Category Archives: Shadowlight Productions

May 2, 2013 — Collaborating With Shadow Creatives

I knew when I saw the stun­ning shad­ow visu­als designer/animator Chris Do did for a GAP cam­paign that I want­ed to use the same tech­nique for FINDING KUKAN.  I envi­sioned Do’s ani­ma­tion being brought to the genius shad­ow scenes that Lar­ry Reed devel­ops for Shad­ow­Light Pro­duc­tions as the per­fect way of car­ry­ing the emo­tion of espe­cial­ly inti­mate or har­row­ing scenes in the dra­mat­ic nar­ra­tive of Li Ling-Ai and Rey Scot­t’s lives.

 

 

So it was thrilling to have both Chris Do and Lar­ry Reed in the same room with me today in San­ta Mon­i­ca at Chris Do’s BLIND design stu­dio office space.  Lar­ry joined us by SKYPE and con­fer­ence call from San Fran­cis­co (SKYPE can drop out on you when band­width is scarce).

Chris Do and Robin Lung SKYPE Larry Reed from the BLIND offices in Santa Monica

Chris Do and Robin Lung SKYPE Lar­ry Reed from the BLIND offices in San­ta Monica

After our meet­ing I real­ized that I had found two cre­ative genius­es who were also prac­ti­cal pro­duc­ers with years of expe­ri­ence in how to ACTUALIZE a visu­al idea.  The prag­mat­ic, step-by-step path to bring­ing a new way of visu­al sto­ry­telling to the screen in FINDING KUKAN, just got a whole lot clear­er thanks to Lar­ry & Chris.

Chris Do helps Robin Lung lay out a plan of action for creating FINDING KUKAN's shadow scenes.

Chris Do helps Robin Lung lay out a plan of action for cre­at­ing FINDING KUKAN’s shad­ow scenes.

 

I invite you to check out their work HERE and HERE.  If you are as wowed by it as I was, please con­sid­er con­tribut­ing to the col­lab­o­ra­tion process at our Post-Pro­duc­tion GIFT REGISTRY.  If you have any cool shad­ow ideas or images you think would work well in the film, please post on our Face­book page at http://www.facebook.com/kukandocumentary and write “Shad­ow Idea” in the com­ments sec­tion (and don’t for­get to LIKE us while you’re at it)!

 

Leave a comment

May 5, 2012 — The Enchanting World of ShadowLight

I’ve always been entranced by shad­ows — the mag­i­cal play of light on the walls in the morn­ing and eerie shapes that your own body throws as you walk on the beach or sidewalk.

Nobuyuki Taguchi photograph

Lon­don Street by Nobuyu­ki Taguchi

I was­n’t aware that there was a tra­di­tion­al form of shad­ow pup­petry per­formed through­out Asia until I saw the Zhang Yimou movie TO LIVE in which one of the main char­ac­ters is a shad­ow mas­ter (this is a great film BTW).

 

Photo of Chinese shadow figures

Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese shad­ow play figures

DVD Poster for TO LIVE

Zhang Yimou’s TO LIVE

The shad­ow pup­pet scenes were so hyp­no­tiz­ing that when I was strug­gling with how to visu­al­ize epic his­toric scenes in FINDING KUKAN in an eco­nom­i­cal way, the idea of using shad­ow pup­pets came up for me. I start­ed hunt­ing on the web for peo­ple who per­formed shad­ow pup­petry, and when I came across Lar­ry Reed & Shad­ow­light Pro­duc­tions’ THE WILD PARTY, I was real­ly blown away.

This was not the land of your grand­moth­er’s shad­ow pup­pets any­more. Live actors, con­tem­po­rary scenes, and shift­ing per­spec­tive lent a new dynamism to the pro­duc­tion that I instinc­tive­ly felt would be per­fect for what I want­ed to do in FINDING KUKAN.

photo of Larry Reed

Shad­ow mas­ter Lar­ry Reed

Hap­pi­ly Lar­ry was excit­ed about my project and has agreed to col­lab­o­rate with me on FINDING KUKAN. Lar­ry Reed is tru­ly a shad­ow mas­ter, hav­ing stud­ied and per­formed tra­di­tion­al Bali­nese shad­ow pup­petry for over 35 years. In the ear­ly 1990’s, Reed invent­ed an inge­nious shad­ow cast­ing method, which inte­grates the tra­di­tion­al shad­ow the­atre tech­niques, cin­e­mat­ic effects and mod­ern the­atre and dance styles. Watch for a sam­ple of Shad­ow­light’s inno­v­a­tive work from THE GOOD-FOR-NOTHING LOVER in the new FINDING KUKAN teas­er that will pre­miere next week.

Have ideas for cool ways of using shad­ows?  Please let me hear from you.

2 Comments