Spicoli Lifestyles, Laundromats and Matador Bands: California Inspires Me

California Inspires Me is a series of animated interviews by California Sunday Magazine in collaboration with Google Play. This latest interview is with actor and rock-operateer Jack Black who grew up in Hermosa Beach, Southern California – the animation provides a refreshing, vivid accompaniment to the stories that Black has to tell. The excellent Nicolas Ménard is the director behind this piece with animation by both him and Anne-Lou Erambert. The content of interviews can get lost when you’re just sitting and listening to someone drone on about their lives but these hippy injected visuals that work in tandem with Black’s lazy tales, giving you a wonderful sensory experience that anyone putting out content wants to achieve.

San Francisco based singer/songwriter, Thao Nguyen was also given the treatment too, animated by the London based Will Rose. It’s notably different, with a more playful, childlike feel to reflect Thao’s anecdotes of growing up. Not forgetting Beginners director, Mike Mills instalment of the series either, this time created by Brian Rea and Pablo Delcán. Again, reflecting the subject’s skateboarding narrative, it has a more linear style as you follow a roughly sketched dot tail sliding through it’s journey. Each interview has it’s own dedicated micro-site and owing to it’s collaboration with Google Play, you can view and purchase any and all influences talked about by the artists.

California Sunday have created a great way for us to connect with some of our favourite artists, directors and musicians in an immersive and interactive way; the rest of the publishing world should take note.

You can view Thao Nguyen and Mike Mills’ interviews below and visit the respective micro-sites here and here.