I was lucky to work with 3D Animator/Director Patrick O’Brien (his feature movie experience proved very helpful) and designer Eddie Pak on the video. It is very important to have a good team when doing large projects like this video in a medium where everything depends on collaboration. Producer Adam Schlossberg, Director of Photography John Sawyer, Colorist Chris Gennarelli, Editor James Mazzulo, Model H.D., and make-up Artist Kim Wayman also worked with us.

We shot the footage on 35mm, edited with Avid. For 3D we used Softimage on SGI and NT. For the graphics and compositing we used After Effects on a Mac G3 and Discreet Logic Inferno* running on an SGI Onyx.

We’d like to ask you about the broadcast design in the US in general. What’s hot now? What are representative companies there?

Broadcast design is booming. The awareness on the part of television networks has risen and there are more designers there to work on the promos. On the whole over the last four years in the US I think that design for television has begun to come into it’s own.

Some big companies such as 3 Ring Circus, Fuel, Imaginary Forces are doing good stuff, 3 Ring did the Showtime relaunch a couple years ago which was quite an accomplishment. Kyle Cooper and Imaginary Forces I think speak for themselves, always doing something interesting. Some smaller companies like Legion of Doom and V12 are making themselves seen. Showtime and MTV have big crews of hot designers in-house as well.

I think broadcast design is at an interesting point right now, I think it is on the verge of something exciting and different developing.

What are you most interested in right now?

Fashion is very interesting to me. The whole idea of it is very ambiguous and flexible, and I find the mood of fashion to be reflecting a need for simplicity and minimalism, yet at the same time there is this craziness in the overdone zippers and tactile feeling of designers like Issy Miyake and the Final Home label. I find it interesting that he has just opened a store in NY with the Liquid Sky music Label, it does make sense in it’s own way mixing music and fashion.

Music. This is a staple of my existence, I am a huge fan of all types of music, especially groove based stuff like Brazilian, Afro Beat, Acid Jazz, and electronica. There several favorite artists, such as United Future Organization, Jazzanova, Frederic Galliano, and more in this area that make my days go by with a smile. Remixing culture is great too, gives you so many variations and interpretations of a song. Refinement of the remix culture is phenomenal. I DJ on the side as well, it’s a good way to explore other creative outlets.

Film. Maybe it’s ironic but I don’t like many movies with tons of effects and explosions, rather I prefer a good story, with plot twists and psychological tension, and good cinematography. Run Lola Run, a German film which came out last summer here, had a good funny take on temporality and postmodern theories on reality while making it entertaining. The original Akira is a classic.

Other favorite directors are Tarkovsky, Bergman, Kubrick, Jarmusch, Jeunet & Caro, Fellini, KarWai, etc.

If you worked outside the US, where would you choose?

I’ve been to Japan several times and I wouldn’t mind doing some work with Japanese firms and artists. In fact there are several Japanese musicians I would like to direct music videos for.

Europe is pretty exciting, especially England where they are doing beautiful design and quite clever advertising. Austria has been creating some good stuff in music and design.

The last question. Do you have any plans for the near future?

Going to Stockholm for vacation next week, totally a random choice, looking forward to good design, funky furniture and strong vodka!

Doing more music videos, and probably start exploring narrative ideas more in depth, seeing how that can work with design concepts. Speaking of remixing I’d also like to play around more with making music and remixes.