Computer Arts - USA (2019-09)

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Creative chaos

Studio founder Karin Fong on harnessing her Imaginary Forces

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O

ur studio Imaginary Forces is

located on the west side of LA.

We’ve been in this space for

six years now, and I think my favourite

thing about it is all the natural light. It’s

a warehouse-style space with big open

windows, so we get a nice breeze. And

we have our own parking lot – rarer

than you’d think in LA.

My work space is best described as

the cluttered chaos of creativity. You can’t

trust studios that are too neat! I’m old

fashioned – I still like to cut out paper

frames and Post-its when laying out

storyboards. There’s usually not a spare

surface – even the walls have drawn

frames taped up on them. I’m a big

believer in the power of mixing analogue

and digital, and my area reflects that.

This empty bottle of Old Canadian

Whiskey (1) was created for the

Boardwalk Empire main title shoot on the

Jersey shore. We shot them in the sand,

in the water, even used a special rig to

smash and shatter the glass. The bottles

were originally created and shot without

labels, all the better to have them appear

illegal – or so we thought. Wrong! We

were told in post-production to put labels

on all of them. We designed the label

and reshot some of the bottles in the surf,

but also added hundreds more bottles

into the existing shots using CG.

Also in the studio are the characters

from a LEGO Star Wars commercial (2).

During prep, we went to the LEGO store

in New York to pick out minifigure parts

to make our team, so they could mingle

among the LEGO cast on set. I’m

complete with a megaphone, ready to

command the Stormtroopers. After the

shoot, our VFX supervisor Meng Lu put

the relevant bricks and minifigs together

in groups so our CG team had all the

colours and textures in one place. It was

such a good time, which included

working with the ‘toy doctors’ who flew in

from headquarters in Denmark. They

knew the models brick by brick because

they had designed them.

Also pride of place is a Hiroshi

Sugimoto photograph (3). It reminds me

of the beauty of the blank screen, waiting

to be filled. Sugimoto is a master of giving

a sense of time through light. I especially

like this series of theatres. He captured

them by keeping the shutter open while

a film was playing, so that it’s the actual

cumulative light from the projection that

yields the exposure. The movie itself

created the image.

Then there’s our Spartan helmet (4)

from a trailer for the game God of War

• I have it for protection, naturally! It’s a
  souvenir from one of my favourite shoots,
  in which we translated the origin story
  from the Sony PlayStation game into a live
  action version.
  Finally, here’s an anniversary card (5)
  from my daughter Savannah (then aged
  five), who drew what she envisioned I
  looked like on my wedding day. It’s a
  masterpiece by one of my favourite artists.
  I especially like how she imagined my
  rainbow gown – I just might have to get
  her design made for an anniversary.

MY DESIGN SPACE

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SEPTEMBER 2019 PEOPLE