The sixteen guidelines for creating the “The Thomas Kinkade Look”.

1) Dodge corners or create darkening towards edge of image for “cozy” look. This may only apply to still imagery, but is useful where applicable.

2) Color key each scene to create mood, and color variation. When possible, utilize cooler tones to suggest somber moods, and warmer, more vibrant tones to suggest festive atmosphere. In general, create a color scheme for each scene that can be accentuated through filtering, DI treatments, or through lighting. Most of my paintings feature an overall cool color envelope, into which warm accents are applied.

3) Create classic compositions. Paintings generally utilize a theme and variation compositional motif. Heavy weighting of the image towards one side, with accented areas of interest balancing it on the other side. Allow the eye to wander into the scene through some entry point. Be aware of where the viewer is standing at all times. Utilize traditional eye levels for setting the shot — that is, no high vantage points, off-kilter vantage points, or “worms eye view” vantage points. Generally focus on a standing adults viewpoint of the scene at hand.

4) Awareness of edges. Create an overall sense of soft edges, strive for a “Barry Lyndon” look. Star filters used sparingly, but an overall “gauzy” look preferable to hard edge realism.

5) Overall concept of light. Each scene should feature dramatic sources of soft light. Dappled light patches are always a positive, glowing windows, lightposts, and other romantic lighting touches will accentuate the overall effect of the theme of light.

6) Hidden details whenever possible, References to my children (from youngest to oldest as follows): Evie, Winsor, Chandler and Merritt. References to my anniversary date, the number 52, the number 82, and the number 5282 (for fun, notice how many times this appears in my major published works). Hidden N’s throughout — preferably thirty N’s, commemorating one N for each year since the events happened.

7) Overall sense of stillness. Emphasize gentle camera moves, slow dissolves, and still camera shots. A sense of gradual pacing. Even quick cut-away shots can slightly dissolve.

8 ) Atmospheric effects. Whenever possible utilize sunset, sunrise, rainy days, mistiness — any transitory effect of nature that bespeaks luminous coloration or a sense of softness.

9) A sense of space. My paintings feature both intimate spaces and dramatic deep space effects. We should strive for intimate scenes to be balanced by deeper establishing shots. (I know this particular one is self-evident, but I am reminded of it as I see the pacing of the depth of field in Kubrick’s “Barry Lyndon”.)

10) Short focal length. In general, I love a focal plane that favors the center of interest, and allows mid-distance and distant areas to remain blurry. Recommend “stopping down” to shorten focal lengths.

11) Hidden spaces. My paintings always feature trails that dissolve into mysterious areas, patches of light that lead the eye around corners, pathways, open gates, etc. The more we can feature these devices to lead the eye into mysterious spaces, the better.

12) Surprise details. Suggest a few “inside references” that are unique to this production. Small details that I can mention in interviews that stimulate second or third viewings — for example, a “teddy bear mascot” for the movie that appears occasionally in shots. This is a fun process to pursue, and most movies I’m aware of normally have hidden “inside references”. In the realm of fine art we refer to this as “second reading, third reading, etc.” A still image attracts the viewer with an overall impact, then reveals smaller details upon further study.

13) Mood is supreme. Every decision made as to the visual look of each shot should include the concept of mood. Music can accentuate this, use of edges can accentuate this, atmospheric effects accentuate this, etc.

14) The concept of beauty. I get rid of the “ugly parts” in my paintings. It would be nice to utilize this concept as much as possible. Favor shots that feature older buildings, ramshackle, careworn structures and vehicles, and a general sense of homespun simplicity and reliance on beautiful settings.

15) Nostalgia. My paintings routinely blend timeframes. This is not only okay, but tends to create a more timeless look. Vintage cars (30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s etc) can be featured along with 70’s era cars. Older buildings are favorable. Avoid anything that looks contemporary — shopping centers, contemporary storefronts, etc. Also, I prefer to avoid anything that is shiny. Our vintage vehicles, though often times are cherished by their owners and kept spic-n-span should be “dirtied up” a bit for the shoot. Placerville was and is a somewhat shabby place, and most vehicles, people, etc bear traces of dust, sawdust, and the remnants of country living. There are many dirt roads, muddy lanes, etc., and in general the place has a tumbled down, well-worn look.

16) Most important concept of all — THE CONCEPT OF LOVE. Perhaps we could make large posters that simply say “Love this movie” and post them about. I pour a lot of love into each painting, and sense that our crew has a genuine affection for this project. This starts with Michael Campus as a Director who feels great love towards this project, and should filter down through the ranks. Remember: “Every scene is the best scene.”

The list above is not all-inclusive, but is a good starting point for internal dialogue. These guidelines are not listed in order of importance, but are dictated off the top of my head. After painting for nearly 40 years, I still wake up every morning daydreaming about new ways to make paintings. Creating a movie is a natural extension of the picture making process, and hopefully my catalog of visual paintings, along with my visual guidelines in this memo will provoke dialogue, experimentation, and a sense of over-arching visual purpose. (found here)

Octavio Paz said once that, “A chained man needs only shut his eyes to make the world explode.” Paraphrasing him, I would say that the white eye of the screen need only reflect the light that is properly its own to blow up the universe. But, for the time being, we can sleep easily, for the cinemagraphic light that reaches us is carefully filtered and metered. In none of the traditional arts is there so great a disproportion between potential and achievement as in the cinema. A film acts directly upon the spectator, presenting him with concrete people and things; in the silence and darkness of the theater, it isolates him from what we might call his normal psychic habitat. For these reasons, it can stimulate him more effectively than any other form of human expression. It can also more effectively stultify him.

The essential element in any work of art is mystery, and generally this is lacking in films. Authors, directors and producers take great pains not to disturb our peace of mind, and they keep the marvelous window of the screen closed to the liberating world of poetry. They would rather have that screen reflect subjects that could perfectly well be sequels to our everyday life; they rather that it repeat over and over the same hackneyed drama to make us forget the tedium of our daily work. Their approach is, of course, sanctioned by conventional morality, official censorship, and religion; it is ruled by good taste, and seasoned with an innocuous humor together with all the other prosaic imperatives of reality.

Anyone who is eager to see good films will rarely be satisfied by the big expensive productions or by those that have won critical praise or wide open popular acceptance. The personal story, the private individual drama, cannot, in my opinion, interest anyone who is truly alive to the contemporary world. If the spectator shares in the joys, sorrows and anguish of society as a whole and, by extension, his own. Unemployment, the instability of society, the fear of war, and so on- these are the things that affect all men today and, accordingly, they affect the spectator. But that some fellow is not happy at home and casts about for a girlfriend to provide him some fun, and that he then abandons her to return to his self-sacrificing spouse- all this is unquestionably moral and edifying but it leaves us completely indifferent.

Sometimes that which is the essence of cinema springs unexpectedly from an otherwise insipid movie– a slapstick comedy, or a banal romantic film. Man Ray once said something very significant: “The worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life, the kind that put me sound asleep, always have five minutes that are marvelous. But the best, the most highly praised films, have barely five minutes that are even worthwhile.” What this means is that in all films, good or bad- and beyond and despite the intentions of directors- cinematic poetry struggles to come to the surface and even reveal itself.

In the hands of a free spirit the cinema is a magnificent and dangerous weapon. It is the superlative medium through which to express the world of thought, feeling and instinct. The creative handling of film image is such that, among all means of human expression, its way of functioning is most reminiscent of the work of the mind during sleep. A film is an involuntary imitation of a dream.

The cinema seems to have been invented to express the life of the subconscious, the roots of which penetrate poetry so deeply. Yet it is almost never used to accomplish this.

“The most admirable thing about the fantastic,” Andre Breton has said, “is that the fantastic does not exist; everything is real”

Each person pours a certain dose of subjective feeling into what he is looking at, because no one sees things as they are but as he desires and his state of mind make him see them. I am fighting for the kind of film that will make me see this for it is this kind of cinema that will give a total vision of reality, enlarge my knowledge of things and of people, and open to me the marvelous world of the unknown, of everything that I do not find in any newspaper or on any street.

Do not think from what I have just said that I am for a cinema exclusively dedicated to the expression of the fantastic and mysterious, for a cinema that flees from or despises daily reality and aspires only to plunge us into the unconscious world of dreams.

“”
OBSERVATION:
Multi-screen viewing is seemingly anticipated by Burrough’s cut-up technique. He suggested re-arranging words and images to evade rational analysis, allowing subliminal hints of the future to leak through… an impending world of exotica, glimpsed only peripherally.
Perceptually, this simultaneous input engages me like the kinetic equivalent of an abstract or impressionist painting… phosphor-dot swirls juxtapose; meanings coalesce from semiotic chaos before reverting to incoherence. Transient and elusive, these must be grasped quickly:
Computer animations imbue even breakfast cereals with an hallucinogenic futurity; music channels process information-blips, avoiding linear presentation, implying, limitless personal choice… these reference points established, an emergent worldview becomes gradually discernible amidst the media’s white noise.
This jigsaw-fragment model of tomorrow aligns itself piece by piece, specific areas necessarily obscured by indeterminacy. However, broad assumptions regarding this postulated future may be drawn. We can imagine its ambience. We can hypothesize its psychology.
In conjunction with massive forecasted technological acceleration approaching the millenium, this oblique and shifting cathode mosaic uncovers the blueprint for an era of new sensations and possibilities. An era of the conceivable made concrete… and of the casually miraculous.