even edition and post-production, going through Voice-acting and even trivia. They do sometimes comment some lore, but are restricted in how much they can talk about it as it would apparently spoil upcoming things. Latter episodes have some guests, including Mireya Mendoza herself (Frankelda's VA both in english and spanish) Kevin Smithers, who composed the score and songs in the series and even the edition team in the most recent one! (It honestly gives me life to see how much Cinema Fantasma values the whole team.)

It's fair to warn you that it's probably better to have watched the entire first season before checking it out, as it contains commentary on things that might spoil you if you haven't. It's also worth noting that this one was recorded on November the 26th in 2021, back when we had no word of the film being made or the new dub and USA release. Some additional notes:

-El Coco and the Boogeyman are both used for the same character in this one because it's how they do it in the dub. -Something happens in there that I cannot describe with the screencaps alone and the transcript would feel naked without, so description is provided. It's magical, you'll see.

Arturo Ambriz: Good, let’s move to this question which is also really nice- well, we already replied to Val Guerrera’s question, which is: ‘Are you thinking about publishing a book for the show?’. Well, that one’s already settled. Let’s do… let’s move to the next one, which is: ‘Is there one puppet per character and a lot of changes, for instance, mouth, eyes, etc.? Or are there multiples and a lot of changes?’

Roy Ambriz: They’re one-of-a-kind.

Arturo Ambriz: Ah, wait. The question is by Bailey Val… Bailey Valquion.

Roy Ambriz: All the characters are unique, they’re priceless, they have a personality and that’s why there’s only one for each… no, but seriously, yes, there’s only one, because…when you watch the ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ making-of and you see there’s ten Jacks or something like that, I don’t know when- sorry, how many. We… I reiterate, being a Mexican production, new, and the such, we obviously didn’t have the budget to make a thousand copies of each character. So, what we did was make them the smart way in the puppet wing, so that we could fix them, and we had a very talented and… arrrgh! Super strong and buff puppet hospital team, just constantly fixing them again and again. Frankelda… yeah, there’s two Frankeldas, which is… something we hadn’t mentioned up ‘til now. There’s two Frankeldas because she was the character who had the most animated minutes on-screen, and the cool part is, if you look really closely, you can actually tell which is which, and that’s something we love.

If you watch the original ‘King Kong’ movie, the one from the 30s, there’s like three… the King Kong puppets were hand-made, they didn’t even cast them, Ray Harryhousen made them with wet cotton on latex and built them over… over skeletons he made…

Arturo Ambriz: Willis O’Brien.

Roy Ambriz: Ah, my bad, Willis O’Brien. I said Harryhousen but it’s Willis O’Brien. And he made them by hand. So, they’re not identical and there’s like three King Kongs, but it doesn’t matter because the illusion of life is there and, and you know it’s real. But, yeah, the hardcore ones, which I think is all of you, can figure out which one’s Frankelda mark one or mark two. But really, she’s one and the same, don’t worry, she sometimes just… likes to do her hair a little bit different, or arrange her dress some other way, because Frankelda never sits still and her… her spirit can take any shape she wishes to.

Arturo Ambriz: Next question… and it’s from Noemi Juárez… I wanted this one to show up. ‘¿Did you use the same figurine for Frankelda’s grandma and Magali’s hen witch?’ Let’s see, we can answer this one very plainly.  It’s not that it’s the same figurine, it’s not that it’s the same puppet. Could it be that perhaps, perhaps, it’s the same character…? Anything you��d like to add?

Roy Ambriz: Well… Frankel- I mean. Frankelda, her stories, to write them she has to base them off her own life because, and this is a tip I’m giving you, we’re giving you, if you want to tell your own stories, write about what you know. Write about what… what you’ve learned, what you like…

Arturo Ambriz: What you’ve lived, what hurts you.

Roy Ambriz: But this doesn’t mean it has to be hyper-realistic and like… a copy, an exact replica of what is. You can tackle it from fiction, fiction can help to make-up and transform, because you can transform yourself. So you can create characters from an aunt you knew or your friend’s mom who is really interesting, and you can create… and that’s what she does, and so, ask yourselves why Frankelda drew inspiration on her grandma, right? To… to make the witch- who, by the way, her name’s Totolina.

Arturo Ambriz: Good. Next question… ‘What was the production process for the songs? Did you guys make the concepts for the lyrics?’ Alex Rosas asks.

This question is really interesting, we’re definitely inviting Kevin Smithers to one of these, he’s the composer of our songs and our orchestral pieces, and we’ll be able to talk more about this. But look, here’s a really fun little history tidbit… originally, we’d only planned for one song in the whole series, and it was El Coco's.

It was the very first one we wrote, it was the very first one that got recorded. Actually, that one… the Boogeyman’s story only exists because when we… I think it was literally the day we got greenlit to produce this, Roy and I were talking about what we wanted to see on-screen and we said: ‘Ooooff… this hobo monster, El Coco. All scruffy and ragged… in an alley in Coyoacán… playing a thousand instruments and flying ghost kids out of his hat and forming a dead kids orchestra.’  We were like: ‘Yes! That’s what we want to do for this season of ’Frankelda’’. And we started working on the story, we started creating everything and that’s when we made the lyrics for what at the time we still called ‘The Boogeyman’s Waltz’ …

...and here’s El Coco dropping by, and- hang on, let me get this out of the way… we started to work on the Boogeyman’s song. Sergio Carranza sang it, it turned out amazing, it turned out absolutely breath-taking, and, well, we realized...

[Here Hernevalito hilariously falls off Herneval's arms and Roy tries to silently non-react to it...]

...maybe it was worth it for the whole series to be a musical and have one song per episode. Why? Because we love musicals, because at the end of the day… think about this, I mean, each song… and here’s a little tip in case you like to write songs… each song is a poem.

[Roy then discreetly sits Hernevalito on El Coco's horn.]

Each song is actually a poem, that’s why Herneval tells Francisca ‘Hey, why don’t you read me that poem you just wrote?’

[Success! No one saw that, right?]

and it’s a sung poem. Well, songs are poems, right? I don’t know if it’s our way to put in a little bit of… creative, poetic and philosophical writing into the show, on top of it making it a lot flashier, making it more memorable. You listen to the song and it reaches faster. So what we worked on with Kevin was, while we worked on the lyrics…

Roy Ambriz: Specially him.

Arturo Ambriz: We kept working them, writing them, and like… turning them over, looking for… concepts, which, come entirely from the scripts, because the scripts were there first, and once we were clear on which ones they were- what it was we wanted to say and how it could have a nice ring to it- it was then that Kevin Smithers got involved and he helped us to, well, create the music proper, and there’s some… some texts that got edited, and some got longer or got shorter, and it was a very organic process where we included parts of the script, the poetry part, the conceptual and musical part, and everything got combined. And, believe us, we’re really glad to see you liked the songs, you’ve sang them, you’ve posted videos, you know the lyrics. That’s a dream come true for us.

Roy Ambriz: Besides, soon you’ll be able to sing with Frankelda or Herneval. So stay tuned to our Tik Tok channel on the next weeks.

Arturo Ambriz: Yes. Yeah, that’s right.

Next question… ah, this is a good one. ‘Will new kids inspired on your crew show up for the next episodes?’ Danitza Rivas asks us.

Roy Ambriz: Yes! We’re really excited, we have a lot if ideas, we want to see them already. I really like how… I want to clarify, just because they’re based off… as a fun little nod, from- the characters, it doesn’t mean they’re, like… exact copies, right? Of… I mean, they’re fictional characters, that should always be clear.

But yeah, we’re really, really excited about getting to include more kids. Tormenting even more characters; because a writers job is always to torment their characters, that’s how you put them to the test and depending on how they face the challenges you make for them, that’s how you discover what their nature is like. In this case, we like how… they don’t make it, and it’s something really fun to do because there’s a nice little reflection in there. But yeah, there will be many other children- but also expect to catch a glimpse of old acquaintances, of old friends in there, for sure.

Arturo Ambriz: And… I was precisely trying to look for the question to see who made it a while ago… the truth is I lost it, hope someone can help me over here…

Roy Ambriz: Tinta Invisible.

Arturo Ambriz: Someone… no. Someone was asking how we got the idea to use members of the Cinema Fantasma team to be the inspiration for the kids. And yeah, that’s the reality, not everyone may know this but, all the kids that app-

Female background voice: Daniela Herrera.

Arturo Ambriz: What? Daniela Herrera? Daniela Herrera was asking this just a while ago. And we realized  we needed a bunch of kids and we didn’t want them to be generic. We wanted each one, even the ones in the background, just walking by, to have something unique to them that took a step away from cartoon stereotypes, where you always have… the chubby one, the red-haired one, the goth one. I mean, those stereotypes get on your nerves, right? So, we wanted everyone to be a combination of very particular elements, and we were like: ‘Well, people who work in Cinema Fantasma are visually fascinating, it’s like a whole new range of personalities, of shapes, of colors, of voices, everything.’

So, that was the best inspiration because it really is also an homage for our team, they do so much. I mean, this, the stop-motion, the series, the movies, it’s teamwork! And for the next seasons, we’ll keep using people from the team and new people too, people who’ve joined this crew to create more and more characters. I mean, this is part of ‘Frankelda’s DNA and will always be.

Roy Ambriz: Mm-hm.

Arturo Ambriz: OK. Let’s see… ah, this one. Go on and answer this one, Roy. It’s a question from Valeria Palacios: ‘Do people turn unto Spooks when they die or are Spooks born some other way?’

Roy Ambriz: No, a normal person doesn’t necessarily turn into a Spook when they die. It’s actually quite strange but, there’s Spooks who want to be human, like the Gnome- the Gnomes. They want to be human because they don’t like the… the place they were assigned to as Spooks. There’s Spooks who are fascinated by humans, like, from an anthropologic point of view. Like the Boogeyman, who loves to study them and has been doing it since he was… his dad used to bring him to watch him work when he was a kid.

Arturo Ambriz: Don Coco!

Roy Ambriz: Don Coco would bring him to watch him work, and he’d be gawking at them, and he loved them, and he’d say: ‘I just don’t get them. They’re so fragile and so… so stupid…’

Arturo Ambriz: ‘So temperamental!’

Roy Ambriz: So, they loved that. There’s Spooks that absolutely loathe humans, like the Mermaid, who used to have control over the territory and was worshiped as a goddess and now she hates that no one is even aware she’s there, and on top of it they polluted her world, and her pyramid lays forgotten. It’s undiscovered, it’s in Xochimilco but no one’s discovered it yet, it’s underwater.

And then there’s humans who want to be Spooks because they aren’t happy with their lives. Like Tamazola, Tochina and… which one am I missing?

Arturo Ambriz: Totolina.

Roy Ambriz: Totolina! Who are the three witches. In order to become Spooks, they had to figure out a lot of things, I can’t really give away too much because it’s a spoiler. And they had to perform a ritual which they’d been constructing for a long time before they could actually do it, and they hadn’t accomplished it until Magali came along… but there’s a reason they have so many caged animals in their kitchen, y’know?

Arturo Ambriz: You touched upon one of the questions someone… someone else made. This one’s by Alexa Casas: ‘Will we be seeing Don Coco in the next seasons?’

Roy Ambriz: Don Coco! Who can say?

Arturo Ambriz: What do you guys think? A bit of homework for you, you’ll see.

Next… ah, this one’s great: ‘Why did Herneval’s attitude change so much when he became a book?’ Picture this. You guys are maybe, I don’t know…

Roy Ambriz: No spoilers!

Arturo Ambriz: Yeah, no spoilers. You guys are… I don’t know if in middle school, high school, college or already graduates. What were you like five years ago? Picture yourselves ten years ago, the kind of personality you had, the way you spoke, OK? It’s been a hundred and fifty years. That’s all I’m saying.

Roy Ambriz: But, Herneval aged, didn’t he-? ahhh.

Arturo Ambriz: Spoiler! Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler… soc! OK, next question. Ooff, no, I’m not answering this question because it would be a huge, huge, huge spoiler…

Roy Ambriz: Let me see, what is it?

Arturo Ambriz: I’m gonna skip it.

Roy Ambriz: Read it and I won’t… they’ll just see my expression.

Arturo Ambriz: You sure?

Roy Ambriz: Yeah.

Arturo Ambriz: They’re asking, and there’s actually more than one person asking: ‘Whatever happened to Francisca’s body?’

…next question…

Roy Ambriz: Tinta Invisible.

Arturo Ambriz: Yes, yes, next question: ‘What’s Herneval’s biggest fear?’ by Meru Chan. Look how- this is a really nice question, it’s true, Spooks have fears too, right?  I mean… specially Herneval, Herneval shows himself as… fragile, vulnerable despite… he’s such a good… I was going to say ‘Good person’, but, let’s say he’s such a good Spook, and…

Roy Ambriz: A handsome lad.

Arturo Ambriz: And a handsome lad.

Roy Ambriz: The fussy book.

Arturo Ambriz: He’s gentlemanly, he’s kind, he’s passionate… but I definitely think that… not to give away to much: Herneval is very scared of loss. He’s afraid of having- people he loves and…

Roy Ambriz: Ah-ah! Erm…

Arturo Ambriz: OK. Yes. Yeah, that would have been a spoiler.

Let’s see, this question has no, no, no spoilers at all, and it’s… they’re asking… ‘What can I do if I want to learn animation but I’m already studying for a different career?’ Paulina Cortés is asking.

Roy Ambriz: I think this question might also be exemplified better along the next sessions as we get more of our friends parading here, who also created ‘Frankelda’. But in order to animate, to make an animated production, you’ll need lots and lots of different talents and abilities. It’s really funny because sometimes we get called ‘Animators’. The two of us. It’s like- that’s not true, we don’t animate. Well, I animated… a couple of things, but we’re not animators per se, we’re directors, were writers, we’re sculptors. So, an actual animator and with a big range too… I think that might be… too much, and it might be- what’s that word again? Like, overwhelming. Right? Like… too much. It’s… when, really, when you shred animation into tiny pieces, you realize you need someone who knows how to write, someone who knows how to administer a project, someone who can paint, someone who can draw well, and design. Someone…

Arturo Ambriz: Book-keeping.

Roy Ambriz: Book-keeping! You need a musician, or someone who knows about music, you need actors and voice actors. It’s endless, right? Someone who knows about tech, someone who knows about IT, someone who knows computer programming, who can do motion-controls. Who can do post-production-

Arturo Ambriz: Social-media.

Roy Ambriz: So… college is always a starting point, and this is something we always say, from experience. We graduated more or less, ten years ago, give or take. College is a starting point, it’s not that you have to stay there just because you got your degree in that area, it’s a starting point you chose for… a project. But from then on, it’s up to you and your guts, and your continued studies of many other things you didn’t really see in school, and to living, it’s up to you where you lead your life to and where you want to go, and whether you achieve that your calling is… aligning what you want to do for work, with earning money, and on top all of this, with your reason to live, because it’s your life project; and this is how you feel accomplished, and this is how you know you can do some good in the world, and if you manage to align all of that, it’s beautiful. We’re very happy we’re able to do this for a living, but it implies a lot of work and for you to move to where you want to be.

Arturo Ambriz: Next, it’s a question by Bets Chan Ching, and it’s: ‘What is the Spooks’ life cycle and is it the same as humans?’

Roy Ambriz: Hmmm…

Arturo Ambriz: This question is a really good one, such a good one, it’s something that will be gradually answered as the next seasons roll by. What we can say is, it’s definitely not exactly like a human being’s. But I think you can reflect on, I don’t know… have you realized there’s times you don’t want to do a specific homework, you’re scared of doing it because you’re convinced that you’re going to mess it up? And maybe if you’d done it immediately you would have spent half an hour doing it and then you’d be done, but because you didn’t do it during the week, well, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger in your mind, and it’s gigantic by Saturday and it’s even bigger by Sunday? And by Monday at four AM this homework, this fear of doing homework is just massively huge and it’s crushing you? And now something you could have gotten done in half an hour ruined your entire week? I think if we understand, like… fears, we can get a better idea of what the life cycle of Spooks is.

Roy Ambriz: ‘Anything? Heeheehee…’

Arturo Ambriz: Yes, exactly. It’s a very, very interesting question, but… actually, if we tried to completely explain it right now, it wouldn’t make any sense to you, you have to see it, you have to watch it happen little by little in the next seasons.

Ah, this question is really nice, Mansand Saga asks: ‘Did you have any problems with friends or family when you picked your career and to pursue your passion?’ …no. We happened to be in luck…

Roy Ambriz: In our specific case.

Arturo Ambriz: The two of us, specially, were lucky to have our parents, our friends, our family always supporting us. We specially got a lot of artistic stimulation- and corporate as well, from our parents, that’s how it’s always been. Our mom always made us draw, made us sculpt, made us get our hands dirty… I’m even exposing her a little bit here, but my mom would sometimes even let us skip school so we could go to an amusement park, or to the movies, or because- I don’t know, maybe even something like the weekend’s game got a bit too long and we wanted to finish it properly, like, we had those kinds of permissions.

So, it did help us big time to have that kind of help. In conclusion, if you see one of your friends wants to do this for a living, support them, cheer for them, because yes, there is a professional life for arts. Now, obviously, we’re aware that not everyone has this kind of family support, we have a lot of friends who experienced rejection in their homes in order to be able to make a living with this. But what we’re saying, the best message we can send about it is episode four of ‘Frankelda’s Book of Spooks’. That’s why we created the El Coco, that’s why we created Tere, that’s why we created these ghostly children who dance and make music, it’s because we’ve watched a lot of our friends and acquaintances get their passion stolen by the Boogeyman…

Roy Ambriz: And they just settled…

Arturo Ambriz: They settled, they dedicated themselves to something they didn’t even want to do, and suddenly it’s been ten, fifteen years, and they’re like: ‘Oh, my God, I wish I could turn back time and give myself unto the things I’m passionate about.’. So to keep that from happening to you guys, we made the Boogeyman and Tere.

Roy Ambriz: Play it for your aunts and uncles, the Boogeyman episode, when they get on your case.

Arturo Ambriz: Oooh, this one’s really, really good, only detail’s that the username of the asker is JICJ2442. They’re asking in Tik Tok, and it’s… ‘Will we see…?’ ah, we’re mixing our sources for the questions from all the social media, eh? They’re asking if we will ever see the Spooks’ world.

Roy Ambriz: Tsss… it’s what we want to show you the most!

Arturo Ambriz: It’s not so much the world, it’s the Kingdom of Spooks.

Roy Ambriz: Herneval’s Kingdom, y’know? And that of his parents, hm? So… that’s what we want to show the most. That’s where Francisca’s headed to right now, Frankelda, and, well, we hope we get to show it to you.

Arturo Ambriz: Alright, Camicatura is also asking when they’ll get to watch the series if they’re in Spain. This is a very, very good question. Look, there’s no precedent for this kind of series made in México or Latin-America, like… a stop-motion, horror musical, and one of such a high quality. I mean, it’s like a very odd mixture of elements, and there’s definitely plans for the international launch, so it can be watched all over the world, but that’s something we’re going to achieve little by little.

For us, the ideal scenario would be to get to a point where… where season two can launch simultaneously in every country that has HBOMax. But it’s a matter that’s not really in our hands, rather, they’re completely strategic on the part of HBOMax and Warner Bros.

Roy Ambriz: Now, if you want to watch it, you can write to HBOMax’s social media about wanting it to also arrive on Europe, and that would be great help, y’know? If more people around the world start requesting it, there are more chances that it’ll be authorized for more countries.

Arturo Ambriz: Great. Herneval’s little wing is covering your face quite a bit. Let’s see, you’re going to love answering this one, Roy, I’m sure. It’s: ‘Do Spooks only haunt kids or adults too?’

Roy Ambriz: They haunt everyone. Really, I think… children can get a better grasp of what a Spook is, and humans… they look for another explanation…

Arturo Ambriz: Adults.

Roy Ambriz: Adults. Like, children will see them as Spooks, and adults will too, but the Spooks won’t… won’t allow themselves to be seen quite as easily, because Spooks live anywhere you look, but you can’t see them for lack of knowing to look.

Arturo Ambriz: Great. This question is very nice, asked by Axel Imanol and it’s: ‘What was your inspiration for making ‘Tinta Invisible’? Honestly, I love that song a lot.’ Look, the lyrics to ‘Tinta Invisible’, like we said just a while ago, are a poem. It’s literally a poem, its inspiration comes from what writing implies, what making fiction implies. For instance, this line about… it’s one of the lines we like the most, it’s: ‘Reading, you inhabit the hidden.’ Picture it, right? If I have my ‘Harry Potter’ book here, well, it’s just an object, it’s like some sort of brick, right? A paper brick, my ‘Harry Potter’ book. But within those pages lies in hiding all of Hogwarts, and all of Diagon Alley, and it conceals… I don’t know, Azkaban Prison within. And it hides… the Weasleys with all of their kids.

So, within a paper brick, there’s this whole world, hidden. So, when you read it, when you read a book, when you read a story, you inhabit the hidden. Because, I swear to you, I’ve been in Hogwarts- because when I read Harry Potter, I picture myself walking around and climbing the magic stairs, and getting into one of the rooms… I don’t know, the classroom for Potions Class with Professor Snape. I mean, I’ve lived in Hogwarts by reading fiction. That’s what ‘Frankelda’ is about, that’s what ‘Tinta Invisible’ is about. ‘Tinta Invisible’ is a song that pays homage to the art of writing and fiction. If you analyze each line, it becomes very clear… well, not all that clear but all of the… the symbolism of what writing and creating something that doesn’t exist is hidden there.

Roy Ambriz: Here’s Frankelda’s ‘Harry Potter’ collection.

Arturo Ambriz: Oh, that’s so cool!

Roy Ambriz: The books.

Arturo Ambriz: Where did that come from?

Roy Ambriz: Walmart.

Arturo Ambriz: I’d never seen it. It’s really cool! Ahh, goody. Well, let’s see… ‘Frankelda and Herneval’s personality, did you plan it in advance or did you base it off someone?’

Roy Ambriz: Yes… our task as writers is to plan out the personality of each character, it’s… when you write a character, it’s like you’re living it, it’s like you’re placing yourself in their shoes and seeing the… I mean, you’re within their perspective and looking at the world from their eyes. Counterweights start emerging, right? And Dramatic Orchestrations, as they’re known, start emerging, like… Herneval, you’ve seen it yourselves. Young Herneval with Francisca isn’t the same as…Herneval-libro with Frankelda, and it’s not the same as Herneval-libro with Procustes, right? I mean, he changes, depending on who he’s with. Why? Because that’s life, you’re not the same when you’re alone with your friends to when you’re in a Christmas dinner with like family members you rarely see, you only meet them once a year, or when you’re in class. It changes.

So yeah, each personality and each character has to be written, has to be pondered, has to be rewritten, has to be erased and… and raised again, and gradually discovered. And, obviously that process starts with writing but is run by character design, art design, animation, run by voice actors, who also permeate it, and the character is uncovered throughout all of these processes.

Arturo Ambriz: Very good. Also… that’s the thing, I mean, you guys can see that so many of the characters we’ve seen in TV or movies are opposites, aren’t they? And Frankelda and Herneval-libro, spending so much time together on-screen, well they had to be opposites, right? One of them is red and the other is blue, it’s that simple, I mean, it’s a visual-psicological-narrative codification. Frankelda is an optimist, Herneval’s a pessimist. Frankelda’s cheerful, Herneval’s a grump. Frankelda always moves in circles, her hair has circular curls, her hand movements are circular; and the book is a small square, and everything about him is a square, right? So, this is a good tip for writing characters, thinking about opposites, thinking about complements, thinking about the Ying and the Yang.

Next question… this question is Meru Chan’s: ‘What made you change Herneval’s appearance from the Pilot?’

Roy Ambriz: It was a… that’s a rather interesting question. As we’ve said, when we made the season as opposed to the Pilot, we agreed that we had to improve everything. And the Pilot- we didn’t really wonder about that many things because it’s a Pilot, y’know? Obviously, we’d gotten less time, and the top priority was to show that the series could be great, so what we did when they greenlit the season was to think better about the characters. At some point, as you’ve seen in the concept art, Herneval was thought up as more of a demon, but it was way too obvious, and it could also have religious connotations we really don’t want there to be, so, we decided to ponder it. He’s not the Demon Prince, he’s the Prince of Spooks, I mean, he has to be a Spook. What’s a Spook? It’s something new.

So, we started to ponder and around this time, Ana Coronilla, who is the art director, had the idea- she was like: ‘I kind of see him as an owl.’ Because with Herneval, in order to make him princely, we kept thinking and got- we were creating with the Awesombrosos, trying to make him more reptilian, or some other thing, and when we said ‘Owl’, it was like ‘Wow, he looks amazing!’ and on top of that, he has to… like, the personality we want, and that’s when we said ‘It’s just, if this were a live-action, he’d be played by someone along the lines of Timothé Chalamet-‘ not sure I’m saying that right.

Arturo Ambriz: Timothee.

Roy Ambriz: Timothee Chalamet, so… well, we said ‘Him, plus owl, plus some other elements.’ And, well, we got hunk Herneval, and then we saw the book and the character progression made no sense anymore, the one from the Pilot, because he’s more snakelike. So it was like ‘OK, how are we going to rebuild the character so he still has Herneval’s essence that we’ve already gotten to know from the Pilot, but make it make sense that this character turned into the book?’. And that was the ruling on which we decided to make… to change the Hernevals.

Arturo Ambriz: Well, next question, by AB_8A_7: ‘If Herneval used to be the Prince of Spooks, does that mean the King will show up in a flashback?’

Roy Ambriz: Oooh…

Arturo Ambriz: You’re getting close to the… the heart of the matter. Definitely, obviously, we’re going to meet the King of Spooks, we don’t want to disclose anything else about him, but… but props to you guys for realizing it, right? If there’s a Prince, then who’s the King?

Roy Ambriz: Besides, somewhere… well. Nope. I was just about to spoil it!

Arturo Ambriz: No spoilers.

Roy Ambriz: But that’s the thing, it’s… how cool is it to think, who is Herneval’s dad? Why… why does Herneval have to go to the human realm? Why wasn’t he in the prologue? That is, why was he with Procustes and not his father? So you start to… to develop and sprout a lot of fun things…

Arturo Ambriz: Why is there an hourglass that’s close to the limit?

Roy Ambriz: No one’s talked about the hourglass, have they?

Arturo Ambriz: I haven’t really seen that much…

Roy Ambriz: Hmmm… go figure.

Arturo Ambriz: Anyway… well. This one was by La Reina Cuervo, who we’re already familiar with because we had an interview with her this week, real fun. She’s asking how much time Frankelda spent with Herneval before they got trapped. And that question, well, can’t be answered because it’s something we’re going to see in the next seasons, what happens during this process. That is, once they cross that threshold at the crypt, at the graveyard, what Herneval and Francisca had to do, how they got to where they are right now. For sure, it’s in there, this story that’s still going to develop further.

Next question… ah, well, this one’s really simple. 199501 asks: ‘I don’t know whether you already answered this one, but what are the three witches’ names?’ And, the witch who speaks the most, the one that turns into a hen, the one that sings, her name is Totolina. We just barely realized we never had them mention their names, but in production her name was always Totolina. Then, the witch that turns into a toad, her name is Tamazola, and the witch that turns into a rabbit, a hare, her name is Tochina. Yeah?

Next question… ‘Does Herneval have some sort of power?’ question by Blackroses.

Roy Ambriz: Well, you saw that already, he does, right? And… his power is used three times along the first season. We can’t say more, but he definitely has. Well, he’s the Prince of Spooks, he has to have something special to him.

Arturo Ambriz: OK, next question… ‘Why does Tere play the theremin?’. Question by Lagunas X. Look, we realized long ago that… the theremin is like, the musical instrument of ghosts. The theremin, in every B-movie in Hollywood where there’s ghosts or aliens, zombies, it’s like… a sound that doesn’t seem to belong to this world, because it’s really similar to a human voice. But at the same time it sounds like the mix between a robot and a… a howl. So, it’s like, hard to decipher. So, the theremin has this whole symbolic weight which we love, ever since we created this studio ten years ago, the bumper of the intro we had, which was the Cinema Fantasma bumper, you can hear a theremin. So, for us it’s always been like the theremin is the Cinema Fantasma musical instrument. Personally, it’s my favorite musical instrument.

So, when we started to unravel this episode which I’ve told you about a while ago, that we wanted to get to this big moment of the orchestra in the alley with the dead children and the Boogeyman dancing, we start to realize we needed, like… a character who wanted to make music in order to get to this moment, and we realized it would be very original to have her play the theremin, because we’ve seen a million boys and girls who play the violin or the guitar, even Coco and Book of Life have this, right? You can always look for something different to… to give the show a unique flavor.

Moving on, Yara Edith asks: ‘Why is Frankelda from Hidalgo?’ And, get this, originally, this was only going to last one hour and we’re at, I think, an hour and a quarter. Let’s… let’s answer a few more questions and we’ll call it a day, also so you guys can have a nice Friday and not just sit there listening to us. Right, so let’s go back to Yara Edith’s question. Why is Frankelda from Hidalgo?

Roy Ambriz: Because, well, something both of us really wanted to do is… make something that felt… a series that felt Mexican but by someone who actually lives in México, y’know? Like, for there to be these little elements no one else who didn’t live in México could have, and it’s mixed in with experience. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to is the Panteón Inglés. I love it. One of my best friends hails from there, from Pachuca, but she’d take us… back in college we went a lot of times, to- Hi, Rosa, if you’re watching.

Arturo Ambriz: I don’t think she is.

Roy Ambriz: I don’t think so because I didn’t even give her a heads-up, but OK. But we traveled a lot, and we made a lot of- she’s a photographer. And we did a lot of photography exercises at Panteon Inglés, and it’s just gorgeous. And… truth is that when we were framing this series, we said: ‘It just would be so cool that she was a Victorian ghost, right? In this big house.’ And back at the Pilot we couldn’t really get into it, show it, how we want to break away from that cliché, I mean, she is Victorian, and she is from that period, but it’s not in Europe, it’s in México. Because mixing in with history -which is something we also love, like, mixing in bits of truth- it’s around this time that the British arrived in there to, well… care for and extract from the silver mines, they brought in a lot of things, right? Soccer, the pasties, which turned into pastes, and whatnot. We figured it’d be really nice if Frankelda’s house is European because his dad is British, but he’s a British man who fell in love with a Mexican woman, and Frankelda’s born from that union.  Why? Because Frankelda- as you know, well, in México we’re a mixture of the European and the Mexican-origin, and, and we’re not- it doesn’t matter anymore, to us, origin doesn’t matter anymore, just that we’re Mexican, and that’s very Mexican.

And so, Frankelda is Mexican. She makes her stories up with the mixture of things, of elements within her head, and what better place than… I mean, if this beautiful place that actually exists in real life inspires us, well, we wanted to also pay homage to that place, and even though it’s not exactly identical, it is a rather latent inspiration for us.

Arturo Ambriz: Alright. Now, Emily Delgado asks us whether we’re giving some kind of courses or bachelor, and, yeah, actually yes, we’ve given several of them. Next year, we’ll reactivate our section called ‘Cinema Fantasma EDU’ which is where we give our courses, bachelor degrees, workshops, conferences on stop-motion. That’s a great way to learn. Stay tuned to our social media, cause that’s where we’re giving notice. Thing is, between COVID and all the work we had with ‘Frankelda’, we had to put this project on hold, well, this whole year. But we’re eager to get back into it and get it done. This is something we love, and we’re exploring other options, really cool ones too, with a certain… how do I put this, brand that makes online courses to make a very specific kind of thing. Really cool, we’re working really hard, I don’t want to spoil that either, because it will be announced in due time, but we’ve got more options coming up so we can talk and we can try to impart some of the knowledge we’ve been saving up all these years by making these productions.

Roy Ambriz: Good.

Arturo Ambriz: Very good. And… I think this will be our last question.

Roy Ambriz: Last question!

Arturo Ambriz: Let’s see… I’m looking for one that’s real good.

Roy Ambriz: Yeah, close it up with some meat, go on.

Arturo Ambriz: Something that makes fans speculate?

Roy Ambriz: Yeah.

Arturo Ambriz: …there’s just so many good ones. Let’s see, for instance… ah, look, this one’s nice because it additionally comes all the way from Chile. Sent by Gabriel Beltrán, and it’s: ‘Are the Spooks’ stories told on the show based on real legends or inspired on something of the sort?’

Roy Ambriz: And, well… it’s a mix of everything, right? We aren’t basing them on anything specific per se. I feel like we’ve already seen so much in México, in Mexican adaptations about Mexican legends. Which is really cool, but it’s already been done, even in animation. So, we wanted to do new ones. There’s characters like, for instance- in the… originally in the pitch, back when we hadn’t thought so much about it, the witches… the original concept art is somewhere around, they were more… European, more classic, or United States-like, with the hat and the broom and the stockings. And we were like: ‘No, we want it to be…to feel more like… witches who have somehow been living around a lot of places in México or Latin-America for a while, and who, as luck would have it, right now are living around Colonia Roma maybe, or La Condesa, something to that effect. How do we make it feel specific?’

So… it obviously comes from, well, people- we can’t say ‘We invented witches, we invented mermaids.’ Or anything. But they’re more like… characters and archetypes we take and resignify to things we’ve lived through, things within our imagination, and things we want to see. Maybe the one that’s more inspired in an existing character which we felt had barely even gotten representation in Latin-America is El Coco. The Boogeyman, always-he comes from… our mom always tells us this story, we’d mentioned it a couple of times, but my grandpa used to say to her, because we collected toys, and back in the nineties they were all monsters and stuff like that, really cool stuff. And my grandpa used to tell my mom: ‘Why would they ever be afraid of the El Coco if they have that kind of toy and aren’t scared by it?’. So, this Boogeyman character, like… a bum, or, just something that’s not exactly what we have in the collective imagination, but we had that idea floating around, and, well… we decided to capture it. And I hope we can see more of the El Coco in the future.

Arturo Ambriz: Totally… well, I think we’ve reached the limit with this session. We’re obviously absolutely thankful to you, this is why we want to keep creating these opportunities to chat. We know there was a lot more questions but, think about it, we’d be here for five hours. We’d be happy to, but we also don’t want to ruin your Friday, so I think the good stuff has to be, like… like, in moderation.

We’ll also take this chance to tell you that we seriously are on the constant lookout for everything you’ve posted on social media- look, for example, I have a physical fanart right here, and it’s so cool! But trust me when I say all the digital ones, all the ones I’ve found, I’ve shared them on my Instagram account and I’ve been saving them. I feel like it’s like I’m filling up my Panini album, I’m logging in all the time to see what I can find and save it. And something we would love to do here in Cinema Fantasma, we’d just have to rearrange the space, is to print all the fanart you’ve made, print out all the fanart you’ve made and post it over a wall in Cinema Fantasma even just a small print. Because, trust me that, for both of us as well as the whole crew it’s mind-blowing to see you liked what we worked so hard on, what we toiled so much to make. Right now, we’re seeing some of the fanarts we love on screen…

Roy Ambriz: Just not Tik Tok because…

Arturo Ambriz: Uh-huh, not Tik Tok.

Roy Ambriz: Because we’re… on a different one.

Arturo Ambriz: But it’s not that…

Roy Ambriz: Look how gorgeous! Wow!

Arturo Ambriz: It’s not that we’re only seeing the ones we like the most, y’know? We like all of them, it’s just that we did a quick search right now and these are the ones we had close-at-hand to show, but really, we love all of them, and all of them have their charm.

Roy Ambriz: Yes, and they’re beautiful, thank you so much. We’re very, very, very grateful with all the Fankeldos and Fankeldas…

Arturo Ambriz: Or Spooks.

Roy Ambriz: Or Spooks, or…

Arturo Ambriz: The Owls.

Roy Ambriz: The Owls and the Writers.

Arturo Ambriz: The Quills.

Roy Ambriz: Anything you like, thank you so much because Frankelda is alive thanks to you. Something we can say is… ‘Frankelda’ is a celebration of fiction. So although there’s a… an official storyline which comes from us and Cinema Fantasma, Frankelda, the thing she likes the most is to be alive. So, consider the stories you make for her, when they’re in your minds, in your hearts, to be canon as well. To you, to the one reading right now, it’s real, because Frankelda is alive. So… draw her, write her, think about her. It's so nice to see it, really, we’re super thankful. It’s… this is the best possible present for us after… for the whole team, after… such difficult years in order to keep it afloat, where we had to, well… work so much, sacrifice some things in order to get it out there. So, this is super gorgeous, and we’re sending hugs to absolutely all of you guys and… an announcement. A fun one.

I think it should be up by now, a new filter that you can find, called ‘Frankeldízate’. If you want to turn into Frankelda or in… if you want to be real Fankeldos and Fankeldas, you can use that. Please, use it, it’s really fun. You can use it to sing, you can use it to write, for anything you want, it’s up. Start using it. Tag us, please, we love to see everything you make.

Arturo Ambriz: Something very important we nearly forgot is… we have a little surprise giveaway, OK? We have 5 posters, signed by the whole team. By the team who made ‘Frankelda’s Book of Spooks’, the Cinema Fantasma team. And we’re going to give it to the first five people who answer the following question and sent it to our mail, frankeldafanart@gmail.com.  Repeating the address, frankeldafanart@gmail.com, OK? First five people to send the answer to this question, we’ll get in touch with you through the mail to see about sending it. If it’s within México City, it will be through our messenger boy, our dear Arturo, but if you’re not in México City, well, we’ll look for a way to get it to you through national or international mail. OK? So, the mail is frankeldafanart@gmail.com and here’s the question, OK? And it’s: How… where does-? We mentioned it a while ago. Where does Herneval’s name come from?

Roy Ambriz: Go!

Arturo Ambriz: There it is, we went into it in detail a while ago, so if you paid attention, you can answer that question. And we’ll look for a way to make… make some other dynamic so we can give away this kind of things. Is there anything else you want to add, Roy?

Roy Ambriz: Well… please use the #Frankelda. You can use the other ones, they’re really cool. The ‘Que Listo Sos, Herneval’ one, all the ones you’re making up, but also use the #Frankelda on its own, because that way we can get everything thrown together and it’s like evidence for us to show the producers of you wanting a second season. Be insistent. If you wish, insist at the Cartoon Network LA and HBOMax LA social media accounts in your different kinds of posts, but use… flood them with requests for ‘Frankelda’s second season because that’s the only way we’re getting it. So, if there’s a massive second season bombing, it’s way easier, I hope no one kills me for saying that, but it’s the truth and I have to ask. So, well, I think that’s all for this session. If you liked it, expect more. We’ll be announcing the date for the next one along with our guest star soon.

Arturo Ambriz: Also, believe us when we say, as Roy did a while ago, if we can talk for a bit about what ‘Frankelda’ represents, well, we highly, highly, highly recommend for you to read. It’s never too late to get close to literature. We already made it easy for you, why not start with ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley? I’d be very surprised if you didn’t love it, truly, it’s fascinating. It’s a beautiful, philosophical, horror, science fiction book, it’s got everything, y’know? It has family drama, it has traditions, it has murder, it’s an incredible book. Read. Write. That’s something I struggle with a lot regarding my students, as we’ve mentioned, we teach in a handful of classes, and I do see sometimes how they lack… reading, and this is also why we were so insistent on the main character of the show being a writer.

So, well, we’re finishing up and, I just read a great suggestion and it’s that we should leave but first we should put Herneval and Frankelda together, and we should leave them like that for a minute, leave them like this for a minute… and leave. Thanks, goodbye.

Roy Ambriz: Goodbye!

Arturo Ambriz: It’s been great.