Prime Video Mexico bows in the trailer for the expensive series “Every Minute Counts”

Alonso Aguilar, head of Mexico Originals at Amazon Studios, and showrunner/director Jorge Michel Grau treated attendees to the Iberseries & Platino Industria conference in Madrid with a first look at the trailer for “Every Minute Counts,” Prime Video Latin America’s most expensive production to date . (“Cada Minuto Cuenta”).

The new original series, centered on the devastating earthquake that struck Mexico City on September 19, 1985, utilized Unreal Engine virtual screen technology first used in Disney’s The Mandalorian, unprecedented in Mexico or Latin America .

“The technology has been used in smaller productions in Latin America, but not on this scale,” Aguilar said Diversity, They added that they currently have two ongoing projects, a film and a series, in production, which also utilize virtual 3D technology originally developed by ILM and Epic Games.

Pre-production on “Every Minute Counts” took six months and filming took another six months, said Grau (“We Are What We Are”), adding that they used a 200-square-foot space. Canvas (2153 square feet) to recreate the streets and buildings of Mexico in 1985 with exceptional detail.

Starring Osvaldo Benavides, Maya Zapata, Jesús Zavala and Antonio de la Vega, the series offers a gripping account of the critical hours after the earthquake and shows the courage and solidarity of citizens during one of Mexico’s greatest tragedies. With a magnitude of 8.1 on the Richter scale, the earthquake is said to have leveled large parts of the city within 10 seconds.

“However, the story is not about the earthquake; It’s about the people who changed after the earthquake and who decided to become who they are as a result. And that was our goal. Our goal was to tell stories of characters who became better because of the earthquake,” Grau said at the presentation.

Grau went into the technical details, explaining, “We obtained the original plans for each building and the area in which it was constructed and converted those buildings into models.” We had a physical model at 1:24 scale with an accuracy of almost 85% in textures and surfaces. This model was scanned centimeter by centimeter and generated in 3D. So all the buildings already had a 3D volume, and from there we sent it to Unreal, the software used to create video games. There we gave the buildings 100% their final look, based on the original construction plans and photos showing what the buildings looked like after the earthquake.”

“So what you’ll see in the series is not just the building, but the hanging sheets, the windows where the smoke was coming out, and the parked cars – everything is an exact replica of what it was like in 1985. It’s a time machine but told through the eyes of our characters,” he added.

“What we also tell in the series is how the government covered up the tragedy because Mexico was going to host the World Cup in a year and they didn’t want to miss that opportunity,” Aguilar said. Prime Video will release the entire 10 episodes worldwide on November 8th.

“We had a good year,” Aguilar said, pointing to recent Latin standouts “Pimpinero,” “¿Quién lo mató?”, “Nadie nos va a extrañar” and a sequel to “Betty la fea,” “Betty la Fea.” : The story continues.”

Produced by Amazon Studios and Leo Zimbron’s Traziende Films, “Every Minute Counts” Mónica Vargas, Juan Manuel Borbolla and Zimbrón are executive producers.

Grau, Moisés Urquidi and Fernando Urdapilleta directed the series from scripts written by Alfredo Félix-Díaz, Victoria Orvañanos, Natalia Quevedo, Alejandro Valenzuela, Venancio Villalobos and Grau.