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"ACHILLES, MYTH AND LEGEND" a TEDEd animated short.

A love letter to the work of the master Ray Harryhausen, and a homage to classic films like "Jason and the Argonauts" and "Clash of the Titans". This animation was created and produced by TEDEd, depicting the life and myth of Achilles, his legend and his legacy.

  • Luis Torres (Mr. Flama)
    Director
    The Hollow, Technorganic
  • Iseult Gillespie
    Script Writer
  • Susan Zimmerman
    Narrator
  • André Aires
    Composer
  • João Pamplona Mendes
    Sound Designer
  • André Aires
    Sound Designer
  • Logan Smalley
    Executive Creative Director
  • Gerta Xhelo
    Producer
  • Abdallah Ewis
    Producer
  • Alex Rosenthal
    Editorial Director
  • Cella Wright
    Script Producer
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Short
  • Genres:
    Educational, Mythology, Epic
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 28 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    October 8, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Mexico
  • Language:
    English
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Luis Torres (Mr. Flama)

Luis Torres is a Graphic Designer, Illustrator and animation Director with 30 years of experience in advertising, graphic design, animation, motion design and visual arts. He works as a freelance artist and teaches art and animation at Coco School Mexico and at Escena Animation and Digital art school in Mexico City.
He has been represented internationally as an animation Director through Curious Pictures in New York and Resistor in Canada. Has won several awards for his work in animation and design, the most important to date, 2 Gold World Medals in the 2010 New York Festivals in the best Direction and best Art Direction for his animated short film "The Hollow".
HIs work has been published in Taschen's Logo Design vol 2 and Latin American Graphic Design. His paintings have been exhibited in New York at Agora Gallery, Resistor Gallery in Toronto, Framers Gallery in London and Aguafuerte Gallery in Mexico City.

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Director Statement

This animated short became very personal to me regardless it was commissioned, created and produced by TEDEd.

When they approached me and show me the script I was definitely on board on directing and animating this piece.

Since I was a child, I always loved stories and films depicting myth and legends, specially the ones containing monsters and heroes, and specially greek mythology overall.

Having the opportunity on sinking my teeth and creative approach to a well known story that has been represented in different mediums from books, documentaries and film, and that in some manner we all have and image formed in our head, was a challenge that I happily accepted.

My first challenge was to create a visual style that was reminiscent of greek artistry but that showed a new approach to it and didn't fell in a cliche of other pieces of animation and art work that had been done before and are the go to techniques regarding this particular themes.

So I reached to my childhood and my love for films, specially for "Jason and the Argonauts" ( the skeleton fight scene at the end is still breathtaking and amazing ) and " Clash of the Titans" that were my favorites of the genre. So when I envision this film I basically wrote a love letter to the work of the great Ray Harryhausen and particularly created in some way an homage to his work on the two previous films mention before.

Also my love for art, specially for the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti defined the visual style and look of this piece.

The other challenge that really got me invested on this was to have the opportunity to show another view into the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus that was the back bone of the whole story.

Two years on the making and a personal loss along the way as my aunt that I loved dearly unfortunately died in this period, made me really sensible and aware for the themes of love, death and transcendence, that Achilles, Hector and Patroclus were entangled within the story. In some way this permeated into the animation as I was in grief while creating this film, as Achilles should had felt when he lost Patroclus, so this really transformed this work in a more intimate and personal film to me.