H: You’ve done some amazing music videos for bands like Jet and Gnarls Barkley. Do you have a particular way you like to work with bands and artists?

C: When we’re directing, whether it be for a music video or commercial, the approach is always to find out what the central message or idea is. Sometimes it’s explicit and written in a brief, while at times, it’s left completely up to us. In the case of music videos, we try to discover the meaning and inspiration behind the song, lyrics and the band. We do this by asking lots of questions and spending time to learn about the artist/music before putting pencil to paper (or pixel to screen).

H: I understand that you teach at both Otis College of Art and Design and Art Center in Pasadena. Does teaching and interacting with young designers have any influence on your own work?

C: I’m not directly influenced by the work being produced in class. However, I’m inspired by the passion, enthusiasm and resourcefulness of my students. Their outlook is always fresh and full of curiosity. Instead of asking, “why,” they ask, “why not?” It’s in this spirit that I’ve learned the most. It’ll sound like a cliché, but I wonder who is learning from whom.

H: What other art forms influence your work?

C: Comic books, urban art, cinema, architecture, interior design, low/high brow art, and photography.

H: That Gap: Sound Of Color video you did with The Raveonettes was remarkable. How was that done?

C: The challenge was to “get people to think about color differently”, and in our case, to think about black and white differently. I wanted to go beyond representing black and white as a purely formal and chromatic representation. Rather, the idea of representing black and white as opposites within themes like: love/hate, attraction/repulsion, day/night, predator/prey intrigued me. Additionally, we chose to use shadow puppets as a storytelling platform because the use of light and shadow to define characters seemed ideally suited for black and white.

Though we ultimately composited everything in After Effects, we didn’t want to lose the look and charm of the olds-school, puppet theater. We did this by framing shots where the puppeteer’s hand, rigs and quirks were deliberately left in frame.

H: Your company, Blind, often approaches projects as a team. Are you willing to share this process?

C: We have a talented and eclectic group of storytellers, image-makers and serial dreamers, with varied educational backgrounds and ethnicities. More often than not, we work as a design collective, switching hats to solve problems as they arise. As such, sometimes, the twenty something intern is the person that comes up with the best idea. The way I see it, the client deserves nothing less.

H: Are there any Blind projects that stand out for you?

C: Oddly enough, most of the projects that are done on budgetary and scheduling constraints tend to turn out the best. I think this is because the process requires our clients to have a great deal of trust and faith in us. There isn’t room for second-guessing or making decisions by committee. The benefit is, we wind up spending most of our energy behind the work as opposed to dealing with client notes.

H: What new changes in the industry do you find most exciting. Where do you see things going in motion/graphics/animation production?

C: Designers are asked to participate more and more in the creative process. We’re able to leverage our knowledge of design, animation and visual effects with that of live-action to create spots that would have been traditionally handled by several studios. Our clients benefit because not only are we able to deliver on a TV spot soup to nuts, we’re also able to create the print ads as well as the micro-site.
Budgets are getting tighter while the bar keeps getting raised higher. It’s going to require studios to be more inventive in production to balance both the creative and financial needs.

H: Could you be the model for the new agency of tomorrow?

C: I hope so. I think the agency of tomorrow understands design and production for both traditional as well as new and emerging media. Who better to handle these creative needs than a motion design company with roots in print/web design and production?