SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — Bob Spit - We Do Not Like People is a stop-motion film from Brazilian director Cesar Cabral. The 90-minute feature was produced by Coala Filmes and mixes documentary, comedy and road-movie genres to tell the story of Bob Spit, an old punk who’s trying to escape from a post-apocalyptic desert. The wasteland is is actually a purgatory inside the mind of his creator, Angeli, a cartoonist going through a creative crisis.
The story was inspired by the life and work of celebrated Brazilian cartoonist Angeli, who became famous in the ‘70s by releasing political cartoons in the midst of Brazil’s military dictatorship. In the ‘80s, he migrated to daily strips, showing an acid sense of humor to represent Brazil’s society, day-to-day life and customs. Angeli had editorial success with his monthly magazine “Chiclete com Banana”, which sold over 120 thousand copies per edition. During his time, the cartoonist created a number of popular characters, including the bohemian diva Rê Bordosa, the hippie pair Wood & Stock, and the punk Bob Spit.
"I think the most challenging production process in Bob Spit was a scene that we gently name ‘PsicoTrip,’” explains Cabral. “It’s a mix of strata-cut animation, inspired by David Daniels’ work with a slit-scan, created by Douglas Trumbull for 2001 - A Space Odyssey. To have a understanding about the process, we produced this animation slicing a roll of multicolor plasticine mixed with glitter, each slice was shot and transferred to a 4K monitor where we shot another picture in a long exposure stop-motion travelling that ‘blurred’ each image and create an animation ‘melted’ sequence. The exposure [was] almost one-minute long.”
Another challenge faced in post production came from all the exterior scenes.
“It was clear to me that the final result should represent a stop-motion universe look, and even in the desert where the characters live, in order to create these matte-paintings, we handcrafted the main objects (buildings, mountains, vehicles, etc.) and shot them in turn-around with three differnt cameras angles,” Cabral explains. “Then we used this footage to produce digital stills and animated backgrounds."
Bob Spit - We Do Not Like People opened at the Laemmle Noho Theater on December 15, 2021.