Here's an article about Sonny Gerasimowicz aka COAX AWR from the LA Times.

Director Spike Jonze hires a novice art director to make monsters that captured the spirit of Maurice Sendak's picture book. He had his work cut out for him

When Spike Jonze set out to create live-action versions of the classic creatures from "Where the Wild Things Are" for his movie adaptation of the beloved children's book, the writer-director had a very clear image in mind -- of what he didn't want.

In 2004, around the time he also started co-writing its script with novelist Dave Eggers, Jonze rejected a number of submissions from a Hollywood special-effects company for being, well, "too creature-y." Jonze thought they simply failed to capture a bestial je ne sais quoi found in Maurice Sendak's 1963 picture book about Max, a little boy in a wolf costume who misbehaves and imagines himself transported to a faraway land where he becomes the king of all Wild Things.

"I wanted the monsters to retain the strange design that Maurice had created," he said. "Weird, cuddly, charming. Looking at each other out of the corner of their eye. They'd be almost, like, conspiring. You don't know if Max has total control over them."

To ensure his monsters would have the proper "soul," though, Jonze decided he needed an illustrator from outside the movie biz to draw mock-ups first. Over dinner, Jonze's friend Karen O, lead singer of the alt-rock trio the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Julian Gross of the noise rock band Liars steered the director toward their pal Sonny Gerasimowicz.

He wasn't a professional creature creator or artist. A former graffiti writer turned ad agency creative, Gerasimowicz was a kind of closet artiste with only one illustration for a magazine article to suggest his skill. Offered the chance to work with the zeitgeist-riding auteur, Gerasimowicz didn't present him a polished portfolio. He showed Jonze rough pencil drawings of the Wild Things. And the lo-fi renderings struck just the right nerve. "I sent him sketches that were, like, things I drew while I was on the telephone. Like on scraps of paper," Gerasimowicz recalled.

"When it comes down to something as delicate as tone, it became clear we had to find someone who had the right aesthetic," Jonze said. "It's finding people that have the right judgment, even if they've never done the specifics."

Gerasimowicz landed the job in early 2005, the mandate being not to slavishly imitate Sendak's singular style, more to articulate the creatures' distinct personalities as per the script (it helped that Jonze physically acted out each character for him). In turn, Gerasimowicz drafted scores of monster drawings: previsualizations for Photoshop-version Wild Things, the stage during which such crucial details as their fur, feathers, musculature and eyes would be decided.

Then the two traveled to Connecticut to show Sendak the renderings and get his blessing. The then-76-year-old writer-illustrator made some tweaks -- suggestions about the muzzle on a bull-like Wild Thing and the feathers on the rooster Thing not being "flamboyant" enough -- but remained markedly nonproprietary. "His attitude is so contrary to protecting anything," Jonze said. "His assignment to us was, 'Take this, make it your own. Make it something personal.' "

In 2006, the project landed at Warner Bros. and monster production began at Jim Henson Co.'s Creature Shop. Gerasimowicz was kept on as head creature designer, overseeing work by some of the foremost practitioners in the business. Nevermind that he had absolutely no experience. Or that the expense of making the monsters accounted for the largest part of the movie's production costs. Or that his staff wasn't exactly certain where he fit in.

"I would give them aesthetic direction, 'What if we kind of did this a little bit?' And they'd be, like, 'That's a cool thought.' But they would keep moving with what they were doing," Gerasimowicz said.

With principle photography in Australia approaching in the spring of 2006, anxiety set in. Jonze had precise ideas about the way the Wild Things should look, i.e., "not like they were guys in suits." But Jonze and Gerasimowicz's lack of familiarity with how special effects are created resulted in sleepless nights during the characters' fabrication.

"It was so hard!" Gerasimowicz exclaimed. "They show us a bare-bones suit and it would be the scariest thing in the world because it's just a big foam thing. Not doing this ever before, it was hard to visualize."

"We freaked out every step of the way," Jonze added. "By the time we got to Australia, we were nervous wrecks."

Compounding matters, the actors who were to perform in the Wild Thing suits had to be in costume up to 12 hours a day. Suits weighed up to 150 pounds and temperatures reached triple digits. When one of the actors dropped out at the last minute, Gerasimowicz's job description changed again: He stepped into the role of Alexander, a small, snarky goat in the film. "Sonny has a demeanor similar to that character," Jonze said. "I always describe him as a disgruntled Muppet."

For anyone familiar with Sendak's book, Jonze's "Wild Things," which opens Oct. 16, will be a marvel. The characters -- voiced by such actors as James Gandolfini, Forest Whitaker and Lauren Ambrose -- seem comfortingly familiar and yet occupy a totally unique movie universe, a vivid live-action extrapolation of Sendak's classic work. Especially the creatures' emotive faces. Asked if CGI was responsible for their expressiveness, however, Jonze grew cagey.

"The faces were static when we shot them and we put the faces on in post-production," he said. "I didn't want to have CGI faces where it's synthetic fur. So it's more manipulating what we'd shot in-camera.

"It's not like it's a big secret. But I want to let that come out later. I don't want the attention to focus on that."

Click photo to enlarge.

Graffiti artists in L.A. and elsewhere are paying tribute to the King of Pop and his legacy with both colorful murals and simple messages.

Michael Jackson stands in his signature pose: hips popped to the right, left arm raised in the air. His gloved right hand sits on his hip and out of his mouth he exclaims, "Hee-hee!" It's the King of Pop as immortalized in the parking lot of Mid-West Wholesale Lighting on Hollywood Boulevard by L.A.-based artists "Jersey Joe" / "RIME" and "Augor."

The pair incorporated Jackson's image into a rough graffiti sketch by New Zealand-based artist "Askew," and the portrait, although cartoonish in appearance and featuring a medley of Jackson's trademark looks -- styled hair, red leather jacket, sequined glove and tight pants -- realistically captures the legacy of the famous (at times, infamous) pop star.

"It was all very sudden," said 30-year-old "Jersey Joe" / "RIME." "We were working on this sketch as part of The Exchange," a project through which top-notch graffiti artists swap work, "and a friend of mine called and told me Michael had died. Ten minutes later, we were adding his image to the piece." The mural is just one of a number of tributes from street artists that are popping up on walls across the United States and afar in the wake of Jackson's death June 25.

In Tulsa, Okla., an artist named "Big N" painted a likeness of the young Jackson on the side of a building near 11th and Mingo, adding the message "Rest in Peace, King of Pop" next to the image. In Tokyo, a side-view caricature of Jackson pays homage to the late singer.

He can even be found on the side of the Kokua Market building in Moiliili, Hawaii; there, 808 Urban’s design showcases Jackson with an open shirt flowing away from his body, his hat slightly cocked to cover his face as a spotlight shines on him.

"For us, as artists, our contribution to his legacy is visual," said "Prime," founder of 808 Urban, a group of artists working in low-income neighborhoods. "Michael made a huge impact on the world. People have turned the mural into a vigil. They go there to pay tribute, to see an image, since we don't have him here. It adds comfort to the community to see him."

Closer to home, on Melrose Avenue, near Heliotrope Drive, local artist "RABBI" of dtladesigns painted a realistic portrait of Jackson from his "Thriller" days -- sporting a red leather jacket, brunet curls cascading over his forehead -- with the words "Rest in Peace."

"He made such great music," said "RABBI," 24, of Los Angeles. "The Michael Jackson who made you dance, who made you sing along . . . that Michael Jackson has been gone for a while. I wanted to capture that Mike. Everyone wanted to be that guy."

The piece, done with spray paint, took roughly eight hours to complete.

"I hope when people see it, they just smile and think about the days when they were just dancing to his music," "RABBI" said. "People don't do enough of that."

Motorists driving down La Brea near San Vicente Boulevard might catch "Mr. Brainwash’s" contribution. There's no sequined glove. No portrait of the icon. The black and white mural simply reads, "MICHAEL JACKSON: YOU ROCKED OUR WORLD," with "The King of Pop" splashed across the bottom right corner in red paint.

Jackson, certainly, isn't the first icon to be immortalized in such a fashion. Portraits of Marilyn Monroe, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X can be found on alleyways and buildings throughout Los Angeles.

"Murals are, in some way, the autobiography of a city," said Jane Golden, executive director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, which has received a few Jackson mural requests. "When someone dies, you often see memorials happen right away. Art is cathartic that way. What we're seeing with these murals is an incredible outpouring of appreciation and support for a singer who influenced many peoples' lives.

"People are not only remembering him through the murals, they're reliving memories they have in relationship to his music."

yvonne.villarreal@latimes.com

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