Viceland Presents
Nuts + Bolts
Tyler, the Creator explores the things he loves with the help of experts and a few personal heroes.
In the series premiere, Tyler explores a life-long interest in stop motion; speaking with Henry Selick, touring Stoopid Buddy Studios in Burbank, and collaborating with a team of ex-Disney filmmakers to bring to life his very own short story one frame at a time.
The art of Okaga
One of the coolest parts of working on this short was watching Gino Roy, who I knew to be an immensely talented artist from our days at Disney, emulate the style and tone of Tyler, the Creator, to help bring to life a gritty diner scene straight out of a Scorsese film.
INT. DINER - SUNSET
Before we set out to capture a single frame of the film, Tyler sat down to perform his short screenplay in a sound studio.
Once the dialog track was locked, we set out to storyboard and build the cafe environment where the scene would come to life.
Welcome to Okaga
The one-minute short film was created in a tiny West LA conference room between January and mid-March of 2017.
The short itself was directed by Gino Roy, with cinematography by myself, and stop-motion by Tyson James Dale. But first, how did two ex-Disney filmmakers go from this sweet story about two blank lovers on an adventure to ad a bit of color into the world?
To the ultra-violent stop-motion short film you see below?
Well, that’s a story best told by filmmaker Gino Roy via his (unofficial) behind-the-scenes look at our time working inside the wild mind of Tyler, the Creator.
To be cont’d…
The short film within Episode 01 of Nuts + Bolts generated excitement within Viceland; after the season premiere, I was brought on to draft a TV Bible for what would be a roughly 4-hour stop-motion series based on the fallout of the diner scene.
Of all the series bibles I’ve written over the years, Okaga remains one of my personal favorites. It was a dark, strange, mysterious world to be working in and I hope one day the project is picked up for distribution.