Inspiration

In my head i have all these ideas of what i want my piece to look like and i'm still searching for new ideas. i looked back at a few things from other artists that i saw in the past and felt were really awesome. I found Kevin Dart's trailer for the fictional Yuki 7 movie "A Kiss From Tokyo" and thought that the use of camera and film grain was really dope. i also looked back at the film Tekkon Kinkreet and looked at its use of 3D environments that resemble the vanishing point as well as its bizarre plot. Examples after the jump...


In the summer of 2009, one of my favorite illustrators, Kevin Dart, rolled out his Yuki 7 campaign centering around a trailer for a series of 1960's espionage films that doesn't actually exist. Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 is the book that builds an entire world around the Yuki 7 character including movie posters, storyboards, and even information on the fictional actress that plays Agent Yuki. The trailer serves to authenticate this world Dart has created.

Dart fashioned together a ragtag team of his friends in order to make his concept a reality. Two of which, animator Stephane Coedel and composer Cyrille Marchesseau, helped him get his trailer together. All the work was done using After Effects. Coedel composed the film using layered illustrations from Dart and put them together based on her memories of old movies from the era, specifically the imperfections.

i find a lot of things pretty interesting about this movie: the characters are bright and designed very well, the music is enriched and very authentic, but most of all, the way the camera and layering was filtered makes it really look like it was from 1964. i really want my films to have interesting depth of field and focus tricks and feel that this trailer is an example of my intention.

Art Of The Title gives us a rundown with the makers of the trailer from pre-production to post.


After working with the vanishing point, i thought back to one of my favorite movies that i remember being immensely impressed with a few years ago. Tekkonkinkreet is a story about two orphaned street urchins, the rough and tough Black and innocent White. Together they are know as the Cats and must fight the Yakuza from taking over Treasure Town. Tekkonkinkreet is a play on Japanese words meaning "a concrete structure with an iron frame," and it suggests the opposing images of concrete cities against the strength of imagination.

The story takes on many themes. The names Black and White aren't just a description of personality, but tell the audience what kind of force the character symbolizes in the movie. This becomes apparent when the boys are separated by the police: White becomes lonely and begins to sink in to depression while Black becomes darker and more violent. Its also interesting how the groups of characters symbolize an animal and the interactions between these groups is somewhat based on the animalistic relationships.

The opening sequence for the movie sets the stage quickly and successfully. The crow flying through the congested city is visually stunning and gives the city a distinctive character.

PingMag.jp writes a fantastic article on how director Michael Arias turned Taiyo Matsumoto’s masterpiece into such an outstanding film.
Art of The Title gives us a bit of audio from the DVD commentary on the scene.