A quick glance at animation director Robert Valley’s filmography reveals major projects from storyboard work on Aeon Flux in 1994 to animation for big corporate names like Nike and Coca Cola, and working with Passion Pictures on music videos and short films for the Gorillaz. When he discussed his latest project—a new feature film being released online in installments called Shinjuku—with Cartoon Brew he was quick to relate his professional experiences with that of an assistant coach in the major league. “At some point I needed to venture out and present myself as a coach in my own right, so regardless of success or failure I feel compelled to put myself out there and see what happens.”
Shinjuku, which is a Twistory property by Christopher ‘Mink’ Morrison and Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy), is a work of noir fiction based in a Tokyo of a not-too-distant future. Morrison presented the project to Valley with the intention of adapting it into a feature-length bigscreen film. Valley has been directing segments of the film, which are being released online in short installments, while simultaneously collecting the artwork from the episodes into book form. “What’s really important for me is this cross-over between animation and graphic novel, so periodically we will be releasing a book based on the animated films,” Valley explained. “This [is] my goal, film, book, film book, and so on…”
