NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

Choreographing a Comic Book

During the past few months I have been working on and off with German photographer Marten von Rauschenberg on one of his art projects here in Shanghai. My job in this venture is basically that of an action choreographer/martial arts consultant.

Today I got a first batch of pics from our initial test shoot and I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce this cool little project to you here on my blog. I hope you'll enjoy it.

A few words about Marten: he used to be a thriving fashion & beauty photographer back in Germany and has worked for all the international whiz-bang fashion mags. He has won accolades for his funky art projects , too, and after exploring le beau monde up and down he finally settled in Shanghai about 4 years ago. He later joined  The Looop (a photo production house with branches in Hong Kong, Jakarta, Shanghai, and Singapore) and he is now living with his Shanghainese wife and their 2 kids here in SH. You get the picture. I usually refer to him as Gladstone Gander... which makes me Donald Duck, I guess.

Anyway, last summer Marten approached me with this idea about an experimental, entirely photographed martial-arts-action-grunge-cyberpunk-conspiracy-film-noir-comic-book -sort-of-thingy and he asked me if I'd be interested in helping him with the action sequences and the storyboard. Admittedly, making a "photo comic" is not really like re-inventing the wheel. So-called photo novels have been around for ages and the mere thought of them gives me the creeps. But I had seen some of Marten's stuff and I figured that his angle might be somewhat different and fresh (besides, I was flat broke and needed a job).

I mustn't give away too much of the plot, 'cause this is more or less Marten's baby and still in the making, at that. So, the following pics were actually just test runs for all the people involved. We are still trying to set the mood, to find suitable models & actors, to develop a distinct visual style, etc.

But let's cut the foreplay and get right down to it:

I didn't have much to choreograph in this one...these girls  know how to walk...

... just working on a few poses with the models here... as you can imagine, this kind of outfit narrows down the choice of stances to some degree...

... another mood shot with one of our Russian models... Masha...? Sasha...? I forget...

If you happen to find this project at all interesting, please let me know. I will definitely keep you posted on this one. There's a lot more to come, and I do look forward to putting the wild, dark & gory fight sequences with the girls together. Well, of course, it  is kind of exhausting to work out all these countless elaborate moves and positions with a bunch of very young, Eastern European fashion models...

... but what can I say? It's a darn tough job, but somebody's got to do it.