Haunted by Goya: ‘The Quinta’s Ghost’s’ Director and Producer Discuss Their Award-Winning Short (Exclusive Clip)

Celebrated Spanish artist Francisco Goya is considered one the most important painters of the late 18th and early 19th century. His haunting work captured historical upheavals and personalities, the Spanish Royal Family and religious and mythical scenes, and offered critiques of war, abuse of power, corruption and portraits of the dark sides of human nature. This year, The Quinta’s Ghost, a new 19-minute short directed by James A. Castillo (Madrid Noir) and produced by Raul Rocha, offers a fascinating look at the artist’s later years, during which he mourned the death of his wife and was haunted by his demons at La Quinta del Sordo, where he created his famous Black Paintings.

Castillo and Rocha answered a few of our questions about their award-winning, Oscar- and Méliès d’Or-qualified short.

Animation Magazine: Congratulations on the success of your amazing short. Can you tell us a bit about how you were inspired to make this short about Goya’s life?

James A. Castillo: I have always been interested in bridging the gap between animation and genre filmmaking. My first film, Madrid Noir, was an interactive VR caper story set in 1930s Madrid, and I knew that for my next project I wanted to do something in the Gothic horror genre that allowed me to talk about grief, in a way that felt true to my experience.

As the pandemic hit and we were all locked up, I started to reconnect with Goya and his dark period paintings and etchings. I started to fiercely read about him and revisit his work and, at some point, all of these pieces came together in my head; a Gothic horror film about a man trapped in his house using the only thing he knows to deal with his trauma and grief — painting!

When did you begin work on the project and which animation tools did you use?

Castillo: It was right around Christmas 2021 that I started putting pen to paper and sketched some of the visual ideas out. It took a while to transform this idea into something tangible but, by the end of the year, I had a bunch of paintings and a pretty developed first draft of the script, thanks to Julio A. Serrano and Pakoto Martinez who jumped in to help me early on.

The development of the film was largely done through digital painting, pen and paper. When it came to the actual production of the short film, we relied heavily on Illusorium’s own pipeline, which uses mainly Maya and Houdini among other tools. In order to create the ghosts for the film, we really wanted a textured, painterly feel and had to rely on more unconventional tools, such as Quill, a virtual reality piece of software that allowed our artist Joaquin Martinez to sculpt and animate the characters in a three-dimensional space, preserving the painterly aesthetic set out by the art department. That was then introduced into the pipeline via Houdini and integrated with the rest of the animation. All the compositing was made using Nuke and the final color grading with DaVinci Resolve.

All this being said, I really wanted a grainy, 1970s horror film aesthetic and to do this we had the digital final cut printed onto actual 35mm and then re-scanned back to digital. I know it sounds crazy, but there is really no other way to get those subtle light aberrations and dust particles that are so characteristic of films such as Rosemary’s Baby or Dog Day Afternoon.

Raul Rocha: James introduced me to the project after he had already been working on it for about a year together with Julio and Pakoto. There was already a great script, amazing concept art, and a genuine enthusiasm to create something extraordinary. A spirit I shared from the very first moment. The animation production took another three years, and we worked with a total team of nearly 100 people to bring the film to life.

Many of the techniques were developed exclusively for this project. The paintings of the ghosts were created in VR and later integrated into standard industry software, allowing both worlds to coexist. We based the production on a traditional CG pipeline, where creativity guided the technology. Maya, Houdini and Nuke were the project’s core tools, though we used many other technologies in service of the artists.

Once completed, to reinforce the cinematic look we had pursued, we printed the short film on 35mm and then rescanned it, preserving all the natural grain and imperfections that come with it.

What is it about Goya’s work and life that resonated with you? Why do you think his work continues to inspire generations of new artists?

Castillo: I am certain that, if it wasn’t for the Black Paintings (his last series of paintings), he would not be as remembered as he is today. Those paintings were groundbreaking, truly, from a historical point of view no one had done anything like it. A raw exercise of self expression in the privacy of one’s own home, was not something that anyone would or could do back in the day. For starters, the price of paint alone would prohibit most from even trying, but beyond that, we are talking about someone that was classically trained in the Baroque European tradition. He was, at the same time, channeling centuries of traditional European painting and breaking the norm in order to do something completely raw and expressionistic. He was a man torn between two worlds, that of tradition and the vanguards.

He was a man who came from humble beginnings and climbed to the very top of society. He saw the contradictions of a collapsing empire and did not shy away from showing us the truth of his time; which I think is what most of us relate to when digging into his life and work. I, particularly, really related to his determination to express the truest sides of the human condition, in a time when most people were trying to only show a facade of civility. I am certain that he will still be influencing people for years to come, as most artists do who break the norm of their time.

You seem to have found a perfect balance between working on shorter passion projects and doing excellent character design work on studio features such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and The Mitchells vs. the Machines. What is the secret of this balancing act?

Castillo: I don’t know if I would call it perfect, it’s more like a balancing act without a safety net; trying to stay on top of a moving industry while keeping my finances, creative expression and sanity in check. I have been incredibly fortunate in my career to work on amazing projects with amazing people over the years, but those same years have also seen delayed contracts, cancelled films and disappointing setbacks. To balance working on my own projects with keeping the lights on and working with people I admire can be a difficult dance. So, even though it might seem from the outside like a constant flow of projects, the reality is that there is a lot of churn.

I made a choice early on in my career that, once I was able to find a steady amount of work, I was going to dedicate my free time to further my passion projects. I am a firm believer that the more you do for yourself, the more work you attract, so I have been writing and developing material for years, honing my skills and learning how to lead a project from the ground up. Madrid Noir and The Quinta’s Ghost are just two of about a dozen projects that I have developed; most of them might never get made, but they all teach me a lot about this manic industry. My hope is that I am able to converge both paths and start developing projects with a bit more support from studios and producers in the near future.

Where are you based these days? 

Castillo: I am in Madrid, Spain, at the moment. After spending 13 years or so living abroad in Miami, Singapore and London, I decided to come back in 2022. By then, Madrid’s own animation industry was developed enough that it felt like a good time to come back home and see what I could build here. My hope is that I am able to develop more projects locally, but we will see what the future holds. I am definitely not afraid of moving around.

Rocha: Illusorium is based in Madrid, with a space that can accommodate over 280 artists in the heart of the city. Although we are based in Spain, the vast majority of the productions we work on come from the U.S., which is why we’ve adapted both our systems and our team to meet the highest quality standards and match the demands of international productions.

What aspect of The Quinta’s Ghost are you proudest of?

Castillo: I think the thing I am the most proud of about our film is the amazing team we managed to bring together. During its production we kept talking about how strange it was that everyone who worked on the project was so giving and generous with their time. It became quite overwhelming at times, since people were making a lot of sacrifices to work on the film, and that is because they saw the film as something special. And that, as a director, is the biggest gift anyone can give you; believing that your unrealized idea is something with potential.

Rocha: I’m incredibly proud to have worked with such a talented team, so deeply committed to the project. They truly made it their own and cared for it down to the smallest detail. I think that passion can be felt in every frame of the film; the result feels spectacular in every sense. And what I’d love most now is to begin a new adventure, a bigger one, with these wonderful teammates.

What was the most challenging aspect of the project?

Castillo: From a creative point of view, I think coming up with the narrative structure of the film was probably the hardest thing, it took me a long time to settle on a way of telling the story. We wanted to pack a lot of stuff in but we needed to make sure that the pacing didn’t feel broken or too derivative, which was tricky since the main character, the only character in the film, does not speak. It wasn’t until we came up with the idea of having the house itself be the narrator of the story that everything started falling into place. We realized that, if we flipped the traditional ghost story structure we then had a much more interesting concept and a lot of tools that we could use to tell the story in a more streamlined way. Instead of a house being haunted, we had a tenant that haunts the house with his own ghosts.

From a technical point of view, I think integrating the virtual reality ghosts into the film was probably the most challenging aspect of the film, not so much for the technical complexity of the process, but more so for the level of lateral and creative thinking it required from the team. For a long time during the production this was something that we just “believed in.” We theoretically knew it could be done, but we had no proof that it was going to work. But, as I said before, we had an amazing team and a very reckless studio that wanted to test their own limits to see what was possible, which it turns out, is the only thing you need to make something unique.

Rocha: On our side, we faced numerous challenges during production. But honestly, just having managed to finish it was the real challenge. It’s been a long, tough, and demanding journey that we went through entirely on our own. Reaching the finish line already feels like a huge success to me.

What do you hope audiences take away from the work?

Castillo: I hope people leave this film with a new found respect for the creative process. I think in a time when AI is making us question the place of art and the artist in our society, it is important to be reminded why we make art and why it matters. I hope people look at Goya’s own work, or any other artists in history for that matter, and realize that the artworks that we look at in museums or books took someone a lot of work and a lot of pain to make. It is valuable because it is hard. Art matters because someone makes it and their output allows us to connect with them and, by extension, the larger human experience.
Now, if I look at the question from a less pretentious angle, I hope people see our film and realize the potential of animation. Over the years it feels as if animation has been pigeonholed into telling certain types of stories and I truly believe that we have barely scratched the surface of what animation can do and how it can connect with audiences.

Rocha: As a producer, what I’d love for the audience to feel is our passion for the medium. We’re in love with both animation and cinema. We firmly believe that this art form can be a powerful tool to tell all kinds of stories, not just children’s ones, which I also love. With this film, our intention has always been that, at some point, you forget you’re watching animation and simply feel like you’re watching cinema.

Of course, one of the main reasons that motivated me to join the project was the opportunity to explore Goya’s world, to spark interest in our culture, and to share it beyond our country’s borders.

What are you working on next?

Castillo: I have a few ideas that I want to pursue. I am very interested in what the European market can allow me to make. Building off my last two projects I want to keep blending genre filmmaking and animation and I am developing a couple of projects in that direction. That being said, you never know which door might open next.

Rocha: I can’t share much about the projects we’re currently working on. What I can say is that we’re involved in some truly incredible productions that are literally a dream come true for us! We’re eager to share more, but in this industry everything is highly confidential, and I have absolute respect for the timing and discretion each project requires.

Watch the exclusive new clip from The Quinta’s Ghost below. You can see the previously released teaser trailer here. Visit thequintasghost.com for more information.