Beastie Boys have created a series of five beautiful eCards that take the viewer on a quick whistlestop tour through the five boroughs of New York, and provide a pretty good showcase of San Francisco-based illustrator Michael Gillette's work while they do so. The only real creative stipulation was that the animations had to remain in keeping with the cover artwork, comprising a realistic line drawing skyline image of Manhattan by Matteo Pericoli. The drawback, however, was that because of the huge amount of security surrounding the release of the album, Gillette wasn't actually allowed to see the drawing itself, so ended up doing things his own way. Which must be for the best for all concerned, really. Working closely with director James Frost and editor Roger Scott, Gillette was initially going to design each borough's animation in a different style. However, once they were half way through, there was a change of plan.
‘We did the third one, Brooklyn, as a linear pan, the band saw it and decided they wanted all five in the same vein, so it was back to the drawing board,' Gillette explains. ‘I think we had two weeks to finish them at this point. I sat in my studio drawing on my lap, then scanning the images pretty much straight in to After Effects so that Roger could thread them together immediately. It was real seat of the pants stuff, a lot of fun / hard work.' And how exactly did three British creatives have any idea what they should feature as the landmarks of each borough? ‘James lived in New York for a while so he had most input, while the Beastie Boys demanded a couple of things - mostly the stadiums, they're big baseball fans,' says Gillette. ‘We left Staten Island until last: none of us could really figure anything truly defining, so we focused on the ferry trip. Manhattan took the longest: there are so many levels of buildings, it was hard to get the density.' Short and sweet. More here ... Source: IDANDA
