Multidisciplinary creative studio Los York has added New York-based estudi-image to its roster of talent. Established in 2019, estudi-image is a young, boundary pushing 2D and 3D design studio.
Creative directors Luke Guyer and Nil Serrïma met on the job and went on to co-found estudi-image. Catalan for studio, “estudi” encompasses their artistic space. “Image” is purposefully ambiguous, allowing for all types of visual creations to be concocted. Now a three-person unit with EP Veronica Höglund, estudi-image fleshes out teams on a project by project basis utilizing freelance artists, running the gamut from low budget to high, yet always with clients who are willing to take some visual risks.
Guyer and Serrïma’s shared desire to push into live-action led them to Los York, whose established arsenal of assets allows them to level up through partnership. They want to carry their distinctive blend of the surreal and hyperreal into live-action, creating a conversation between the two. They are curious about showcasing emotions in 3D that you normally wouldn’t be able to portray in live-action.
Examples of their style can be found in their project SS20 for the outdoor sportswear brand Salomon Advanced. It’s a visceral creation that highlights the brand’s advanced technology shoes through a dialogue between tech and nature, imagining where the two can exist–both in harmony and in conflict. Another notable creation is for Material Designers, or MA-DE–a project co-funded by the creative.eu program of the European Union for which estudi-image made a sensorial promotion video that speaks to the MA-DE platform and the complex, dynamic process of creating.
Seth Epstein, founder/CCO/director at Los York, described Guyer and Serrïma as “up-and-coming and inventive artists,” citing as a trademark quality “their ability to instigate through their visuals, while maintaining a classic and marketable finished piece.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More