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4/10/2014

'John Ross: American' Concept Art

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John Ross: American Concept Art by Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser
We've been enjoying the 30 minute painting challenges that Worker's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser takes on in the Facebook group, Daily Spitpaints. but this one holds a special place in our imagination. Today's theme was Pilot Ejection and Barry took inspiration from John Ross: American, a WWII photo-recon pilot of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. John was shot down 3 times on the 96 missions he flew and survived every one. Worker Studio is developing an animated feature based on the life of John Ross. 

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2/17/2014

Barry Kooser's 30 Minute Artworks on Daily SpitPaint

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser partakes in the Facebook group, Daily SpitPaints, which challenges artists to create a painting in 30 minutes on a particular theme. Here are a few of those paintings via our Worker Studio Pinterest Boards. 


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1/17/2014

Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Design Picks - #5

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others.  He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 35 years. This is the 5th and final post in the series. 

#5 TRON (1982) 
Production Designer: Dean Mitzner  
Art Direction:  John B. Mansbridge & Al Roelofs 

The summer of 1982 was a legendary time at the movies - Blade Runner, E.T., Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Pink Floyd The Wall, Poltergeist, Conan The Barbarian, The Thing, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan… and of course Disney's groundbreaking, TRON. Grandfather of the term CGI - Computer Generated Imagery, TRON was the first production to utilize effects and imagery generated by computers. There is only about 20 minutes of actual computer generated imagery in the film, which gives further testament to the production being able to blend this world of neon circuitry. 

Most of the film was shot in black & white, and production designer, Dean Mitzner covered the set in miles of black-flocked paper, giving the post-production process a non-reflective palette to work from. Taking this raw footage the team incorporated backlit animation, and scenes were processed on large format film, then painstakingly colored over (rotoscoped) to blend with the technological CGI look. While elements of the film may look dated today, it holds a production design quality that continues to influence our technologically driven culture. Barry was greatly influenced in how the film completely relocates its audience into another dimension, both visually and conceptually.

The clip above features the original lightcycle sequence from the 1982 film, which traverses the CGI world of TRON. This particular clip uses Daft Punk's music score from the TRON: Legacy (2010), but had better video quality than most clips of the scene online. The original production art stills from the 1982 film below show the live-action scenes designed and colored by production artists. 
TRON 1982 production art and design
Original Production Art from TRON 1982 Dean Mitzner Production Designer
TRON production art 1982

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1/5/2014

Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Design Picks - #4

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others.  He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 35 years. This is #4 in a series of posts. 
Ralph McQuarrie Stars Concept Art

#4 Star Wars (1977)
Production Illustrator: Ralph McQuarrie 
Production Designer: John Barry 
Art Direction: Leslie Dilley & Norman Reynolds 

Ralph McQuarrie Concept Art and Production Illustrator Star Wars
A film that inspired a generation of filmmakers, the original Star Wars trilogy was visually informed by the early concept art of Ralph McQuarrie. He was commissioned by George Lucas to illustrate scenes from the script, seen in the images above and below. While the film's production did have some of the best character designers and model makers creating this universe, it was McQuarrie's original concept art that substantially informed the trilogy's production design, from environments, intergalatic ships and even characters such as Darth Vader, Chewbacca , R2-D2 & C-3PO. 

Barry noted the ultra-realism in the matte paintings used as an artistic influence. As seen in McQuarrie's concept art of the Star Destroyers below, Barry also gave astute attention to how the size and scale of environments to the ships added to the immensity and vastness of space. It is with this masterful detail that McQuarrie's hand traversed the Star Wars universe through all the original trilogy as a concept artist and production illustrator. 

Ralph McQuarrie Star Wars Concept Art Influenced Barry Kooser at Worker Studio

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12/9/2013

Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Design Picks - #3

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others.  He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 30 years. This is #3 in a series of posts. 
Road to perdition Production Design

#3 Road to Perdition (2002)
Production Designer: Dennis Gassner 
Art Direction: Richard L. Johnson

Director Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition, was a quiet masterpiece of cinematic adaptation, taken from the graphic novel of the same name. This visual crowning achievement garnered cinematographer Conrad L. Hall an Oscar, as well as a nomination for Dennis Gassner, Production Designer and Nancy Haigh, Costume Designer. Included with Art Director Richard L. Johnson, the production design team was also nominated by the Art Directors Guild, among several other awards. All the elements of design, sets, staging, lightening and cinematography, must come together for the production designer's vision to shine on screen, and Road to Perdition is a benchmark for that cohesion. 

For Barry, the production design embodies the perfect translation of a graphic novel to a film, with its compositional simplicity, concise character staging and film noir lighting. Road to Perdition was one of several collaborations between Dennis Gassner and Richard L. Johnson, including, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Big Fish, and The Truman Show. These collaborations amount to an artistically stunning body of work, with designs that adhere to the tones and characterizations on screen. 
Road to Perdition Production Design and Art Direction

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11/20/2013

Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Design Picks - #2

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer, Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others.  He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 30 years. This is #2 in a series of posts.  
Barry Kooser Production Design Worker Studio Tyrus Wong Bambi Disney
Barry Kooser Production Design Worker Studio Tyrus Wong Background Art Disney Bambi

#2 Bambi - Walt Disney (1942) 

The story goes that the initial concept art of Disney's Bambi, captured dense woodland settings of New England, yet were busy and complicated, making the readibility of characters difficult. Enter Tyrus Wong, a budding in-betweener at Disney, skilled in Eastern landscape painting. Tyrus so impressed Disney with his ability to blend simplicity within the complex forest settings, his paintings set the entire production design of the film. The staging of the backgrounds is also notable in how they bring focus to the character, without the character dominating the frame; a method familiar to the great Chinese painters. This is demonstrated in the background paintings below. There is much to further explore about Bambi's production design - a good starting place being Hans Bacher's blog Animation Treasures, where you can read about the compared black & white layouts and final oil painted backgrounds above.
  
Production Art Disney Bambi Tyrus Wong Background Painting Barry Kooser Worker Studio
Disney Bambi Background Art Production Design Barry Kooser Worker Studio Tyrus Wong
Left - Original Concept Art Painting by Tyrus Wong
Above - Production Still from "Bambi" (Disney 1942)

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11/18/2013

Worker Studio's Barry Kooser: Top 5 Production Design Picks - #1

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Worker Studio's Chief Creative Officer,Barry Kooser was a background Artist and Supervisor for 11 years at Walt Disney Feature Animation, contributing to films such as as The Lion King, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear, among others.  He also ventured his painterly eye as a Fine Artist, exhibiting his work in galleries around the country. We're lucky to have this master artist inform Worker Studio's production design. We asked Barry what the Top 5 Production Designs that influenced his career in filmmaking are. As you'll see his influences range from classic Disney films to some of the most gorgeous live action films of the past 30 years. This is #1 in a series of posts.  
Barry Kooser's Top 5 Production Designs Lady & the Tramp
Barry Kooser Top 5 Production Designs Lady & The Tramp Background Art
Barry Kooser Top 5 Production Designs Lady & The Tramp Disney Background Art
Background Art from Walt Disney's Lady and the Tramp 

# 1 Lady and the Tramp - Walt Disney (1955) 

Lady and the Tramp was the first animated film produced for CinemaScope, giving it a wide screen aesthetic unlike anything seen in animation. This gave the backgrounds a richly detailed feel, along with it's gracious use of painted light to evoke the film's moods. Disney used miniature models of the backgrounds, like the Victorian mansion where Lady lives, and used scaled figurines of the characters for artists to reference an authentic "dog's eye-view" of the surroundings. With producing the film in CinemaScope, the use of close-ups and cuts weren't as necessary for the characters to move in. Since fewer scenes were needed, artists could give loving attention to the backgrounds, filled to the brim with life and detail.

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