Fleet Street has teamed up with our friends at Boing Boing for another awesome Yuki 7 Giveaway! To enter, tweet the title of your own dream movie and tag it #yuki7. The contest ends July 4th and we will pick 3 winners to receive the following prizes:
And don't forget this Friday is the official release party and art show at Gallery Nucleus! Come out to meet the artists, enjoy some fine cocktails, and see/purchase the book for the first time!
I remember asking my dad to play "Beat It" over and over as a kid so that I could dance around in our living room, punching my fists in the air. I really miss MJ. I hope E.T. gave him a ride in his spaceship.
These Yuki 7 lobby cards are going to be included as a set of 8"x10" mini prints with the Seductive Espionage: Collector's Edition. This package is limited to just 100 copies and includes a super cool plastic slipcase, numbered bookplate, and these exclusive prints. You won't be able to get these anywhere else!
Also, here's a peak at some brand new screenprinted Yuki posters! These will be available from our store in the next few weeks.
Also, I don't think I've mentioned here yet that the super-cool Grace Danico of Grain Edit did a super-sized interview with me, which you can find HERE. It's got a lot of info about my process, background, and the origins of Yuki!
Oh man, how awesome is this everyone? Marshall Alexander, a toy designer from the Netherlands, made this rad Yuki papertoy! Even better, it's available for everyone to download and build from his website! GET IT NOW!
Check out this totally hott Yuki drawing by the super talented Britney Lee!
Also, Horia Dociu has posted his awesome Yuki piece from the book!
We're super excited to have teamed up with Grain Edit for the Yuki 7 Screen Gems Giveaway! Enter to win an advance copy of the book, a Yuki 7 t-shirt, and a full set of movie poster prints! This is definitely the best and craziest giveaway we've ever done!
I've been completely shocked and humbled by all of the amazing press we've gotten over the past week for Yuki, and wanted to thank everyone who's taken the time to mention the project on your blog or website! Here are a few snippets that really made me smile:
"If the art in that trailer is indicative of the end product, I am sold on it already. It gets everything right. Saul Bass style titling, a pitch perfect emulation of rear projection driving scenes." - Bryan White, Cinema Suicide
"The prize flower of Dart's garden, however, is Yuki 7, a sultry Japanese superspy who makes Erin Esurance look like Velma from Scooby Doo." - Robo, Action Typist
"I received a copy of Kevin Dart’s Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 the other day and I still can’t put the book down. I’m awed by the beautiful artwork and illustrations showcased throughout its pages." - Ward Jenkins, Drawn
As if things couldn't get any better, there's been a slew of Yuki art popping up on some very talented peoples' blogs:
Gallery Nucleus is also now selling a set of super cool Yuki 7 Fashion Dolls that I designed. Now you can build your own Yuki 7 doll and dress her in any of 4 included outfits! They're pretty fun to build. I've already made like 8!
*UPDATE! Check out the trouble Yuki is getting into over on Sean Szeles' blog!! Too cool!
We are happy to debut for the first time, the original 1964 theatrical trailer for Yuki's first movie, A Kiss From Tokyo (double-click to see in full-screen!):
Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 is now available for pre-order! You can order it two different ways:
THE BOOK: Includes movie posters, behind-the-scenes stories, promotional artwork, productions stills, and much more. 72 pages, softcover. Pre-ordered books will come signed by Kevin Dart and the author, Ada Cole.
COLLECTOR'S EDITION: Limited to 100 copies, this package includes the following:
- The book
- Numbered bookplate
- Limited edition plastic slipcase
- Set of 4 exclusive 9"x12" mini prints
Pre-orders will begin shipping JULY 6th!
Also new in the store today are these brand new Yuki 7 t-shirts featuring the French poster for A Kiss From Tokyo!
Stay tuned to our websites this week as we will continue to post more exciting news about Yuki 7!
One night in early January, as I was scrambling to finish all of the Yuki posters, I was talking to my friend Ada Cole about the book. She did the page layout for our first book and has always been a great friend of Fleet Street. Again wanting to offer her assistance, she mentioned that she would be willing to do page layout and even some writing for the new book. I immediately took her up on the offer, excited to see what she would come up with. Just a few days later she sent me some brilliant articles which included an interview with Kimiko Suzuki (the actress who plays Yuki 7) in the made-up fashion magazine Elan, and a story about Yuki’s meticulously crafted costumes for Danger is a Female. I was sold. Ada and I had some more conversations about how to break the book apart into articles that would tell a behind-the-scenes story in bits and pieces without explicitly spelling it out for the audience. We also delved into the character and motivations of all the big players in the film franchise’s history. As she sent me more articles, I felt like I was getting to know Yuki better and would make artwork specifically to go along with what she was writing. One example is this Sakura Swimwear ad which was inspired by Ada’s idea that Yuki’s costumes might have been mass produced and marketed worldwide after the success of the movies.
During the same time, I was still working with Stephane to finish up the trailer. I had re-thought a number of the rough scenes, fleshed out the characters some more, and was ready to start painting the final elements. The way our process worked, I would paint an entire scene in Photoshop, making sure to keep all the different elements like characters, props, and backgrounds on separate layers so that Stef could animate them in AfterFX. We were pretty familiar with the process, having worked together on two previous projects already. I kept things pretty flat and simple to leave room for Stephane to add as much dynamic lighting and effects to the scenes as he wanted.
Once I handed everything off to him, Stef would animate the elements and also add lights, film grain, depth-of-field, and other effects to bring the scene to life. It was an indescribable pleasure to work with such a phenomenal talent as Stephane, and to see the vibrancy he could add to every moment in the trailer.
We worked simultaneously with an amazing composer named Cyrille Marchesseau who created a score for the trailer based on the latest work that Stef sent him. It was a very international effort to complete the film, with me working in Los Angeles, Stephane in London, and Cyrille in Paris.
February 2009
As the trailer was coming together, I also finished all of the illustrations I had initially planned and proceeded to tackle the page layout. The most important thing to me was to create a nice flow throughout the book, so I grouped all of the artwork into chapters about each movie, presented in chronological order. I did hundreds of rough page mockups in Photoshop over the next month as I tried to establish a consistent look and feel from the beginning of the book to the end. This is a sample of some of the close-to-finished mockups I created for one of the opening page spreads:
Once I had an approved mockup for each page in the book, I handed them off to Ada along with all of the high-res artwork. When she started on the final page layouts in InDesign, we spent a lot of time on the first few pages nailing down the size, color, and spacing of the typefaces, as well as page margins. Once those guidelines were firmly in place we were able to plow through the rest of the book much more quickly. This is an example of a final spread layout:
March 2009
I went through a lot of weeks with very little sleep as we tried to get everything just right. Ada’s husband Dan was an enormous help in converting image files, adding page bleeds, and just being an all-around expert in computer graphics. After sending off the final PDF to the printer, it only took about a week and a half to get the digital proofs back, and it was clear that all of our hard work had paid off. We had only a few minor fixes to make, then I packed up all the proofs and mailed them back to Hong Kong. All that was left now was to wait for the finished books to arrive!
The thing I still can't get over when I look back and reflect on this whole process is how much my friends came through for me. No matter what I needed, whether it was a layout artist, a compositor, an author, or a translator, I always had a friend who was willing and able to do it at the drop of a hat. I can't thank everyone enough who helped make Yuki 7 come to life.
Come back next week on Tuesday, May 26th for the world premiere of the trailer for A Kiss From Tokyo and to get a first glimpse of the finished books! I will actually be seeing them for the first time on Tuesday as well, so we can find out the conclusion to this story together!
A few months ago I was asked to do a poster for the summer No Doubt tour. It was one of those dream freelance gigs that's almost TOO easy. They had come up with the theme A Clockwork Orange for their tour, and wanted the band portrayed in a 60's suspense-movie poster based on the song Spiderwebs. Here's what I came up with:
The band was really happy with the poster, and I couldn't have been more thrilled. They were so happy, actually, that Elizabeth and I got to go to their "Friends & Family" show in Vegas over the weekend, which was basically a dress rehearsal for a small audience the night before the real show. The costumes, the set, and the video displays were all gorgeous. Gwen even had three outfit changes throughout the concert. We got to watch the whole thing from the front row. It was a pretty memorable night. For all the doubters out there, the band is as good as they ever were. And for all the No-Doubters out there, you won't be disappointed when you see them!
I'm not entirely sure what their marketing plan for my poster is, but I found these pictures on the No Doubt forums (courtesy of kerli-fries and beacon-street.net) showing it printed on a cool-looking tote bag. I read that it was sold out even before The Sounds came on! I'm hoping they eventually stick it on some other merchandise too.
The whole process went so smoothly that I thought I'd share some of my early work on the poster. These are some of the rough comps I first sent off:
The first one was turned down because it made Gwen overshadow the other band members too much, the second one is the approved thumbnail, and the last is the approved color study. After that I just went to work painting the final poster. Here's a GIF animation showing my progress:
I want to give a big thank you to Jolie Clemens who did an amazing job coordinating everything, getting concepts approved, and hooking us up with the concert tickets! Go check out the band on tour, it's totally worth it!
Finally, a shout out to another super cool band and a really addictive website - Phoenix on YooouuuTuuube.
