LEONARDO FLORES AND YOUNG BIRDS FLY

The mod culture has always held a strong interest for me. As a designer, I can understand it's stylistically visual appeal. The sleekness. The smooth, clean edge off-setted by a colorful pop art mentality. Even the music complimented with it's call to arms energy is something that I've always fallen in love with. When I found out that 'Young Birds Fly' was hitting the film world, I became intrigued. Who in their right mind would produce a film so outdated in style and ethics? What the rest of the universe doesn't get, I'll be there with open arms. Leonardo Flores is an absolute inspiration. Not only for his creative vision, but for his wisdom that he shared with me during this interview. Read on and learn something.

First off, what is your background in filmmaking? What was the initial spark that got you started?

I have a BA degree in Filmmaking & Television Production and a BA in History from California State University of Fullerton and I was one of the writers and on-screen talent/DJ on a live public TV late night program called Marty’s Corner from 2001-2009. I have always been interested in films since I was younger especially Anime and foreign or rare films.

At the time when I decided to write Young Birds Fly in 2001 there had not been any Mod related films since Quadrophenia and Absolute Beginners and I felt it was the right time to produce one. Originally, I just wrote the screenplay to sell to a studio but in late 2005 I just went ahead and produced and directed the feature myself.

I was also motivated with how females have been underrepresented in Mod films and media. YBF was a tribute to my female Mod friends who have been there for me throughout the years.  I wanted to make a generational film about strong female friendships. I am a big fan of director Hayao Miyazaki films and close female friendships are huge components of his films like Kiki’s Delivery Service and Porco Rosso. I wanted to have that sort of friendship between Jill and C-Bird.  I always found it odd that my live action film was inspired by animation.

To make a movie like “Young Birds Fly”, one must have a solid understanding of the mod and soul culture.

I am an avid reader, researcher and record collector but it was a bit intimidating writing the script because so many people are experts in certain aspects of Mod and Soul and have their own opinions and vision of what Mod is, based on their own personal experiences.  When it comes down it, it would be impossible to cover every aspect of Mod/Soul/Skin in a 90-minute film. I am not particularly into the Mod revival era although I touch on it in YBF. I am sure many people could be upset about leaving that era out but the historian in me rather leave it to somebody who lived it and understands the nuance of the era to do it correctly.

The point of view I made YBF was from the aspect of what do young Mods do during the other five days of the week when they are not with their friends at a club or concert. Like having to deal with homework, school, dating, 9 to 5 jobs and parents and family. The inglorious grind of real life. So many people caught up in sub-cultures can get stuck on who they are on the weekend that they can’t cope with the rest of life. I have seen it happen to so many people and that is the tragedy of C-Bird and the warning to Jill and Jeananne. 

What about this culture excites and inspires you?

I love the visual beauty and art movement aspects of the Mod style. I consider Mod the first true international youth movement. So many cultures such as French, Italian, British and American were blended together by open minded English teenagers to create something as unique as Mod. Then you throw in Japanese, Asian and South American interpretations of Mod and they take it to another level. Mod really is an unique subculture like nothing else.  I also love girls with short hair since as long as I can remember and that is a huge component in my love for Mod as well!

The avant garde and dreamscape aspects of Mod in film, the arts and modern architecture, like the works of Oscar Niemeyer, are also highly influential to me. So much of Mod can be caught up with such trivial things where I tend to look at it as an aesthetic artistic movement.

Can you tell me about some of challenges and situations that you’ve had to resolve while working on a film like this?

I had never made a feature film before but I had worked on other people’s projects and made notes on why they never finished their films. For example many beginning directors always borrowed other peoples cameras, halfway through the project the camera owner decides that they don’t want to be part of the project anymore. They take away the camera and the film is finished. It’s like being a guitarist and not owning your own guitar, a director needs to purchase their own camera if they want to be filmmakers.

A lot of directors take too much time with filming one scene. Sure if you need to take a few days to shoot a scene that’s fine but three weeks later you’re still shooting the same scene you’re going to lose your actors and many of the actors get fed up and leave. Many beginning directors do not let actors be actors and do not allow them to do what they were trained to do. I saw that happen so many times and made sure there was a lot of communication between the actors and myself.

I allowed myself to make mistakes, which took a lot of pressure off me. YBF was my first feature and I consider it my training film to get a feel what was needed to make a feature film. The only real gamble I took was with the song licenses that I could not afford. That not working out is why YBF is not on DVD now. The next film I am writing all the music myself, I will never go through that again. Lesson learned!

Just finishing YBF was a big shock to a lot of people including people who worked on it. Many of the actors knew directors who start on features but they usually abandon it about a 1/3 of the way through for reasons mentioned above. When YBF was finished people came up to me and said, “We didn’t actually think you were going to finish it!” I never thought that it wasn’t going to be finished. The hardest part about making films is writing the screenplay. If the screenplay is spot on and dialed in and you can swear by it, the filming portion actually goes along quite smoothly.

What about accomplishments?

I believe the single most important accomplishment was the then 13-year-old Tracy Mathewson silent pantomime performance of Jill/ The Venus Ace. Tracy did a brilliant and accomplished job performing Jill, especially at her age, and it was a great challenge to myself to write and direct a lead character that does not say one word throughout the entire film.  Tracy was a true professional and is currently going to college in the UK for acting.

I understand that you do a lot of graphics for Fender Guitars due to at some extent to Young Birds Fly. How did that all come about?

One of the positive results for making Young Birds Fly was it led to me getting hired at Fender Musical Instruments, the maker of the Stratocaster, Telecaster and P-Bass and Jazz Bass amongst other products. The position was for Graphics and Video Specialist and being a ‘72 Fender Musicmaster player for many years and having an in-depth knowledge of the company it was a dream job and I had to have it.

My first week at Fender was the same week Young Birds Fly debuted in July 2007. That was a magical week! They were impressed that I made a feature length film for basically no money and I impressed them with my knowledge of the history of Leo Fender and Co. and their products. Sure YBF is not a top ten film or a Cannes winner but it definitely helped my life along and it has been very rewarding to me. My idea of success is a bit different from most people.

 Wow, That is amazing. Do you think having that graphic design understanding gives you the unique vision to make a film like YBF?

During filming of YBF I had kept my art design and film making skills as separate mediums, although my composition was extremely important to both. I was more concerned with finishing YBF more than anything else while making the film. I did not have the time, experience, money or equipment to make the visual film I would have wanted. I filmed most of YBF like a cultural anthropology study of “How does a young teen girl become a Mod?” using natural settings.

The next film my graphic art design will play a very important part with the look of film. Other than perhaps composition and story themes I want to make it look like another director filmed it. I have a better Idea of what is expected of the cast and crew and now I can concentrate on the look of the film the second time around.

What’s next on the horizon? Any new projects in the works?

YBF stretched out to 3 hours so accordingly the film couldn’t be entered into film festivals. I love my three-hour version but a post-production company is currently editing it down to a 90-minute festival version. I gathered up most of the replacement songs and will insert them in the new cut as soon as I get the festival version. I need to get YBF out on DVD ASAP so I can start shooting the next film which will also be a Mod/Soul/Skin film.

There were a lot of things I didn’t and couldn’t cover in YBF and I want to explore those subjects in the next film. I plan to write the screenplay this year. It will have a much more darker theme compared to YBF.

I also started an American based Mod website on September 2009 called Modcineaste.com that I have been putting a lot of my extra energy into. I collect Japanese 6T’s Group Sounds music and I have been translating the record sleeves from Japanese into English and reviewing the records and other Mod/Soul/GS related items.  There is not a lot of information in English about 6T’s Japanese groups and I want Modcineaste to be the go to site for that kind of information. The larger goal is to make the site a catalog library of Mod items from around the world. Modcineaste.com still have a long way to go but it is a great start. 

Extra special thanks to Leonardo for taking the time to talk to me. For a quick peak on Young Bird's Fly, Dig the trailer located below. 

 

BEER PAINTINGS (MADE WITH REAL BEER)

Here are a series of watercolor paintings I did over the weekend after buying a bunch of cheap plastic frames from the East Bay Creative Re-Use. My room needed a little sprucing up, and I was feeling rather creative so I decided to put the wheels in motion in creating these compositions. I had been busy lately with trying to understand the fine art side of me and have been developing a series of watercolor portraits and illustrations. This is merely an extension of my direct thinking as an artist. It's doesn't need to make total sense. Just extrude the good vibes onto paper and see what comes out of it. 

As a fun little experiment, I used actual real beer as the liquid component for the paint. It didn't have any real effect on the color or consistency, but it was a unique way in exploring the various possibilities in design creation. And at any rate, I got to drink what I didn't use. Natural ice was used because of of it's subtle delicate overtones. I lied. It was a $1.75 for a 40. Thanks to the Telegraph Quality Market for supplying the goods. 

I did a total of six portraits. They represent beer from a lower class of drinking. You know, the budget minded folks who want nothing more than a quick tasty brew without all the frills that come with a higher brand of beer. Besides, I'm from a working class background. It's my little way of paying tribute to forefathers who came before. 

Here are a couple examples of "in process" work. After looking up the graphics of these beer cans on the internet, I would recreate the images by hand on paper with pencil. After getting a solid rough draft completed, I would refine it with a fine tip black ink pen. 

For budget sake, I simply used a set of 8 color Crayola watercolor paints. 

Total cost of this project:

Crayola watercolor set: $3.95

100 Sheet Sketch Paper Pad: $1.99

Natural Ice Beer: $1.75

6 Used Plastic Frames: $5.00

TOTAL: $12.69

HIGH FREQUENCY MEDIA LOGO RE-BRANDING

One of the fringe benefits of playing in bands and being apart of a larger underground demographic is meeting and connecting with like-minded creative’s and artists. It all seems to take place in a world less dominated by structure and regulations and relies more on comradely and the exchange of unsolicited ideas. This arena is pretty much where I garner a lot of my inspiration. In once such particular instance, I got to know the masterminds behind High Frequency Media. High Frequency consists of Anthony Lopez and Jon Salimes, two graduates of the University of Milwaukee dedicated in providing a top-notch video design service to the local community at large. Their work is extremely versatile in a sense that one work of art can consist of a heart-warming to wedding and the next could consist of a basement show crammed with drunken bodies.

For a few months as my bands would play out, we would cross paths and eventually get to know one another better. Once they found out that I had something to do with the graphic arts, they inquired as to how to go about a simple re-branding. The job was simple enough. Create a new logo and everything else will fall into place. Eventually, I was able to contribute a wide variety of solutions for their business which involved some motion graphics and even a new website design. But first, let’s take a look at some logo development.

As seen here, I started off thinking that I wanted to the logo to be its own block or shape as opposed to floating type. I chose to work in black at white at first for simplicity sake keeping in mind that color could be added after we settle on a definitive design. Ultimately, the black and white scheme stayed because of its sleekness and crispness. Besides, their videos are screaming with colors and bombasity. Let’s keep everything else clean.

Next, I picked out a few choice logos and started to experiment with a textured theme. I wasn’t sure if this idea would bloom into fruition, but it gave me a chance to push the logo to new heights. Later, it proved to be beneficial because as I began to design the website, I kept this initial thinking in mind. How can texture and the ability to communicate substance work for this?

By far, one of the greatest pieces of work that I could have offered involved creating an intro and outro title card for Rishi Tea. Rishi is Milwaukee based organic tea company that High Frequency works with in creating promotional video and other random video assortments. 

Go here to see more mind blowing work from High Frequency Media.

TINA SPARKLE NEW RELEASE BRANDING

The thing that really gets me excited about design is all the little components that go into the communication of one overall message. And each little piece, which can easily stand on its own, can also be apart of a larger scheme built to encompass one idea. Whenever I take on any freelance project, I’m always pushing myself to take it to the next level with this sort of thinking. Why create only one facet of this brand? Why not create an entire series of artifacts grounded in its initial conception? Case in point: I was recently commissioned to develop the packaging for the new Tina Sparkle Release for Thinker Thought Records out of Chicago. It seemed like a worthy cause, but as I began to dive head first into it, I found a plethora of various solutions lurking right beneath the surface. In this project, I was not only able to layout and manipulate a compact disc digipack, but also manhandle the art direction for its online presence. A tour poster was created as well and I even found time to create a banner for the record label itself.

CD PACKAGING:

I met with the client to discuss the overall concept for the record and was given a hefty load of pictures to sift though. The idea was to tie in the events of the past to the events of the present all contained within this single household. A lot of other nuances played into this, but I’m not going to waste time delving too hard into it. The only other stipulation that I had to follow was to encompass this “before and after” idea for the front and back cover.

I chose to keep the inside heavy on the text and logistic side while everything else would be more pictorial based. Having just come off the Sleazybeats EP sleeve, I liked the idea of creating a sort of collage for the inside. Which is what I did for the insert booklet.

POSTER AND LABEL BANNER:

Pretty self-explanatory. The band will more than likely be hitting the road to promote the record and an advertising piece was needed in garnering some interest. Here, I simply reconfigured the cover of the album into a larger format and placed a better call to action as the focus.

I created the label banner out of a few ideas that I was coming up with as I crafted this package. I thought of it as a sort of “seal of approval” tag that the label could use for various promotional tactics. I also thought that this could be used as a foundation for a possible new look.

WEBSITE:

After reviewing all the possible angles that came with producing this package, an online presence needed to coincide with this new look and feel. Thus, I grabbed many of the textures and layouts that I had previously put together and made them work for the digital realm.

Here are things that I wanted to achieve for this website:

1. Social Media call-outs are easily accessible on every page.

2. Home page would communicate news and upcoming performances.

3. Home page would also easily direct the viewer to merchandise options.

--Which would also lead them to the contact page where they could possibly buy directly through the band.

4. Home page would also include a video. Video, I feel, is a very important component to any web medium for the simple fact that it can communicate a message quickly and effectively.

5. About page would include testimonials.

6.Some level of interactivity. It’s hard to see here from the examples, but there are various forms of rollovers and hover manipulations done to links and images. 

THE SLEAZYBEATS EP RECORD SLEEVE

It’s that time once again when I run down another project coming from the depths of the Plastique Pop Laboratories. This time I was fortunate enough to contribute some top notch design work for the unbelievable rock n roll force simply known as The Sleaybeats. The Sleazybeats are relatively newcomers to the scene although they’ve paid quite a bit of dues in other Milwaukee punk rock outfits. What we have here is a more redefined version of late 70’s British punk and high energy 60’s proto punk. You know, it’s dancy and reckless yet sweet and syrupy at the same time. It’s pretty much everything you love about modern rock n’ roll. Listen, there isn’t anything to get all worked up over. All you need to know is that they are ready for world domination so turn off your mind and turn up the stereo.

When it was time for them to finally drop a record onto the masses at large, Plastique Pop Design Laboratories were called forth to develop a mind shattering visual artifact for their audio offering. Rumor has it that Milwaukee’s One Track Mind Records are going be ones to handle the manufacturing process of this thing. I’m not sure of any release dates or anything, I just take what’s given to me and stick it in a blender. After all the ingredients get mashed and mangled, I simply convert it into a PDF and send it out.

Blammo!

Anyway, here is where the project is standing right now. I was getting antsy waiting for this thing to finally get printed, so I’m giving you a sneak peak. Besides I need a new blog entry for this month and was running dry on ideas. Just enjoy its good vibes.