When SHISEIDO gave AOI Pro. holiday homework in the form of the Noritaka Tatehana x SHISEIDO collection, AOI Pro. got on board to create the launch film and get the lowdown from the artist himself. Artist and shoemaker Noritaka made his name with head-turning modern and innovative designs created in homage to traditional Japanese culture. And the iconic red clouds framing this film for example, courtesy of a CGI company, are based on one of the artist’s own designs. The gold karakusa visible in the background is the fruit of numerous discussions and based on images the client put forward.

AOI Pro.’s production team joined the fray from the editing stage onward. "Creating CGI from scratch to match footage already taken was far from easy. This process brought home just how challenging building a story with CGI animation really is", said Koichiro Narita, production manager. A firm client side request to bring out glittering holiday season images prompted the team to zero in on fine details like the CGI light effects and music.

Alongside this film, further footage of an artist interview was also shot. The art team rented a studio, set up a red wall and arranged Tatehana's work, supervised by the artist in person. Then, the actual film-making saw him enlisted to create the piece as the camera rolled, for one to two hours. “The interview went smoothly. He gave us a wealth of great stories and we could shoot it all with a nice atmosphere.”

Check out the artist interview here: