"Be Kind to Yourself" – My Cinematic Tribute to Charlie Puth & a Dear Friend Who Never Left.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYJwsvl7JMY

It’s been over ten years since I last posted anything on YouTube. Honestly, I never planned it that way, but things often move forward best when you least expect it.

I found myself working on an alternative version of Charlie Puth’s new track “Beat Yourself Up,” like someone rediscovering and restoring a magnificent Lamborghini Countach that had been forgotten in a barn, covered in dust. Of course, the forgotten Lamborghini isn’t Charlie Puth himself, but rather older projects i left aside for a while now — the ones it’s often wise to set aside when they no longer align with the path you’ve taken or the needs of the moment. Those paths can be winding. But it’s good to step back and look at the road from a hilltop, just a little higher up, so you can truly see the landscape.

Some 2019 different versions Enzo, my Piano-Car, Sculpted in ZBRUSH. the decor has been entirely paint with Photoshop.

The vehicles you see in this video clip are my own creations, sculpted with ZBrush — the 3D sculpting software I’ve been using since 2010 to build all kinds of rolling, flying, or sci-fi machines. In a way, I became a concept artist so I’d always have the right tools and ingredients to tell my stories as well as possible. I’ll come back to that side of my work a bit later.

Charlie Puth is a very atypical artist in today’s American pop scene. His studio approach to music creation, combined with his vocal and piano talents, creates a bridge between Jacob Collier’s universe and mainstream pop. It’s no coincidence that incredibly talented musicians like Calvin Rodgers, Jerrod Sullivan, or Matt Ramsey have been inspired to do jam covers of tracks like “Boy.” Musicians genuinely respect him.

I stumbled across this contest completely by chance while checking my subscriptions on Moises AI. Moises and Charlie Puth had made the stems — the separated tracks — of his latest song “Beat Yourself Up” available. As soon as I heard the isolated vocal tracks, I felt the urge to modestly try my own musical proposal. I should point out that I mainly use this app to recover separated audio tracks from old songs I recorded many years ago, especially to retrieve bass lines or synth themes. Moises AI also offers AI-generated tracks, but I have to admit I’m not drawn to that process right now — except for testing sung versions of tracks I’m working on, using my own reference vocal takes. Moises Studio also offers AI mastering, but again, apart from a few rare exceptions, I prefer to master my tracks myself. That’s exactly what I did for this cover/remix.

I finished editing the video clip for my version of the track the day before the anniversary of the passing of a very dear friend who left us a long time ago. Mickael Bidamant was an extraordinary human being — halfway between the eloquence of Fabrice Luchini and the physique of Florian Manaudou. Or, for our American friends, between the flamboyant theatricality of Robert Downey Jr. and the build of Chris Evans. Beyond being a pure-hearted guy with incredible soul and elegance, Mike was a phenomenal artist and illustrator. Today he would undoubtedly sit somewhere between Mœbius and Luc Besson. Cinema, comics, and music were his greatest passions. “Le Grand Bleu” (The Big Blue) had deeply moved him. It’s thanks to Mike that I discovered that cinematic universe where Eric Serra’s music perfectly punctuated Luc Besson’s sometimes extravagant scenes. He was fascinated by Jean-Michel Jarre and his custom-designed instruments, especially the half-circle synthesizer. That’s why the piano-car you’ll see in the clip is a tribute to him. It connects Besson’s “Big Blue” with the little red Fiat 500 of Enzo Maiorca and Jean-Michel Jarre’s wild synths.

There are countless nods to Marseille, the ultimate cinematic city. For me, Marcel Pagnol’s Marseille trilogy remains unbeatable and an endless source of inspiration for the Provençal gentleman that I am. And of course, the Lada turned into a rally-ready taxi is a wink to the legendary Peugeot 406 driven by Daniel Morales in the cult classic Taxi.

Enzo, this piano-car, is meant to exist in a commercial version one day. With all my heart, I hope that somewhere — in a showroom, on a beach, or at a party — it will bring people together to dance and have fun around it. At the end of the clip, the shot of Enzo by the seaside, its piano keys resting under the sunset and lulled by the waves, perfectly captures what this instrument inspires in me. Its very first version was the front end of the “fake” Ferrari Daytona belonging to Sonny Crockett in Miami Vice. One day, as I was leaving a restaurant in Santa Monica with my mother, I came face-to-face with Olivia Brown, who played Trudy in the series — right in the middle of the street. I approached her and told her about the conversation my mother and I had just had about my piano-car, which was inspired by Miami Vice. We chatted for a while; what I was telling her was quite moving for her, and she was incredibly receptive. Especially since she would soon be able to see my portfolio online, which would include visuals of this musical vehicle. We were supposed to meet again in a family setting, but as often happens in L.A., tomorrow is always another day. That memorable encounter pushed me to launch a project in which this piano-car would play a central role. For years I’ve been storing the body panels of a Fiat 500 in my basement, carefully packed and ready for Enzo’s creation. They’re still waiting.

Charlie’s song is particularly about the need to stop constantly beating yourself up and to be kinder to yourself. A few years ago, Mike “came back” to see me in a way that would be hard for me to explain here. It happened during an especially difficult period in my life and for my loved ones. That “visit” helped me hold on for many more years. Those were the most trying yet meaningful years, and as a bonus, they came with a faith and certainty that summer was on its way… “Summer Is Coming.” These kinds of reunions create profound shocks. But those shocks are never negative, because they bring renewal and a more emotional understanding of what truly surrounds us here — beyond this reality that, in the end, isn’t as dense as it seems.

I gave the character in this adventure — the taxi driver who dreams of building unusual instruments — the features of my nephew. We’re very close, and he and his sister, my dear niece, are incredibly inspiring and luminous souls. I imagined the story with Charlie Puth appearing as a loyal friend coming to support and advise his buddy in trouble. Kind of like Fonzie, or rather like Trent in Swingers by Jon Favreau and Doug Liman — the super-cool bro who never gets offended and always encourages his friends’ wanderings with elegant humor.

For the animation part, I converted my 3D vehicles, Enzo and the Fada Taxi, into animated versions mainly using Kling 3. This is done from my complete illustrations where I place the vehicles in scenes I paint in Photoshop (backgrounds, vehicle paint, details, etc.). They then go through NanoBanana to quickly add characters or rework camera angles. In that sense, when generative AI serves artists, it becomes an incredible tool. I learned design the hard way — 3D, traditional illustration, and graphic design — since I was a kid. Being able to feed my 2D and 3D illustrations, matte paintings, personal logos, and characters into tools that bring them to life is mind-blowing. I often read complete nonsense like “I made a $200 million movie with a two-line prompt!” But when you work on every single shot, shaping even the label on a bottle, the car logo, the background frame, the wallpaper, the clothes, and the T-shirt logos you designed yourself in traditional graphic design… that’s a whole different story. This clip took 14 to 16 hours of work per day for more than two weeks, including creating and recording the music solo. I hadn’t planned on that much work, but the pleasure and momentum were huge. It did put my main project, 21 Dragons, on hold.

The world of AI prompters and the world of craftsmen are not the same. I’m used to working like an independent studio, and for years I knocked on the doors of publishers and producers, especially in L.A. In 2011 I sold my old Seat Ibiza to finance large-format books of my concepts and stories in Los Angeles so they could visually understand my work as best as possible. A few years later I had to sell my car in L.A. and auction off the contents of my Santa Monica storage unit. There comes a moment when your soul says “Stop!” — and it’s right to be heard. This AI revolution gives artists incredibly powerful tools that provide a fundamental “bypass” to tackle large-scale projects previously reserved for big studios. It also maximizes the impact of your work, because your partners can now visualize your proposals faster and at a much lower cost.

In my opinion, the future isn’t all-AI, but a balanced in-between that will deeply change the game. I was able to do motion capture to animate my characters simply by filming myself with a smartphone. What’s coming is insane.

For me, the ultimate goal has always been actual production. I do a lot of editing, visual rendering, motion design, and back-and-forth between 3D and Photoshop to bring these projects to life. I also spend a lot of time on sound design to add impact and rhythm to the storytelling. There’s no way I’d give up that pleasure, because the style and signature are yours — not the AI’s.

My current priority is 21 Dragons. It’s an epic adventure that belongs to the Lirvanium universe I’ve been working on for many years, and which is now expanding into gaming as well. A preview of 21 Dragons is available on my site in the “MUSIC” and “21 DRAGONS” sections — two different previews. Always with the desire to tell a personal story that makes sense, supported by music and visuals. It’s a long road with many steps. “Enzo” was a stylistic study for an older project called “Noisy Lights,” which for now is completely on the back burner. If that project ever returns, it will be in a completely new form and certainly not under that name.

We are in a new era for anyone carrying cinematic projects. Whether you come from TV or film, a new milestone has been reached. What happened with the arrival of computers and sound cards for home studios is now happening for directors, aspiring or established storytellers who dream of seeing their stories on screen. Record labels saw the late ’90s arrival of artists who could record full-scale albums on a budget and start freeing themselves from traditional production and distribution networks thanks to the internet. That’s actually how Charlie Puth started. The same thing is happening today in the world of cinema and filmmaking in general. Just as YouTubers drained the mainstream media, they are now going to offer their series, long or short formats, sci-fi films, or comedies with incredible flexibility and independence — and quickly. Quality will find its way.

Nothing is more important to me than this tribute to a dear friend through this musical and video production. I’m submitting this track to the contest simply for the pleasure of sharing a little of the emotion and the very Pixar-like good vibes that this song ultimately inspired in me — and that I wanted to make very cinematic.

Go listen to or discover Charlie Puth and his new album Whatever’s Clever — a genuinely endearing artist who hasn’t finished surprising us by setting new standards for this generation of creators.

Take care, JL