Geidai
Animation: 3rd Graduate Works 2012 (DVD)
東京藝術大学大学院映像研究科アニメーション専攻第三期生修了作品集2012
The class of
2012 was taught by Professors Yuichi Ito
(Model Animation), Mitsuko Okamoto
(Production), Takehito Deguchi
(Screenwriting), Koji Yamamura (2D
animation), and Taruto Fuyama. Assistant Professors were animator Hiromitsu Murakami and lecturers Ilan Nguyen and Eiji Otsuka. Sayaka Omodaka, Hiroko Tochigi and Yuichi
Matsumoto provided additional assistance.
Sound instructors for the films were Tatsuhko Nishioka, Toru
Kamekawa, Yuichi Kishino, and Hiroshi Takayama.
Two trends
in the Japanese animation community are present in this graduating class. The first animators from overseas –
particularly other East Asian countries – coming to Japan to either study
animation or work for Japanese studios. Yuanyuan Hu, from Nanjing, is strongly
influenced by her native culture in both her aesthetics and her stories, but two
years after graduation she continues to live and work in Japan including as a teaching
assistant at Geidai. YungSung Song, from South Korea, has an
abstract style all his own and also continues to live and work as a freelance
animator in Yokohama.
The other trend is the growing number of women directors in the animation community. Women animators have long been represented in productions as inbetweeners, animators (both puppet and drawing), and producers, but more and more women are taking the helm as directors. As they are still early in their careers, many of the Geidai graduates already have a strong, recognisable aesthetic all their own. I am thinking in particular of 2010 graduate Saori Shiroki with her paint-on-glass technique, and from this graduated class Yuanyuan Hu’s colourful Chinese aesthetic, Aya Tsugehata’s puppet animation, Maho Yoshida’s strong visual storytelling, among many other talented young women.
The Geidai 2012 graduates' works were well received at domestic and international festivals, particularly
at the 16th
Japan Media Arts Festival. Two real
stand-out films from this group of grads is Maho Yoshida’s Recruit Rhapsody (read
my review), which not only received great critical acclaim, but became a
viral video online. Ryo Okawara’s A Wind Egg (read my
review) was also acclaimed at international festivals and went on to win
the Lotte Reiniger Promotion Award at Stuttgart 2013. Okawara was also responsible for this year’s poster
art and DVD cover, as well as the opening trailer.
Unless otherwise noted, the film descriptions below are from the DVD booklet. I have updated biographical information and added links to official websites, blogs, and social media accounts.
Graduate Films
収録作品 第三期生修了作品
Open Play, Forgetting Eye
開かれた遊び、忘れる眼 / Akareta
Asobi, Wasureru Manako / 2012年 / 8'39"
“The film is made with the Surrealist game
‘exquisite corpse’ as its core methodology.
Pictures are. . .
drawn repeatedly. After several
days [he] forgets the images he has drawn himself. Through the accumulation of coincidences and
contiguities the act of ‘combining the forgotten images together’ generates interstices,
and finally this play gets its own rhythm and opens itself like a window
through with the sunlight streams.”
ALIMO (b. 1977) started makes his own
animations while working as a medical cameraman. After a student exchange to India, he
developed his own original animation technique that combines painting and
animation called “Animation Tableau”. He
is a graduate of the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS,
2008). In 2008, ALIMO was honoured at
the 11th Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art. His graduate film for Geidai (2012), Opening Play, Forgetting Eye, made the
Jury Selection at the Japan Media Arts Festival (2012). ALIMO is currently a visiting researcher at the
Estonian Academy of Arts. Learn more on
Studio Alimo’s official website.
Look at Me!
2012年 / 5'35"
“A high school girl [goes] to an amusement
park in the afternoon. . . [and
loses] her bear key-holder when she changed key-holders. [Believing himself to have been] abandoned,
the bear tries to follow her. Can he
really gain her love?”
Senri Iida (飯田千里, b.
1987) is a native of Kanagawa Prefecture. He began making animation as a high school
student. Iida did his BA in the
Department of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Musashino Art University (2006)
followed by his MA in Animation at Geidai (2012). Check out his official
website.
A Wind Egg
空の卵 / Kara no Tamago
/ 2012年 / 10'30"
“The film is about a family, [that] runs a
chicken farm. The boy hankers after
birds and his little sister keeps an eye on him. The father loves eggs. The mother loves somebody else. In the family fixture, each member stays
there with bias or secrets.”
Ryo Okawara
(大川原 亮, b. 1986)
is from Yokohama. He has a degree in
Design from Tama Art University (2009) and completed his MA in Animation at
Geidai in 2012. His 2009 Film Animal
Dance received an Excellence Award from the Japan Media Arts Festival
(2009). A Wind Egg won Okawara the
Lotte Reiniger Promotion Award at Stuttgart 2013. Okawara is a member of CALF Studio. Follow Okawara on twitter and vimeo.
I am alone, walking on the straight road.
まつすぐな道でさみしい / Matsu
suguna Michi de Samishii / 2012年 / 5'53"
“I tried to symbolize the emotion of
loneliness with the motif of the poet, Taneda Santoka, who has broken the haiku
form. Cutout method depicts subtle face
expressions of the man who is slightly drunk in the mountain[s]. . .”
Masanori Okamoto (岡本 将徳, b.1985) grew up in Tokyo. He studied Design at Musashino Art University
(2008) before pursuing his MA in Animation at Geidai (2012). He has shared samples of his work on youtube or vimeo.
He has two tumblr feeds, peamar
and marpea, and can also be followed on
twitter. Check out his collaboration with the musician
Saitone (サイトーン) on Hōhō (ホーホー).
Ukiyodoko
浮世床 / 2012年 / 8'00"
“The film is based on Ukiyodoko, a rakugo
storytelling piece. Hanzo, the hero,
brags to his friends to make a party go.
Human nature remains unchanged.
. . We love meaningless conversations among boon companions. Different communication
methods are visually tangled in. . . Edo
and today. The theme is an ‘interchange
between the transient and the immutable.’”
Kazuya Karasawa (唐澤和也, b.
1985) is from Tokyo. He has a BA in
Animation from Tokyo Zokei University (2010) and an MA in Animation from Geidai
(2012). Follow him on twitter.
Sunset Flower Blooming
夕化粧 / Yugesho /
2012年 / 10'19"
“The film is
set in China in the 1960s. An old woman
cools herself in the garden. The sunset
makes the sky orange. Sunset flower
starts to bloom. The flower guides her
to daydream. The woman dreams [of her] childhood
memories and when she was young and beautiful.”
Yuanyuan Hu (胡 嫄嫄/コ・ユェンユェン, b. 1986) is from Nanjing, China. She has a degree in Graphic Design from
Nanjing University of the Arts (2009) and an MA in animation from Geidai (2012). She continues to live and work in
Yokohama. Sunset Flower Blooming was named to the Jury Selection at the Japan
Media Arts Festival in 2012.
Spirits from the Night
夜から来た人たち / Yoru kara
Kita Hitotachi / 2012年 / 7'35"
“At night, the child sees the sandy figure
coming into his room. It lures his
stuffed animal away from the shelf and they are gone beyond the hill. Following them to get his stuffed animal
back, the child goes into the deep darkness of the night. . .”
Hiroko Satsuma (薩摩 浩子, b.1987) is from Shizuoka. She has a degree in Information Design from
Tama Art University (2010) and an MA in Animation from Geidai (2012). Follow her on twitter.
Hide-and-seek
かくれん坊 / Kakurenbō
/ 2012年 / 7'51"
“We covered the area surrounded by [sea] and
mountains. Since that day, this town has
been in complete darkness. Lights, roads
home, a mother and a baby in her womb are hidden in this darkness. This animation depicts the truth hiding
behind the facts.”
Keiko Shiraishi (白石 慶子, b. 1985) was born in Tokyo. She graduated from the Department of Moving
Images and Performing Arts at Tama Art University in 2008. Upon graduation, she worked at as a CG
animator at SUNRISE until 2010 before pursuing her MA in Animation at Geidai
(2012). She now works as a freelance
animator. Follow her on twitter and check out her official website.
QQQ
2012年 / 8'20"
“Story of Qs. Three Qs and more make QQQ. QQQ spin and roll. And QQQ transform themselves, spinning. QQQ transform, spinning, rolling, swinging,
turning, and traveling.”
YungSung Song (宋 永盛 / ヨンソン・ソン) was born in South Korea and
did his undergraduate studies at Musashino Art University (2009). In his first year at Geidai, he made the
abstract animated short PART BLUE
(2010) and has an online magazine of the same name. Check out Part
Blue Magazine (in
Japanese / in Korean). Follow Song on vimeo.
The Surface of the Earth
2012年 / 6'03"
“Earth is the place and the established
existence. Earth is also a ball of dust,
and a capricious object. At the
avalanche of time-layer, falling deep down into the ground, you can see the
fallacious landscape far from reality.
The body recognizes the reality of the world by touching the landscape
to regain the reality. It is an
adventure between the real and the unreal.”
Sonomi Takada (高田 苑実, b. 1982) was born in Tokyo. She has a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint
Martins College of Art and Design (UAL, 2009) and completed her MA in Animation
at Geidai (2012). You can find sample of
her works on her official website.
The Sakuramoto Broom Workshop
櫻本箒製作所 / Sakuramoto
Hōki Seisakusho / 2012年 / 9'16"
“An old couple live in a Japanese
village. The make [brooms] for a
living. They have been together. .
. and [worked together] for a
long time. Recently, the husband [has]
noticed [his] wife has had some symptoms of the disease which has caused some
obstacles in their work.”
Aya Tsugehata (告畑 綾, b. 1987) was born in Saitama. She has a BA in Information Design from Tama
Art University (2010) and an MA in Animation from Geidai (2012). The Sakuramoto Broom Workshop made the Jury
Selection at the 16th Japan Media Arts Festival (2012).
xx
2012年 / 7'50"
“Red ribbon of [a] double helix is the
[bond] to connect the girls; the transmitted touch of. . . soft hands, and the gentle memories only
girls can inherit. Those dreamy moments
abruptly end and the bodies transform regardless of their intentions. The ‘xx’ gives and takes. It is an inescapable thread of fate. This is a girl’s animation to warn the end of
girlfriend to warn the end of girlhood.
. . ”
Toyomi Morishita (モリシタ トヨミ) was born in Osaka.
She has a degree in Graphic Design from Central St. Martin’s College of
Art and Design (UAL, 2000) and is also a graduate of the Inter Medium Institute
(2005) in Osaka. She completed her MA in
Animation at Geidai in 2012. Follow her
on twitter.
Tomato confit
トマトコンフィ / Tomato
Konfi / 2012年 / 5'11"
“There once lived two brothers in a
town. The elder lived alone. The younger lived with his parents. They did not get along well. .
. They called each other
occasionally. The elder one was
impatient and emotional and [did] nothing but work. .
. One day the elder brother’s
face turned into a tomato. . .”
Mayuko Yamakita (山北 麻由子, b. 1986) was born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. She has a degree from the Department of
Moving Images and Performing Arts at Tama Art University (2010) and an MA in
Animation from Geidai (2012). Check out
samples of her work on youtube and
learn more about her on her
official website.
Recruit Rhapsody
就活狂想曲 / Shūkatsu
Kyōsōkyoku / 2012年 / 7'27"
“The heroine has been living life as an
undergraduate. There is nothing
remarkable about her. However, she has
noticed there [is] something strange about her friends recently. She learned that they were getting mad about
‘job-hunting’. Without realizing what
[it] is, the [heroine also gets] drawn [into] the Nipponese job-hunting swirl.”
Maho Yoshida (吉田 まほ, b.1986) is a native of Tokyo. She did her BA in Design (2010) and her MA in
Animation (2012) at Geidai. Follow her
on her blog.
First Year Films
一年次作品2011
Island of Man
人の島 / Hito no Shima
/2011年 / ALIMO / ALIMO / 6'32"
“A man dressed in a suit and wearing boots
gazes at the beautiful ocean before him.
He looks exhausted and gazes at the beautiful ocean before him. He looks exhausted and gazes at the beautiful
ocean before him. Until a few days ago,
he was endlessly going back and forth between the ocean and the sky. The story gradually trace[s] back into his
life.”
From the Dolphin
イルカから / Iruka kara
/ 2011年 / 有吉 達宏 /
Tatsuhiro ARIYOSHI / 2'09"
“The image of dolphins ties together this
story.”
JAM FISH
2011年 / 飯田 千里 /
Senri IIDA / 3'34"
“Depiction of an incident that happened one
night. .
. as everyone returns to their
hometown for the holidays, told from a child’s point of view.”
Fully Cooked for You
おにしめ おたべ / Onishime Otabe / 2011年 / 今林 由佳 /
Yuka IMABAYASHI / 3'44"
“A mother making a traditional New Year’s
vegetable dish for the family, and a child watching. The ingredients are [anthropomorphic] peas, carrots,
burdock root and konjak. Enjoy the
dish!”
BONNIE
2011年 / 岡本 将徳 /
Masanori OKAMOTO / 2'27"
“BONNIE is something like the wind, and she
was hoping that everything would get blown away.”
Ants in the Sky
空のアリ / Sora no ari
/ 2011年 / 唐澤 和也 /
Kazuya KARASAWA / 6'05"
“There are creatures like this. In the sky.
An ‘ant’ lost on earth and a man left behind. Hey, listen to the request! The man’s ‘ant gathering’ begins.”
Spots Spots
2011年 / 胡 嫄嫄 /
Yuanyuan HU / 4'15"
“A young man is drawing sketches of birds in
the woods. The spotted pattern of the
bird’s wings begins to scatter. He
gradually becomes mesmerized by the pattern.”
The Grouse in Snow Mountain
雪山のライチョウ / Yukiyama
no Raichō / 2011年 / 薩摩 浩子 /
Hiroko SATSUMA / 5'19"
“A man blown by [a] blizzard on Snow
Mountain wants to return to his warm home.”
Peek-a-boo
いないいないばあば / Inai inai
baa ba / 2011年 / 白石 慶子 /
Keiko SHIRAISHI / 5'15"
“The old granny playing peek-a-boo is
gone. Instead, a stranger appears and
draws closer to the child. Peek-a-boo
involves exercising memory, and looking directly at your partner.”
The Life of the Weed
草の一生 / Kusa no isshō
/ 2011年 / 高田 苑実 /
Sonomi TAKADA / 2'53"
“A town flourishes on the sea, and a weed
take[s] shelter there. From then on, the
weed endlessly repeats its small and harsh life. The weed uses its own body to
perform a dance that condenses the things perceived in that town over a
lifetime.”
Imamura Store
今村商店 / Imamura Shōten
/ 2011年 / 告畑 綾 / Aya
TSUGEHATA / 5'16"
“There is an elderly woman who has run a
store in a Japanese town for over sixty years.
She marries into the Imamura Store and cares for the shop by herself, as
she lived each day as the present.”
Flowers
2011年 / モリシタ トヨミ / Toyomi MORISHITA / 4'58"
“A girl who loves to dance but has
talent. ‘Talent’ is not something to be
added on, but rather ‘complements what is lacking’. The important thing is to continually keep
the easily wilted ‘flower’ blooming beautifully.”
Fleeting Dream
玉響の夢 / Yamayura no
yume / 2011年 / 山北 麻由子 /
Mayuko YAMAKITA / 4'01"
“A girl is informed by her doctor that she
is pregnant. Surprised by the unexpected
announcement, falls into an anguish. The fleeting dream is a despairing dream.”
Al Dente Tango
2011年 / 吉田 まほ /
Maho YOSHIDA / 4'08"
“The stage is a fancy restaurant featuring
live tango performances. Both the
cuisine and the clientele are impeccable, and everyone is fully content. But one customer’s visit disrupts the
tranquility.”
Catherine
Munroe Hotes 2014