Loli Benlloch | Valencia, Feb 4 (EFE) Prieto, who plays a cartoonist, about the catharsis that is experienced when creating a work.
After two decades as a professional illustrator, the appearance of her drawings in the television series starring Milena Smith and José Coronado has given visibility to her work, which she explains to EFE lives with “personal pride”, but also means “valuing” a profession in which when he started in 2004 he had to explain what it consisted of.
In Zurita’s studio (València, 1976) almost all the pictures that in this audiovisual production decorate the house of the parents of the disappeared girl, around which the plot revolves, as well as the cover of the story that her father creates. in the series, with the little girl in a yellow raincoat and rabbit mask.
It all started with a call
And how did Zurita’s drawings end up in a Netflix series? Well, “a little bit by luck and another by knowing the right person,” he explains while recalling that a year or so ago he received a call from a friend who has a props company and works for the cinema, who told him that he needed the job. of an illustrator.
“And since you don’t have to say no to friends, without knowing what it was or anything, I told them it was worth it,” says the Valencian illustrator with a laugh, who was unaware of the scale of the project at the time.
I didn’t know it was a series for Netflix, or that it was an adaptation of a best-selling book by Javier Castillo, or what the cast was.
The first thing he told him was that one of the roles was that of a cartoonist, Álvaro (played by Raúl Prieto), and they needed to know what an illustrator’s studio is like, so he sent him photos of his. Then he asked her for illustrations to decorate the work corner and the house of this character on set, for which he sent him 30 sheets.
The next thing he knew is that this audiovisual was based on the novel ‘The Snow Girl’ -which he had not yet read and ran to look for it- and that in the series, to deal with the mourning of his daughter’s disappearance, the cartoonist illustrates a story, for which Zurita was asked to draw the cover.
The sequence in which the father creates that image is the favorite of the illustrator, who spoke by videoconference with the actor -whom she says is “quite fluent” in drawing- to explain how a moment like this lives: “Suddenly it comes to you the idea and your way of drawing have to change, be more energetic». And she believes that she reflected it that way.
A snowball
Zurita, who in addition to working on textbooks has illustrated thirty stories, some of them published in the United States, France or even Jordan, confesses that his first foray into the audiovisual world “has been like a kind of snowball.” that he has been growing and that he still lives with “disbelief”.
Being able to contact the director of the series, with one of the scriptwriters and even with the author of the book has been a way of seeing herself “immersed” in the process, even if it was “sideways”, and she is grateful that a Spanish production company has thought in a Spanish illustrator.
He admits that thinking that, for example, in Argentina, one of the countries where the series has been number one in audience, someone may be watching his work not because they buy the books he illustrates, but because they are watching “the fashion series” and in it her work appears, it leaves her “a bit flabbergasted.”
Zurita assures that many people have written to him to tell him that they have recognized his illustrations while watching the series and affirms that, as a fan of cinema, he would love to continue participating in series, although it is “complicated”, since his is a “very limited” profession. », and more in his case, since he is specialized in the children’s field. EFE