The Sword and the Pen featured on IDW Publishing website

With the comic book Usagi Yojimbo moving from Dark Horse Comics to IDW Publishing, I was asked if they could use my documentary on the IDW website as an introduction of Stan Sakai to their readers. I was happy to oblige and now it's being featured along with the announcement of the publisher change.

The Sword and the Pen available to watch

After a successful run at the Temecula Valley Museum, I've made The Sword and the Pen available to watch online. I'm hoping to do more directing in 2019.

The Sword and the Pen from Kyle Wright on Vimeo.

The Sword and the Pen completed

After editing the almost 6 hours of footage down to 13 minutes, I delivered the completed documentary last month. It is now playing for "The Art of Stan Sakai" exhibit at the Temecula Valley Museum, which runs through October 22nd. It was a real pleasure directing this documentary and I'm pleased with how it came out.

The Sword and the Pen documentary

It's been an extremely busy year and I just had the pleasure of directing a short documentary on famed comic book artist Stan Sakai. I've known Stan for several years now and have wanted to do a piece on him for some time. After watching tons of comic book creator interviews and documentaries, I was left underwhelmed by the lack of visual storytelling. It seemed that everything I watched used the same old, boring style of interview shooting that we're all too familiar with, so my pitch to Stan was to do something a little more visually compelling and cinematic.

We shot on the Alexa Classic using my Sony CineAlta prime lenses. To help give it that slightly softer, vintage look, we ran a Hollywood Black Magic 1/4 in front of the lens at all times. We used a combination of tripod and handheld shots to help give a visual energy. While the stills are from a very quick color look I built, it demonstrates the slightly warm and desaturated look I'm going for, with the desaturation being a subtle nod to the black and white nature of the comic book series, Usagi Yojimbo, that Sakai is known for.