Armando Bo claims that he’s a graduate of the University of Working. Sound conceivable? Before you rush to Google a non-existent institute of higher learning, first consider the source: Bo is a master of making the unbelievable believable.

His filmic sleights-of-hand are responsible for making a paramour’s beating heart destroy a resort (Axe “Quake”), a hookup at the bottom of the ocean (Impulse “Seaweeds”) and the friendship between a man and his fishdog seem like the most natural things in the world.

But like many seemingly easy endeavors, Bo’s are actually anything but. Of his approach, the Buenos Aires-native, who is repped by Rebolucion worldwide, Anonymous Content for the US and Independent in the UK says modestly, “I just try to do what I think is right for the story and the commercial.” But his decision making reveals a director who takes pains to strike the right balance between the tone of the story and the demands of its technical elements.

Even if that means, paradoxically, forgetting whole parts of it. For VW “Fishdog”, Bo succeeded in making the titular animal hybrid endearing by chucking the central idea of a half-fish, half-dog completely to the side.

“I really forgot about the fishdog at the beginning and just thought about how to make the relationship between [fishdog and his owner] more emotional,” says Bo. “Of course, when we (Bo worked with Bitt Animation) designed the fishdog, we tried not to develop a monster. That’s why we didn’t give him more teeth for example. The situations helped too: he really looks like [man’s] best friend while playing on the beach with his partner. I think the tone worked really well, and a nice, weird friend was created.”

In Impulse “Seaweeds”, a smitten guy presents the object of his affection with a bouquet of seaweeds. The challenge for Bo was filming its underwater environment while retaining the narrative.

“We shot in the only underwater studio in Buenos Aires,” explains Bo. “It is 10 x 10 meters, and two meters deep: really small. It was difficult to design the shots and tell the story underwater because we had so many issues to take care of. For example the quality of the water: we only could do wide shots in the first two hours each day.”

The difficulties were compounded by the fact that the actors had to perform while holding their breath. “The actors spent 20 minutes under water,” he says. “They inhaled air at the beginning of the shot and when we finished we had someone there to give them more air. It was really dangerous.”

Dangerous it may have been, but if it’s challenging and has its own flavor, Bo won’t hesitate to dive in head first.

“[I look for] good ideas that have something different,” he says. “I try not to always do the same kind of work, which is difficult when you work too much. But that’s the ideal – each job must have its own personality.”

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