When legendary guitarist Jimmy Page met the Fender Telecaster guitar, rock history was made. As part of Led Zeppelin’s 50th anniversary celebrations, directorial team Smith & Foulkes of Nexus Studios connected with Fender Musical Instruments Corp. to create the animated short titled “The Mystical Journey of Jimmy Page’s ‘59 Telecaster.”
Taking viewers on a psychedelic tour through a pivotal time in music, the film is shaped around Page’s own words about his relationship with the iconic guitar. Smith & Foulkes creatively expanded around Page’s narrative to focus on what happened when these two creative energies collided.
A team of animators at Nexus Studios worked to visually convey the atmosphere and energy of this time and to illustrate key moments in the development of Led Zeppelin. The film shows how Page’s personalization of the Telecaster (into the famed Dragon and Mirror versions) takes the band to previously uncharted sonic horizons.
A joint statement from Smith & Foulkes read, “It goes without saying that everybody loves a dragon. And we made full use out of that. But it was much trickier to visually illustrate the mirror guitar which was more about the optical sensation of prismatic light patterns. So we hit upon this idea of how images are bent and twisted in a Hall of Mirrors, which seemed to fit the idea of new sounds being distorted as Jimmy experimented with the Telecaster.”
Credits
Client Fender Musical Instruments Corp. Jeremy Taylor, executive producer; Neil Whitcher, Matt Watts, Keith Legro, producers. Creative Story & Narration by Jimmy Page Production Nexus Studios Smith & Foulkes, directors Tracey Cooper, producer; Chris O’Reilly, Charlotte Bavasso, exec producers; Rebecca Archer, production manager; Michal Firkowski, previs & project supervisor; Melanie Climent, art director; Bishoy Gendi, lead animator; Marlene Beaube, Giacomo Autill, Hozen Britto, Peter Lowey, Arina Shabanova, 2D animators; Jesse Richards, lead compositor; Chris Gavin, Victoria Jardine, Dave Hunt, compositing; Sebastien De Oliveira Bispo, Pierre Clenet, 3D generalists. Dave Slade, editor. Audio Post Factory London Josh Campbell, Anthony Moore, sound design & mix; Lou Allen, producer. Music “Dazed and Confused” by Jimmy Page (inspired by Jake Holmes), performed by The Yardbirds, taken from the album “Yardbirds ‘68” recorded live in NYC. Flames of Albion Music, Inc. (ASCAP), all rights administered by WB Muisic Corp., licensed courtesy of Jimmy Page
Tom Tagholm of Various Films directed this moving piece for the U.K.โs Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) out of creative agency MullenLowe UK.
Focused on adult social care, the public service film delves into the world of care providers and how they connect with those they help. We feel how gratifying it is to assist people in daily tasks, the value it brings to their lives--and to the lives of those who provide this special care.
Itโs a special career for people who might not have previously considered the role. Itโs about a fulfilling job that fulfills lives. Thereโs a shared, reciprocal energy that emerges from working together in this way.
Capturing this dynamic and doing justice to this human story grew out of the creatives and filmmaker spending an extended amount of time in this world--long before any scheduled lensing. At this juncture, there were no cameras, just getting to know those involved--sharing tea and chatting, driven by a curiosity about life.
And this facilitated down the line the capturing of real human stories--trying not to get in the way of the natural rhythms of these special relationships as they unfolded. The mission was to recognize and capture all this--and in some cases uncover the significant moments and feelings inside of an apparently normal day. At the same time, the role of adult special care providers isnโt sugarcoated. There are challenges on both sides of the relationship. Yet there is a magic to the seemingly mundane, practical beats in a life--getting from point A to point B, answering emails, shopping, the daily tasks where the connection felt the most vivid and inspiring. One such task was seeing a man in a kitchen, cutting an onion for the first time, experiencing the joy of cooking.
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