Not To Scale LA, Hello Savants and Saatchi & Saatchi LA bring to life an episode in the “Sole of Kobe” film series celebrating the heritage and future of the ASICS brands, as part of the centennial commemoration of the ingenuity and philosophies of company founder Kihachiro Onitsuka.
Directing collective Hello Savants interpret traditional Japanese watercolor techniques through the language of contemporary animation, in the wonderfully realized “A Shot at the Title” sequence which explains how Onitsuka-san came to create his iconic basketball shoe.
Via beautiful illustrations we discover how, upon eating his mother’s homemade octopus salad and realizing the strength of each tentacle’s suction cups, inspiration struck on how to increase the grip on his footwear’s sole.
“We first researched traditional and modern Japanese visual culture and then we started illustrating–the process came quite naturally because we have backgrounds in painting and traditional illustration,” said Marco Galmacci of Hello Savants.
Hello Savants uses a crossover approach of traditional frame-by-frame animation, real footage of watercolor ink and digital 2D and 3D elements. Animating delicate watercolor brush strokes and organic shapes for each scene, they apply transitions that are natural and fluid while always emphasizing the shape of the shoe. The use of overlapping layers elegantly integrated into this painterly environment conveys a perception of depth throughout the story.
