Kelly Nakamura
Kelly Nakamura
Illustrator | Designer

Cody Fry : Slowed & Reverb

The musician Cody Fry approached IV Studio to create a couple of music videos for his songs. The songs were Eleanor Rigby and I Hear a Symphony. He wanted an anime feel, meaning beautifully painted backgrounds with a Miyazaki-esqe version of himself. I had the opportunity to create the character designs and character layouts for both of the videos.

Eleanor Rigby

 

I Hear a Symphony

 

Visual Development

Cody wanted his character to look anime-esque, this was a contemporary take on it. Cody narrowed the vision to a more Miyazaki style. I also took influence from Cowboy Bebop to capture that more serious look. Also, there are some outfit explorations.

 

Credits

Producer: Rachel Loven
Creative Director: Nayt Cochran
Art Director: Michael Cribbs
Illustration: Michael Cribbs and Kelly Nakamura
Animation: Michael Cribbs and Nayt Cochran

 

Cody Fry : What If

IV Studio was tasked to produce a music video for Cody Fry’s What if. Nayt, the director, wanted to apply what we did in the Logitech RingCentral video to this one. We wanted to bring back that dream-like feeling. My job was to create the look development of the butterflies and create the background illustration. Since the illustration was going to be projected on a huge screen, it was easier to make it in vector and it was my task to copy exactly what I drew in Photoshop to Illustrator.

 

Visual Development

 

Originally, we were thinking of using more realistic looking butterflies with a touch of magic.

 

Cody came back and he wanted the butterflies to look more 2D and fantastical. These are the final set of butterflies.

 

Animation test done by Lennon Valinhas

 

The inspiration for the background was the artist Eyvind Earle and Disney’s Fantasia. The first image was done in Adobe Illustrator. The second image was the final key frame, done in Photoshop. The challenge for this project was how to translate the final key frame, into vector. The last image was the final illustration before it was handed to animation for the final effects.

 

IV had to build the set as well, so I created a concept drawing for it.

 

Animation Credits

Producer: Rachel Loven
Director: Nayt Cochran
Storyboards: Michael Cribbs
Illustration: Kelly Nakamura
Animation: Lennon Valinhas and Nayt Cochran

 
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