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January 2009
One night in early January, as I was scrambling to finish all of the Yuki posters, I was talking to my friend Ada Cole about the book. She did the page layout for our first book and has always been a great friend of Fleet Street. Again wanting to offer her assistance, she mentioned that she would be willing to do page layout and even some writing for the new book. I immediately took her up on the offer, excited to see what she would come up with. Just a few days later she sent me some brilliant articles which included an interview with Kimiko Suzuki (the actress who plays Yuki 7) in the made-up fashion magazine Elan, and a story about Yuki’s meticulously crafted costumes for Danger is a Female. I was sold. Ada and I had some more conversations about how to break the book apart into articles that would tell a behind-the-scenes story in bits and pieces without explicitly spelling it out for the audience. We also delved into the character and motivations of all the big players in the film franchise’s history. As she sent me more articles, I felt like I was getting to know Yuki better and would make artwork specifically to go along with what she was writing. One example is this Sakura Swimwear ad which was inspired by Ada’s idea that Yuki’s costumes might have been mass produced and marketed worldwide after the success of the movies.
During the same time, I was still working with Stephane to finish up the trailer. I had re-thought a number of the rough scenes, fleshed out the characters some more, and was ready to start painting the final elements. The way our process worked, I would paint an entire scene in Photoshop, making sure to keep all the different elements like characters, props, and backgrounds on separate layers so that Stef could animate them in AfterFX. We were pretty familiar with the process, having worked together on two previous projects already. I kept things pretty flat and simple to leave room for Stephane to add as much dynamic lighting and effects to the scenes as he wanted.
Once I handed everything off to him, Stef would animate the elements and also add lights, film grain, depth-of-field, and other effects to bring the scene to life. It was an indescribable pleasure to work with such a phenomenal talent as Stephane, and to see the vibrancy he could add to every moment in the trailer.
We worked simultaneously with an amazing composer named Cyrille Marchesseau who created a score for the trailer based on the latest work that Stef sent him. It was a very international effort to complete the film, with me working in Los Angeles, Stephane in London, and Cyrille in Paris.
February 2009
As the trailer was coming together, I also finished all of the illustrations I had initially planned and proceeded to tackle the page layout. The most important thing to me was to create a nice flow throughout the book, so I grouped all of the artwork into chapters about each movie, presented in chronological order. I did hundreds of rough page mockups in Photoshop over the next month as I tried to establish a consistent look and feel from the beginning of the book to the end. This is a sample of some of the close-to-finished mockups I created for one of the opening page spreads:
Once I had an approved mockup for each page in the book, I handed them off to Ada along with all of the high-res artwork. When she started on the final page layouts in InDesign, we spent a lot of time on the first few pages nailing down the size, color, and spacing of the typefaces, as well as page margins. Once those guidelines were firmly in place we were able to plow through the rest of the book much more quickly. This is an example of a final spread layout:
March 2009
I went through a lot of weeks with very little sleep as we tried to get everything just right. Ada’s husband Dan was an enormous help in converting image files, adding page bleeds, and just being an all-around expert in computer graphics. After sending off the final PDF to the printer, it only took about a week and a half to get the digital proofs back, and it was clear that all of our hard work had paid off. We had only a few minor fixes to make, then I packed up all the proofs and mailed them back to Hong Kong. All that was left now was to wait for the finished books to arrive!
The thing I still can't get over when I look back and reflect on this whole process is how much my friends came through for me. No matter what I needed, whether it was a layout artist, a compositor, an author, or a translator, I always had a friend who was willing and able to do it at the drop of a hat. I can't thank everyone enough who helped make Yuki 7 come to life.
Come back next week on Tuesday, May 26th for the world premiere of the trailer for A Kiss From Tokyo and to get a first glimpse of the finished books! I will actually be seeing them for the first time on Tuesday as well, so we can find out the conclusion to this story together! |
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luisnct
May 22, 2009 - 10:07 AM
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the composed frame looks very cool! |
Chris Battle
May 22, 2009 - 10:42 AM
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This is looking ridiculously cool, Kevin. |
Bill Robinson
May 22, 2009 - 11:39 AM
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Great post Kevin. I am hoping to put together a book sometime in the next year and all this info is very helpful. I may be further picking your brain...can't wait for the trailer and to get my hands on a copy of the book! |
Drake Brodahl
May 22, 2009 - 03:14 PM
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I really enjoy following the process of this book, Kevin. The book is looking fantastic. Thanks for sharing! |
Mike T
May 23, 2009 - 02:55 AM
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Love the layout! The book looks awesome x 10! Can't wait! |
Will Kane
May 24, 2009 - 12:37 AM
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I am breathless with anticipation! |
SHOo
May 24, 2009 - 10:23 PM
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Kevin,
I'm sooooo excited about this book! Thank you so much for those three posts, they are truly inspiring and motivating. It was an immense pleasure to read through all your hard work step by step and incredible to see all the collaboration with those amazing artists-slash-friends. I'm following the blogs of most of them, and it makes me even more dying to see what the result is. Can't wait for tomorrow. No, really! |
Bob L.
May 27, 2009 - 10:50 AM
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You've outdone yourself!
Incredible!
B! |
James Anderson
June 02, 2009 - 04:30 PM
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Wonderful! I can't wait for ComicCon so I can pick one up! By the way, where is Kimiko Suzuki today? |
pete mitchell
June 02, 2009 - 11:21 PM
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this is incredibly inspiring. thank you so much for being so open about the process. i can't wait to pick this book up.
-pete |
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