A stricken samurai, mischevious forest spirits and some oh-my-god-isn’t-it-beautiful-cinematography – LA directing collective Young Replicant tread the line between life and death in their stunning promo Lovely Bloodflow. And is it just us, or is Lovely Bloodflow *exactly* what a live action version of Princess Mononoke would look like? We caught up with Young Replicant’s Alex Takacs to talk Kurosawa, the joys of childhood animation experiments and bumping into Encyclopedia Pictura’s Isaiah Saxon on a last minute, emergency location hunt.

Who are Young Replicant – how did you meet and why did you decide to start working together?
Young Replicant is directors Alex Takacs and Joe Nankin, DP Adam Kauper and a revolving cast of collaborators. I met Joe while we were still in baby form. Adam came aboard when I was gathering some friends together to work on a video contest entry for M83.

Where are you all from and what’s you backgrounds?
I’m originally from Toronto Canada but I was raised in LA. Joe is the only actual LA native in the group. No one knows where Adam came from- probably outer space or the valley. Our collective backgrounds are in visual art, design, stop motion animation, and amateur musicianship.

When did you first pick up a camera?
I first picked up a camera when I was about five or six. My dad showed me how to do stop motion and simple effects with an old analog camcorder. I was hooked when I learned how to make objects and people disappear on camera. Joe and I started making dorky action figure animations together soon after that.

What were the inspirations and influences behind the Lovely Bloodflow video?
Before I wrote up a treatment for Lovely Bloodflow, I sat down with Will Wisenfeld (Baths) and we nerded out for a couple hours over everything that’s made an impact in our creative lives. We ended up talking a lot about Japanese aesthetics, samurais, anime, and feudal Japan, so it was obvious early on where the project was going. On top of that, we both wanted to depict death and violence as something whimsical rather than morbid. I wanted the samurai’s death to be a segue into an ambiguous dream-like state.

When I was storyboarding, Akira Kurasawa and Miyazaki films were the biggest stylistic influence. Eiko Ishitoka and Alexander McQueen were also an influence on the costume design, a collaboration with our fantastic costume designer, Lina Lund Mortensen.

And what were the most challenging elements of the shoot?
The night before our first shoot day in Santa Cruz, we lost our only location, a pristine state park. Things seemed pretty bleak until Joe remembered reading that the guys at Encyclopedia Pictura, the company responsible for some of our favorite music videos, had a compound in the SC wilderness. We decided to send them a desperate S.O.S. email. To our surprise, Isaiah Saxon from the group answered the next morning, gave us some suggestions and even invited us to shoot on their land in SC.

It was great meeting Isaiah but it was clear the property wouldn’t be able to accommodate the amount of shots and variety we needed. We then tried to woo/trick various park rangers into letting us film. When this inevitably failed, we ended up drowning our sorrows at the local Taco Bell. As the whole project teetered on the brink of disaster, “All I Need Is A Miracle” by Mike and the Mechanics started pumping through the speakers. A few minutes later, Will called us to say he’d found the perfect spot right on the UC Santa Cruz campus where we were planning on staying for the night. It was a miracle!

Other than Lovelyl Bloodflow, what pieces of work are you proudest of and why?
I’d have to say the We Own the Sky video for M83. It was the first time we’d ever done anything live action and I had no idea it was going to strike a chord with so many people. I still get emails about it.

To find out more about Young Replicant, check out www.youngreplicant.com