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The Work That Made Me in association withLBB
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The Work That Made Me: Michał 'Mewa' Dwojak-Hara

23/08/2022
Post Production
Wrocław, Poland
166
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Juice's CEO deputy and managing director for Tokyo on Michael Jackson, the work he is most proud of and the unanswered questions of David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'

Michał 'Mewa' Dwojak–Hara is a CEO deputy at Juice and a managing director of its outpost in Tokyo. Motion design graduate of the School of Visual Arts in Sydney. For many years he has worked and lived in Germany where he cooperated with various agencies such as BNEW and Sehsucht (among their clients at the time were eg. OPEL, BMW, or ARD). Michał moved to Tokyo, where he worked among others for Dentsu, Hakuhodo, Ajinomoto, and Sony. Currently, he is working from Asia supervising the animation department. 

Get to know Mewa better and tuck into the work that made him.


The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…

I still admire the morphing sequence in Michael Jackson’s ‘Black Or White’ music video. It’s still a reference in many projects, even now. With the development of the new morphing digital technology that we still can use, it can be considered a great piece of art.


The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…

Everything changed after watching Funkstörung’s ‘Grammy Winners’. It was the music video that inspired me to mix the movie and graphics together. I was amazed by the great flow that matched the sound perfectly.

At this time, I was more of a filmmaker with a focus on the DOP work. So I started learning After Effects and designing animation with my VHS footage. Then there was CG, yet still – I treat this as a crucial moment in my life.


The creative work that I keep revisiting…

Definitely ‘Lost Highway’ by David Lynch. You cannot go more creative than this. It’s about the visuals. The music. The story. All of this is so captivating, that I can watch it time and time again, yet still be captivated by the unusual storytelling.

It leaves me with so many questions that cannot be answered. And that’s the biggest beauty of it.


My first professional project…

I believe I animated a few of the elements for this bumper. It’s still looking fresh, even 20 years later! 

I also made some animations for Brandnew, a company based in Hamburg, which was one of the best in motion design at that time, so I’m really proud of it. It taught me a lot, so I like to recall these good old days.


The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…

Without any specific titles, though it happens often that Hollywood movies are being treated as references. The ones that have a huge budget mixed with enough time for execution, while the project has a much more limited amount of both. 


The piece of work that still makes me jealous…

Not going to lie – I feel jealous of myself because of Coldplay’s ‘Up&Up’. It’s the one that still makes me happy. That’s why I’m so proud of being a part of this project. Lots of fun!


The creative project that changed my career…

Unfortunately, it all happened because of one of the directors who extended the project from one to three months. After this incident, I have decided to look for a better working environment. And that’s how I ended up moving to Japan.


The work that I’m proudest of…

It’s definitely ‘Transphere’ – a short movie for IMAX Japan. On one hand, it was challenging in terms of all the abstract elements – but we did have to take into account the budget. Even so, we could enjoy the creative freedom in terms of taking care of unforgettable VFX. All of these led to a few awards which I’m really proud of.


The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…

Because of a new approach – an Audi project. Our work was mostly done in pre-production to create a lot of previz and look developments.

The movie is based on time lapse, so not only was the location super nice, but also the vibe was very chill – that happens when there is no time pressure. We just needed the right time to start shooting. Then, it was just a matter of waiting for the preview.

The results consist of CG that is almost unrecognizable and marge very well with the live-action footage.

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