Revelations behind an objective with ITABO´s brand

By Darelia Díaz Borrero.

Translated by Amauris Betancourt Gómez.

He was nearly 9 years old when his father, journalist and fond of photography, gave him away his first camera. Ever since, Yanosky Rondón started off a relationship with that art turned into a sense for his life.

Yanosky Rondón. Production and Photography Director

His passion was born in the 90s, when he ended up the Military Service, and his interest on TV grew bigger. A few years later he registered in a very useful audiovisual photography workshop that would allow him to become a cameraman for the local TV station in the province of Granma.

The small screen has been the means par excellence to express himself. In over two decades of complicity at the CNC TV, Yanosky has taken part in press coverages of important moments of the province, and he has compiled, in images, passages of the Cuban nationality, as well as of Honduras, where he worked as a graphic reporter for Cuban TV in 2000.

According to what he tells, all he has done, professionally speaking, has paved his way for ITABO Producciones, an audiovisual project inaugurated about a year ago which has become one of his most cherished dreams.

You were the person in charge of joining ITABO Producciones´ pieces.  What did you consider to make up the team?

“The local TV station count on a lot of people with talent but `chemistry´ doesn´t turn out always well among the artistic staff, the technical one and the management. I directed for many years the Production and Technique department, and being able to make them get along with each other was a difficult job. Then I began suggesting to Katiuska Leon, the one I started the project with, those that could be part of the group we were dreaming about. We looked, above all, for colleagues with talent for whom working in team could be easy, something very hard to achieve in the audiovisual world because of multiple factors”.

Photography is a popular art: taking a picture doesn´t make you a photographer just as knowing how to write doesn´t make you a writer. How difficult is this audiovisual specialty?

“Photography´s main attribute is its documentary character. A fact is documented when you record it, and that peculiarity makes people think that it is simple to take a picture, but art and intention have to be added up. There, precisely, comes into the spot esthetic and technical concepts for the sake of art and communication. Composition and framing are vital as well as illumination and visual equilibrium, among other aspects, that give it the artistic and creative touch. I respect always documentary rules to stick to reality, and then I begin to create and mix aesthetics and technique.

The nowadays existing modern media devices allow filming to document life´s important moments. You find them in the market with practical pre-established programs that turn out unfavorably for creation. That doesn´t mean that there are no creative people. But artists conceive images previously in tune with a concept to bring about interpretations, visual pleasure, or to convey feelings”.

Do ITABO´s clients´ requests take for granted peculiar requirements from the photographic point of view?

“I like assuming professionally and earnestly customers´ budget because it is very difficult for some companies to invest in communication. In fact, that is always the last thing it is done, being this so important to achieve goals. That is why, I do my best to put in every single frame the quality all customers deserve, and that ITABO guarantees in each audiovisual production. Satisfaction is a must to please and demonstrate the assertiveness to invest in communication.

Clients are very demanding in these days full of varied graphic contents and of different audiovisual genres that come together in Internet. In that context, though unconsciously, a lot of knowledge, information and aesthetic criteria are acquired. People get a good eye by watching many high-quality national and foreign TV productions. Now customers have many options and patterns for comparisons”.

Open planes contextualize while closed ones emphasize details. Which one do you prefer for ITABO´s productions?

“I feel influenced by Arturo Montoto’s visual art. He is a recognized Cuban painter I came in touch with thanks to my daughter who is very fond of his paintings. He depicts in some of them Havana’s columns, and he always includes a small element -a banana, an apple or any other fruit- in the forefront as a recurrent theme in his work. He shows indeed a splendid treatment of light, volume and visual depth of field. He uses something small in the foreground, and a context in the background. I love very much doing that when shooting for ITABO. I get almost always at first an element detail, to which hardly anyone pays attention to generally speaking, and in the back, I use a wider background with the surrounding.

The main purpose is to adjust photography to our times, where people spend more hours in front of a handy than of a TV set; therefore, the act of photography has to change. You lose a lot of graphic information in wider or open planes. You have to imagine that the customer is not going to be behind a big display, but behind a small handy display 5 or 6 inches big. Photography must adjust to those small details in the foreground, not to overwhelm beyond what we want to show”.

Which are ITABO´s graphic esthetic guidelines?

“ITABO pursuits the harmony of photography in all its aspects with the sound, script, edition and the general work conception. The project´s key is the confluence of all specialties complementing each other. ITABO´s purpose is for postproduction to be the finishing point and that goes hand in hand and very faithful to specialists and producers' intentions”.

What can it be taken for granted with ITABO when it comes to photography?

“Clients have an idea, mostly well-conceived, that almost always is technically right in their terms, but in respect to communication they are generally unsuited. ITABO tries persuading by matching up their purposes with ours. There are experiences of clients' conceptions and desires that sometimes collide in terms of audio-visual communication, and that goes against publicity. We insist they should have an identity manual for us to work with those guidelines which is a better road.

It happens too that some factories and companies are well over 60 years old and structurally they are far from being attractive from a visual point of view. Then we talk customers into finding visuality using a product and not its context. It is all about respecting clients’ desires, but from ITABO´s point of view, with a targeted, well-conceived communication strategy”.

When you film, what do you pursuit?  What wouldn´t you overlooked?

“I like chatting up with clients before beginning to shoot to get to know their expectations. It happens at times that they have references of a previous work or of any other done to another company, province or place. I try to discover what ideas they feel attracted for and I make it mine too to carry the shooting out. I try that photography stays accurate to customer's feeling, and that is sometimes difficult. When I shoot, I looked for their reactions, to see if they like it or not. If the do, I use it as incentive and compass”.

Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

“Being a perfectionist for me is no laughing matter. I am when I shoot; I am well aware and responsible with my job because customers expect a result in agreement with their investment. And to carry it out, I turn to several technical and aesthetic elements -most of them unknown to clients- to reach the expected quality and satisfaction. I am very critical to my work. I demand a lot of myself and I feel unwell when things go wrong technically or when they lack quality”.

The biggest photographic challenge as part of ITABO productions?

“Despite having had a good school in the CNC TV, I always wanted ITABO´s assignments to look different to those. That is indeed achieving a more artistic realization, more communicative, way far from the informative CN CTV influences. The lack of time to make some to devote to myself to watch what is done outside Cuba and at the capital of the country to adapt that to clients´ expectations”.

Technique tells ITABO´s proposals apart. How important are last generation technologies as, for example, the 4k format camera?  How do they complement visuality?

“One of the most world famous and most reproduced photos is the one Alberto Korda took to Che Guevara. That picture was done with a malfunctioning camera and a defective objective. The photo is not the equipment, it is the creator´s work. But nowadays, quality and resolution are vital. Being technically updated is an advantage for the creator and for the group. There are, as a matter of fact, specialized clients who have gathered information about it and the first thing they ask is if you have a drone or under-water camera.

ITABO bets on last generation technology: HD, 4K and underwater video cameras, drones, wireless and attachable microphones, tripods, lights and osmo. We are loaded technologically because if something makes the group stand out is the technical and professional quality to back up audiovisual products”.

Do you take part in other creative moments during the process?

“I never get rid of it. Actually, we all help in the creation process which allows to feed us back constantly. I love today´s digital-times world concept that photography ends up in the post-production stage without putting away makeup, illumination, scenography, among others. It all begins very early, with the scriptwriting, and finishes up late in the post-production process with the visual effects and the photographic touching-up”.

What does ITABO mean to you?

“Sometimes it seems to me that since the camera was given away to me 9 years ago, I was being prepared for ITABO, that I was being born for ITABO.  All I have done in my life and that I have longed for, rounds out now in this amazing and lovely project”.

From his very heart, the way a person can speak of something very dear to him, Yanosky tells this testimony of a photoaholic, a passion beyond the boundaries of colors, forms, illumination and angles that has become his life story.

Of few words though seemly outgoing, this “pal” turned into an entrepreneur loves reading and sees himself as a cameraman that gives life everyday a smile as a present, although life itself puts him on difficult trials.

“Yano”, as he is known by close-friends, likes visiting friends often without an apparent motive, and devotes daily time out of his work to meditate, a practice that, he admits, allows him erasing his mental linen to be able to paint it next day with new and better imagery.

There is no bigger delight for him than to capture that magic of everyday life´s beautiful moments as well as being able to record a small-time slide. This is a possibility born in the audiovisual photo world that, thanks to this project, it has multiply with ITABO´s brand.

 

A sea filled with longings at ITABO´s safe port

By Darelia Díaz Borrero.

Translated by Amauris Betancourt Gómez.

Alex Gainza. Art and Postproduction Director

He ran onto the audiovisual world by mere chance, because he always felt most attracted by sailoring. He even got to set sails on oceans after graduating as an energy naval engineer. But life´s waves took him to graphic production on the small screen. Then he became a TV-editor, a specialty that turned a love relationship for 15 years already.

Alex Gainza Morales -a man of few but accurate words, a difficult interviewee- doesn´t like talking about himself. He prefers rather his work to speak for him. His audiovisual work has been intense and fruitful since he became a special effect and graphic designer for Cuba´s didactic TV channel “Canal educativo” in 2004. He went on and became, three years later, a news program editor at CNC TV, the local TV station in the province of Granma, where he still works.

This editor, for about a year now, besides his work responsibilities with the aforementioned local channel, devotes himself too to ITABO Producciones (IPs), an audiovisual project that has allowed him to give free reins to his ideas and longings as a creator.

“When one devotes himself to creation, a given inconformity keeps you always company because you think you haven´t reached enough. That’s why you look for other ways to please your thirst of self-realization. I run into IPs precisely in that quest, or somehow rather when, by coincidence, other members of the forming group asked me to join in.  It happens to come into being in the very moment that the country begins to regulate this type of self-employed initiative. I liked the idea and I decided taking part on it, motivated by expectations and by the people that eventually would make up the team”.

He puts it this way how he became a member. Gainza, with a degree in Social Communication too, runs ITABO´s Art Direction and Postproduction, a project which is already bearing fruits.

How would you define ITABO´s esthetic guidelines?

“ITABO focused first on advertisement, in a rather formal production, without overlooking TV or video-filming codes. The project defines very well the creative work outlines from the most recent recreating trends of our reality including too more artistic audiovisual genres. In fact, we have already produced some video- clips with good public acceptance”.

What elements did you take into account to design ITABO´s logo?

“ITABO´s visual identity was a collective work: It took several days as well as contributions from every team member. We wanted to find a name linked to our roots, defining our goals and that could clearly reveal where we were from. Looking for that combination, “Itabo” sounded perfect: a “land surrounded by water”, a word of Arawak origin presumably. The term seemed appropriate to us and then the visual part started off”.

“AGHATA was the font used, a typography with less symmetric features and not that straight, rather rustic in order to go with the word source used to name ITABO after. The spiral has to do with a symbol of ancient cultures, a figure to describe life cycle: birth, death and rebirth. The sun used to be represented like a spiral too since it is born in the morning, dies in the evening and is reborn on the following day. Another meaning taken into consideration was the sense of stamina, growth and positiveness.  The construction of this symbol per se denotes increasing sequence because there is no stop in the very center, and right there the eye figure to suggest that everything turns around visuality”.

What does it mean to you professionally to belong in a project like this?

“I feel lucky to be able to do what I enjoy the most; that comes first. And this project keeps me busy most of the day since work is not a thing of working hours by itself; it is rather part of the day and night. It happens to me that when I ride my bicycle, I think at the same time about how I can solve some production challenges. The forms and movements out of every composition take some sleep away from me. Logically, the whole thing pushes you constantly to study the new know-how trends and to be updated about the latest software. I tell you for sure that that is really very enriching”.

Is the creative process difficult?

“It is no less beautiful as it is complicated. Many factors attend the process of creation in the same way it is affected by quite a lot more. You need time to consider how the goal will be achieved and how you can make it at the same time attractive. You have to keep a cool mind when working hard which is difficult; that´s why assignments are to be done as a team where everybody contributes out of his or her experience and vision about the topic”.

Do you assume edition and postproduction as a unipersonal process?

“No at all, the fact I put my fingers on the post-production technology doesn´t mean I do the whole thing. I repeat myself: it is all a team work; everybody has to take part in every production stage, in the same way others do, I do it too.

You have specialized in editing, but you have also played a cameraman's role.  How do you define yourself, an editor or a jack-of-all-trade when it comes to photography and editing? That is versatile.

“Undeniably, editing helps get a wider and more extensive vision in comparison with other TV specialties. They all end up there, to give the work its finishing touch. However, my specialty is edition and the rest I do, I just follow pieces of advice from specialists in the matter. At ITABO Producciones we have done a piece of everything for work to flow efficiently. I would say I am not the only Jack-of-all-trade. We all are”.

Which has been your favorite assignment for ITABO so far, the one that makes you proud?

“I enjoy all of them, but there is always a favorite. I fall in love with every one of them but each one leaves always a sense of nonconformity because something specific could be better. This happens to me constantly; however, there is one I remember very well and it is the one I felt the most satisfied with. It was CALISUR's corporate video. It was a challenge because we were really pressed on time and there were a lot of complicated graphic compositions. We made it though, above all difficulties”.

Which is, in your opinion, ITABO´s brand?

“ITABO Producciones stands out, above all, for seriousness in each engagement, and for respect to all customers. We take into account clients´ vision or conception about a product as well as ours to make both ends meet. We have been able to keep an aesthetic line that identifies us in every one of our productions. Something else achieved -and I believe it has to do with our results- is unity among team members. We trust each other. We like each other and defend ourselves as a family”.

ITABO bets on updated technique in audiovisual production.  What does it mean working with front-line technology like 4k format?

“I believe being updated is vital to meet the ever-growing clients´ requirements. ITABO has the challenge to keep up to it. The audiovisual world depends heavily on technological development. That´s why we try to use the latest hardware and software whenever we can. As everybody knows that turns out very difficult in Cuba for many reasons. But we take it over as a challenge to go forward and to make the most of it with a creative solution to problems”.

As an editor how do you keep faithful to ITABO´s slogan “Your identity in images”?

“This has to do with respect to every client’s identity, with sticking to vision and structure from beginning to end to reach harmony in keeping with our identity. That demands creativity and constant study as well as intellectual training”.

Out of the different ITABO´s products (institutional videos, promotional spots, TV programs...). Which one do you enjoy the most as a creator?

“Let me tell you that you leave some of them out. We have had the opportunity to do other audiovisual and media genres. But I confess, -and I hope this won´t get me in trouble with the team (he laughed) because everybody has favorites- I enjoy spots the most. Spots aim at synthesizing communicative objectives in a very short time on the screen and achieving it in a creative way without giving in to the temptation of overwhelming with dissociative elements for the sake of the message. It must get full attention from beginning to end”.

A tireless awareness for knowledge and know-how moves this restless producer who is deeply in love with edition. Ideas rush in his mind in a crazy race against the clock that he would need days with over 24 hours to give them the right place, to shape them, and above all, to turn them into an audiovisual product.

A coffee addict and baseball fan, he loves reading too as well as listening to music and, of course, watching Discovery channel documentaries. Gainza likes being direct because he prefers to reach ideas´ core boldly. He always thinks that works could be better. Perhaps that quest for perfection that lives in him, a “Gainza's blessed habit”, paves the way for his creativity to back up ITABO´s brand.