A Kiss From Tokyo

Saído directamente dos anos 60, Yuki 7 é a versão feminina do mundialmente conhecido agente 007, e nesta missão tem o objectivo de impedir a maquiavélica e sedutora Diamond Eye de lançar um poderoso míssil do seu esconderijo vulcânico.



"A Kiss From Tokyo" poderia ser um filme de espionagem mas na verdade não existe. Trata-se então de um novo meio de promoção, mais precisamente, para o livro "Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7" de Kevin Dart.
Segundo o próprio designer e escritor, a ideia surgiu quando este "desvendou" que a melhor forma de introduzir as suas personagens ao público seria sem dúvida com um excitante vídeo que os colocasse directamente no ambiente dos anos 60 com o suspense e acção óbvios de uma vida de glamour e espionagem.

Realizado por Stephane Coedel e com a forte cooperação de Kevin Dart, o conceito para este trailer é claramente o de um filme à la James Bond, durante o ano de 1964.


"When I began the project I started watching a lot of spy movies and researching them online. The early James Bond movies, especially “Thunderball” and “You Only Live Twice.” (...) It had a wipe I really liked as well as the way the characters were introduced, especially the women where they’d be framed ‘pretty’ but not doing much as their name would wipe across the bottom of the frame. And there is a great European spy film called “Deadlier Than The Male.” So I was watching these movies and studying the compositions, especially “Danger: Diabolik” which has these amazingly composed scenes (...) I thought the scene where Yuki is driving her car against the rear projection screen could be iconic. I wanted to do a close up of her eyes; there is something about that that came across as really pulpy. At the time these were random scenes. It wasn’t until later that I had to figure out how to string them together." Kevin Dart


"He sent me a b&w rough storyboard. It was the very early stage, the title wasn’t yet “A Kiss From Tokyo” but “The Secret Agent Girl of Danger Cove” and Yuki 7 was named Yuriko. I first did a rough edit of the stills on a temp soundtrack to have an idea of the length and the rhythm of the whole trailer. I then did a rough animation test on the three opening shots of the trailer to show Kevin how I was going to treat the picture, and to see if we were on the same page about the overall feeling we wanted to give to the audience. He was really happy with it and then he produced a colored and layered version of the board with a slightly different cut and a new title and the finalized name of our secret agent girl. And then I started the big work (...) The music is always the first thing I think about when I start a new job. Right after our first discussion I sent Kevin one track I took out of a 60’s music compilation (“09 La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanott” from Gianni Ferrio, from the album “Easy Tempo Vol.1”) as a reference, it was a bit too punchy and modern but it had the right vibe, then I dug into my vintage music collection and found quite quickly the right reference composer for the trailer: Laurie Johnson. He’s responsible for one of the most famous and cult British TV series soundtrack, “The Avengers” (...) Then I called Cyrille Marchesseau and briefed him about the concept and sent him the video with the ref music. He was very enthusiastic about it." Stephane Coedel


"I’m obsessed by imperfection, I like when there are little mistakes and aberrations in a film. It makes it warmer cause you can feel the people behind the magic. When I was a kid, all the movies were on film, everybody was used to the picture becoming greenish, slightly distorted by the tape one frame before and after a cut." Stephane Coedel

P.S. Para mais informações sobre ver : Kevin Dart, Stephane Coedel e Cyrille Marchesseau