It is the year 2063. Journalist Hope Reiser is woken from a thirty-year sleep penalty she has served for the murder of her husband. The young woman, convinced that she’s innocent, is trying to find her way in this completely alien future. We can follow this exciting storyline in BMW’s first, 6-part podcast series, for which László Brunszkó aka Nikon One created the illustrations. Interview!
It’s not very common for a large car manufacturer like BMW to launch such a cool and creative side project. As a nature lover, how well could you identify with such an urban, science fiction car story?
My love for sci-fi and my related thematic works laid down the foundations for HYPNOPOLIS. The agency Territory Budapest & Munich contacted me for this project particularly because of my illustration series Neon Noir in the beginning of July. This also shows what I otherwise always stress: the importance of creatives pursuing their love projects. The two ends of the nature-future axis are quite far from each other indeed, but both of them has their time and place. Nature is my reality and hobby, while the future is the terrain of my dreams. However, I have not had any projects related to cars so far.
BMW is a status symbol for many. What does it mean to you?
The world of cars en bloc is outside of my scope of interests, and this is especially true for the general Hungarian profile, clientele and image of the BMW brand. This posed the challenge exactly: to perform in an environment that is really far from me. And it turned out quite well, as every part of the project passed through the client group consisting of three levels without any comments or requests for changes.
What do you think can BMW offer that other large car manufacturers cannot (yet)?
In addition to car manufacturing, or perhaps as a part of it, BMW also lays a great emphasis on future research. On top of it, they also “manufacture” their own future. As a result, for example, they will write a short story for the podcast series, in which even though they don’t outline the future, they play with possibilities, create alternatives, look for solutions and experiment with all this.
How did the work together go? Did you receive the entire podcast material in advance? To what extent did you have a free hand in the course of creation?
I was in direct contact with the Hungarian agency I mentioned earlier – they are a fantastic, flexible team. I didn’t listen to the podcast, because even though I can communicate in English proficiently, understanding the story and reworking the parts to be illustrated would have surpassed by skills I think, therefore they sent briefs for every part, and the illustrations were made based on these. I received completely free hand during the project, we only discussed references and guidelines related to the atmosphere together.
How, with what technique did you create your illustrations and the entire visual world?
I almost only use Photoshop in my projects, so everything was made in this software in this case too. When delivering the images to the agency, I was also allowed to decide what to animate on them. Creating the illustrations required a lot of time by the way: I drew the city itself for more than ten hours straight.
You Facebook page is also on fire, you keep posting about new projects. What are you working on at the moment?
Hungarian folk dance group Urban Verbunk is a permanent client of mine, for whom I recently delivered the animations made for their latest performance titled Őserő-Rózsa story, and I’m also working on several smaller commercials. In addition to all of this, I am compiling and editing the materials for my exhibition scheduled for September-November, titled „Történetek a sarkvidékről”. I also started to hear back from the larger illustration jobs planned for the fall. So there is always something exciting.
You can check out the entire HYPNOPOLIS project with the animations on the Behance page of Nikon One! Click for details!
BMW HYPNOPOLIS | Web
NIKON ONE | Behance | Facebook | Instagram
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