Oh yes how we love a little bit of naughty, and Caviar new director Nick Walker’s tale of fabulous feline debauchery for LA dance Punks DeLux fits the bill perfectly. We catch up with the young director about his first foray into animation.
Sex, drugs and really good music – please tell us how the narrative came about and what was behind your decision to use animation?
I had been wanting to do a “Dead Cat Walking” cartoon for a while based on these drawings I had in my sketch book from college. The part that was the most fun was creating the story about how he ended up on death row. I’ve always enjoyed seeing cartoons do things that happen in the real world so I just wrote out the story and took it from there. Being that it’s a six-minute song, it seemed like the most efficient way to keep it interesting was to do animation. Even though animation is expensive and is a lot of work I thought we would be able to open up the scope of the story easier.
Have you collaborated with the animator and illustrator previously? How did the creative process work?
No, I hadn’t collaborated with the animation team beforehand, but they came recommended from a very trusted friend of mine. The creative process was of course very different from what I was used to. We met and discussed art direction and concept and then I wrote them a script and sent animation and character references. They’d email me story boards, mock ups, and then eventually animated scenes. They nailed everything on the dot every time so there was no need for any major re-do’s, so we were good on that sense otherwise we probably wouldn’t of made the delivery date.
What were the main challenges of the production and how did you resolve them?
The main challenges of production was the amount of time we had to deliver. If it had been a live action video we would of had plenty of time but since there is so much work in animation we really came down to the wire. Again, Erick and Nadia did such a great job we had no major hang ups and I think that was because we communicated well and if there was something possibly a bit off it was resolved right away.
Were you given creative freedom or did you work alongside the band De Lux throughout the making of the film?
The band and the label gave me creative freedom. The treatment had it pretty clearly laid out and they were fully on board. They let me know a few details of things that they wanted to see and I thought they were great additions. There’s nothing better then when a client trusts you and knows that you’re gonna do everything you can to give them the best piece. Both De Lux and Innovative Leisure are really great about that.
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Nick Walker
