Asience: Hairy Tale, the creative challenge directed by Kazuto Nakazawa for Kao Corporation, has been awarded Gold at the 22nd London International Advertising Awards, Television/Cinema category, cel animation section. The award ceremony took place in London at the Hippodrome on November 12, 2007.

Started in 1986, the London International Advertising Awards is Europe's oldest and one of the most prestigious international advertising competitions, honouring preeminent work in Advertising, Design, and Digital Media. The highly coveted and difficult to attain statue has become an international icon of creative excellence. This year the competition received 17,660 entries from 81 countries. Official homepage: http://www.liaawards.com/

Created by Production I.G for Kao Corporation’s Asience shampoo, Asience: Hairy Tale is a 60-second animated film directed by Kazuto Nakazawa, who gained international fame by directing the animation part in Quentin Tarantino’s world hit Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Nakazawa also designed the characters, made the storyboard, directed the animation and drew all key frames. Backgrounds are beautifully produced by Shuichi Hirata, the texture wizard behind the stunning artwork of Cannes-nominated Innocence and Annecy-selected xxxHOLiC - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while the music is composed and performed by Yoshihiro Ike, whose past collaborations with I.G include Blood: The Last Vampire and Reideen.

The graphic style of Asience: Hairy Tale is visually inspired by XVIII century Japanese paintings, and personalized by Nakazawa’s nervous and expressive brush touch used for the characters outlines. Without any support of 3D animation techniques, the brush lines were painstakingly traced with pencil on paper by the in-between staff. The story concept, focusing on woman’s hair as metaphor of feminine life, is portrayed as a tragic love story in a samurai drama fashion.

  
© 1994-2007 KAO CORPORATION. All Rights Reserved.

Kazuto Nakazawa – Animator, born in Niigata Prefecture on March 4, 1968, his credits include Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003, animation sequence director, 2003), TV series Samurai Champloo (2004, character design, chief animation director), Linkin Park’s video clip Breaking the Habit (2004 MTV VMA Viewer's Choice Award) and the commercial film Kirin Lemon Black: Monster Blacks Fights Back (Best Commercial Film at the 11th Holland Animated Film Festival).

Established by Mitsuhisa Ishikawa in 1987, Production I.G is one of the world's leading animation studios. With its cutting-edge works, such as Ghost in the Shell (1995), Jin-Roh (2000), Blood: The Last Vampire (2000), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (animation segment, 2003) and Innocence (2004), I.G has gained high reputation around the globe, inspiring Hollywood creators such as James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino and the Wachowski brothers.

Official Website: http://www.production-ig.com