Mill NY Reveal that Gondry is King of His Game

1st June 2006 - Right off the acclaim of his latest film, ‘Dave Chappelle’s Block Party’, Michel Gondry once again sought The Mill’s invaluable skills for Cody ChesnuTT’s video, ‘King of the Game’. After working with Cody during the filming of ‘Block Party’, Michel wanted to collaborate with the soulful singer for the video of his next track.

The project was then turned over to lead Flame Operator Westley Sarokin who adapted the pipeline on a shot by shot basis, composing camera moves and adding a striking color correction that enhanced and sculpted the dimensional quality and composition of the images. In a similar, but more complex version of adjusting the negative in standard film, Westley turned the positive aspects of the images into negative and then isolating particular colors, he mixed the texture back through from original passes. The joy was in the development, as Westley and Michel would play with the film until they found the right look.

In a true collaborative effort, the artists created a pipeline that evolved each time a new piece of material came into The Mill. First Michel shot and developed the film each night. By morning, The Mill team had a tape in hand and would be dimensionalizing Michel’s drawings, handing it off to Jeff Buchanan, the editor, who was working in The Mill facility for the conclusion of the project.

“Michel is known for taking a simple, straightforward idea and bringing a fresh twist to that vision,” said Westley. It was a strong group effort that led The Mill creative team to bring that vision to reality.

Artist - Cody ChesnuTT / Title - King of the Game / Production Company - Partizan / Director - Michel Gondry / Producer - Raffi Adlan / EP - Julie Fong / Editor - Jeff Buchanan / Post Production - Mill New York / VFX Producer - Melanie Wickham / Jr Producer - Evens Joseph / Creative Director - Angus Kneale / Lead Flame Artist - Westley Sarokin, Angus Kneale / Smoke Artist - Aidan Thomas / Support - Ross Goldstein / Kit - Flame - Smoke

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