Baptiste Andrieux, executive producer at Eight vfx, steps up to answer Five Questions.
1. What are you working on today?
A music video for The Roots directed by Asif Mian and produced by Chelsea NY.
2. What have you found is the best tool or innovation that has come out in the last year?
The ability to run Windows on a Mac. Hopefully, sometime soon, we won’t have to support every kind of platform.
3. The project (film, television, commercial or music video) that most impressed you in the last year? Why?
2046 from Wong Kar Wai. I have always loved his work, his unique way of shooting women, his ability to bring you into his universe, and his exceptional cinematography. This time, I was taken by the way he used visual effects to propel us into a futuristic world.
4. The best or favorite project that you worked on in the past year? And why?
We created the visuals for Daft Punk’s world tour. It was a great experience for us, to be able to create content based on their music and art direction. The most amazing thing was to witness the live audience’s reaction to our visuals, at Coachella for instance. I would add to this the great relationship we developed with Olivier Gondry this year, on projects like Chevy, American Eagle, and The Vines.
5. Name the top 4 artists on your iPod?
Alex Gopher
Amon Tobin
Courtney Pine
Amadou & Mariam
Recent Project
Eight Sends Daft Punk Around The World In Style
Led by VFX Supervisor Jean-Marc Demmer, Eight VFX
has created an entirely cg stage environment for the new world
tour of Paris musical duo Daft Punk. The tour kicked off with a roof-raising performance at
the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April, and is now making its way around
the globe. Considered one of the most successful electronic music collaborations of all
time, both in album sales and in critical acclaim, Daft Punk will be playing to sellout
crowds until the tour ends in September 2006.
Known for incorporating visual components into their performances – and their personas
(few photos exist of the pair) – the mysterious duo turned to Eight VFX to provide the
content for their ambitious world tour. “Perhaps they came
to us because Coachella would be their first US
appearance in eight years,” mused Demmer, who
founded Eight with Executive Producer Baptiste Andrieux in
2005. In truth, it was the company’s dexterity with visual
effects, and motion graphics in particular, that drew the
duo to Demmer and his staff of artists.
Built on a foundation of 70s-era motion graphics, the visual
starts simply, then opens up and builds momentum, in sync
with the performance itself. “The stage is a pyramid that expands with the music,
beginning with a simple line going back and forth,” Demmer explained, “and it’s the life
of this line, the journey, that guides us through the show.” As the show progresses, the cg surroundings take on added dimensions – a floor, walls, etc., all “built” around Daft Punk.
At Coachella, the crowd responded enthusiastically at
each new stage of the visual display, and audiences are
raving at the succeeding performances, from the UK and
France, to Belgium, Spain, and Japan.
Demmer and Daft Punk are reluctant to reveal too many
details about the method behind the magic, preferring to
allow the illusions to speak for themselves. “I will say that
the guys are very keen on this look, and we all share a
deep love of filmmaking and film artistry.” In fact, the duo
has directed their own music videos, and their feature
debut had its premiere at Cannes last month
(coincidentally, the duo’s first vid was directed by Olivier
Gondry, a recent – and frequent – Eight collaborator).
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