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Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family 'Low Life' by JAKARNO

Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family 'Low Life' by JAKARNO

David Knight - 5th Feb 2015

Directors Jack Antoine Charlot and Arnaud Delord came together for the first time as JAKARNO to make this brilliantly executed video for Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family's Low Life, which tells the amusing rise-and-fall story of a late 70s rock ‘n’ roll icon - convincingly played by the model Alex Wetter - through lovingly created pastiches of classic magazines. Not just covers, but double-page article spreads too.

Arnaud has worked with David Sztanke (aka Tahiti Boy) before, and knew he was open to original concepts. He and Jack had wanted to work together for some time, and Jack came up with the concept while flicking through his girlfriend’s magazines at the beach, and the pair then began their research.

“We started with a collection of pretty much all the magazine covers created since the invention of the printing press. We came across some seriously awesome things – it’s actually an art form of its own,” say the directors, who opted for a mythical persona inspired by the likes of Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop and David Bowie for their protagonist. Then they shot all 15 covers, requiring different lighting set-ups, wardrobe and makeup, in a single day. This mammoth task required precision planning - so they also created a detailed 2D animatic as well as mock-ups for each magazine ‘cover’ before the shoot.

“Our main reference was definitely Bowie because of his androgynous side, which is mirrored in the work of Alex Wetter, our main actor," continue Jack and Arnaud. "We were also inspired by gifs, which felt like the ideal approach towards giving life to the photos of our star.

“Passion Paris believed in this project and invested a lot of time and energy in it. They worked really hard to find the right people for this shoot, so in the end we didn’t have to compromise on anything and our crew was incredibly talented and very motivated.

“We knew we wouldn’t be able to improvise on set or be able to shoot from several different camera angles. It’s a film that was mostly determined during the storyboard stage, in some ways like an animation film. If we hadn’t been so well prepared at the beginning of the project, the whole thing would likely have been a crappy Vine video."

Jack and Arnaud add that their very different backgrounds worked to their advantage - they complemented each other. "We had both already done live-action, CG and 2D animation, so without thinking we mixed together all of those mediums in this video and it seems to work quite well.” So the JAKARNO partnership looks like it's here to stay - while they will also continue to work on solo projects.

 

Watch 'Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family 'Low Life' by JAKARNO' here

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David Knight - 5th Feb 2015

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  • Art
  • Behind the scenes
  • Director's notes
  • Mature - NSFW
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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
JAKARNO
Production Company
Passion Paris
Executive Producer
Marion Vermogen
Production Coordinator
Méline Samson

Camera

Director of Photography
Kaname Onoyama
Focus Puller
Johan Leclaire Bottareli

Lighting/Grip

Gaffer
Kevin Ramalo

Wardrobe

Stylist
Maud Dupuy
Hair
Antoine Mancini
Make-up
Fabrice Pinet

Casting

Lead actor
Alex Wetter

Editorial

Editor
JAKARNO

Grading

Colourist
Julien Bodard

VFX

Post production company
Passion Paris
Post production company
Digital District

Misc

Line Producer
Delphine Tardieu
Props
Yann De Bernardi

Other credits

Post Producer

Jérémie Bonnouvrier, Francois Schmidt (DD),

Post Production Coordinator

Emile Chaillou (Passion Paris), Elsa Jegou (DD)

David Knight - 5th Feb 2015

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