KIN
Scope of work
Creative Direction | Art Direction | Conceptual Design
Client
Red Bike, Blue Bike
Date
August | 2018
The Project
This project is something that truly comes from the heart. From the success of the short film BAGMAN comes the feature film KIN. Directed by members of our industry family Josh and Jon Baker, Supervixen was tasked with the job of extending what we had envisioned for the rifle in BAGMAN and carry that through into KIN.
This project required us to expand our initial design work and flesh out the entire world that revolves around this rifle and who originally owned it.
BTW, bloody Mogwai did the bloody original bloody soundtrack! Are you serious? Get the flip in!
The World
Initially the brief was to re-imagine the weapon we designed for the short, but also keep the style in the same world.
Distinctly more "rag tag", second hand, and “rebel force” in aesthetic, this side were more like high tech guerrilla garments and weapons than well funded cutting edge military. Despite being from another place and time where the technology is far more advanced than current day armies.
And then there was the opposing force. A sleeker, more highly funded military force. Smoother lines, more uniform in appearance, essentially, the opposite to guerilla.
The screen play called for two distinct sides of a conflict that never actually has screen time, but the aftermath of a battle does appear for one scene. For this, the two sides needed distinctly different aesthetics.
We were in charge of designing the guerilla’s side. In particular, the “Cleaners" who play the role of agents sent to our time to recover and evidence of their existence. This ultimately ends up with the Cleaners perusing the hero characters in the film, and play a role in the films finale.
Conceptual Design
Working from the original design as a baseline, we moved in all directions, keeping in mind what we learnt from it being a physical object that has moving parts.
For the original gun we created physical cutout models and immediately realized the importance of hand comfort, balance, and control ergonomics.
This time around we had a head start from previous experience and created designs based around the human hands, then practicality, then lastly style.
This immediately updated the look and feel of all the designs with a more practical, and consistent design approach.
Blocknose Rifle Design
One of the key elements that we wanted to launch from when designing this gun was the notion that the rifle chose to assign itself to Eli once Eli picks the rifle up off the ground. It is, for lack of a better term, a smart gun that only responds to its owner.
Another aspect of the guns technology that we wanted to explore was the differing stages that the gun has.
The Blocknose Rifle has 3 stages in which it operates. Stage one, Assault Class. Stage 2 was more electric-centric in approach and Stage 3 was a bad-ass plasma blast that if used right, could re-arrange your plans for the day.
Hologram Design
A large part of this tech is the hologram design so we wanted this to be greatly expanded as well. From the Blocknose HUD to the tracking software and echo displays used by the Cleaners throughout the film.
This in itself was a huge task and we were very lucky to share this territory of the project was handed over the the very talented G-Munk and team (Toro Kose, Nicolas Lopardo). I think we can all agree that they crushed it.
The Cleaners
Another aspect of the project was the look of the Cleaners. This was where our new friend Nivanh Chanthara stepped in, bringing his wealth of cool shit capabilities to the table. The following is some of his process work.
For a more coverage of this work, click here!
