Tigran Mutafyan Shows How To Truly Get Inside the Comic Book Masters of the Sun

While they have their own “lanes” in which they thrive, artists of different mediums sometimes work together to explore new areas and manifest new creations. Cinematographer Tigran Mutafyan has worked with will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas on music videos numerous times. When Will wrote the script for a new Marvel comic book, the DP was tapped to collaborate with animators to create an innovative way of presenting a story to comic fans via Virtual Reality. The project would not only prove groundbreaking for comic books but would also result in Tigran working with some of the biggest names in music and movies. It was the desire of Will and the Black Eyed Peas to place audiences inside the comic book, immersing them in an experience like never before. Music and message would all be a part of Masters of the Sun and Mutafyan would be in charge of pioneering the means to do this. What began as a fifteen cent paper publication has evolved into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (founder Stan Lee sold Marvel to Disney in 2014 for $4 Billion); Masters of the Sun - The Zombie Chronicles is the link between the two. It promises to be the connective tissue between both while surpassing them via a 3D experience.

Marvel is leading the industry as the most recognizable and prolific name in films and comics. The income in merchandising alone is astounding. License Global reported that Disney (owner of Marvel) made $41 Billion off of licensing in 2013. The company didn’t achieve those kind of numbers by resting on their laurels. Masters of the Sun offers a completely new medium to attract fans of Marvel characters. Created by will.i.am, the comic tells the story of a hip hop group who battles a zombie outbreak and an alien god to save the world. The story is not without social commentary as it symbolizes the crack epidemic of the 80’s. To accompany the comic, the Black Eyed Peas wanted to create a VR companion. The characters in the comic were voiced by a who’s who including: Stan Lee, Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah, Common, Ice T, Redman, Michael Rapaport, and many other famed and Oscar award-winning actors.

Tigran Mutafyan was tasked with bringing the 3D concept into reality. While this DP is used to thinking in terms of multiple camera angles, the comic book animators are most accustomed to a 2D point of reference. The collaboration required both sides to find a common ground upon which to build. Tigran relates, “I took the original script and broke it down to the visual scenes, sometimes completely changing them from a visual storytelling standpoint. Following the ‘new type’ of a script we developed, I was working with the storyboard artist to show and explain the space, camera movement, dynamic compositions, angles, the shapes; sometimes even the texture and the visual action details. I had to create and shoot a movie from the vantage of the actors in the story, supplying the ability to act through every character or as a viewer. It’s like creating a movie for your avatar. Visually, the viewers are fully inside the VR world. In the movies they have chance to see the static edges of the screen or other objects which will bring their conscious ‘back to the reality.’ The idea of visual storytelling should be completely changed. As a DP I had to find a way to control the attention of the audience and visually direct the photography in a way that encourages the viewer to the place I want the story to go. Visual storytelling is crucial in VR, because the sound is a huge challenge. Will.i.am invited Hanz Zimmer to collaborate on a never ending sound and music component that can blend into the next scene organically.”

Entertainment has often been the driving force in technological advancements. While there is typically a strong economic facet involved in the process, it’s the artist and the public’s desire to have an experience as never before seen which propels it. Whether it’s moving pictures at the beginning of the last century or VR productions such as this, it takes talent like Tigran and the artists he works with to produce a format for the world to consume it. As director Pasha Shapiro states, “Tigran has proven himself time and time again to be a cinematographer of extraordinary ability. He is truly among the top tier of DPs working today.”