Japan Media Arts Festival Short Film Special

The Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund 2011 put together a selection of award-winning and jury recommended animated shorts, music videos and commercials (CM) from the past decade. The thirteen works will be screening in the main cinema on September 24th at 19:00 and on October 2nd at 18:00. They also screen on a continuous loop on one of three TV screens in the exhibition itself where up to two people can watch at one time.

The animated shorts include two videos which have had much success online: Hiroyasu Ishida’s humorous Fumiko's Confession (2010), which is a great showcase of the young animator’s talent, and Riichiro Mashiro’s hilarious Ski Jumping Pairs (2003). Koji Yamamura’s A Child’s Metaphysics (2007) is a brilliant lesser known film by the master and Ryo Okawara’s Animal Dance, which made my list of Best Japanese Animated Shorts 2010 is also on the program. A low res version of Nobuo Takahashi’s Musashino Plateau has been online for some time, but it was much more impressive in high res at the festival.

Other animated shorts included Noriaki Okamoto’s unusual textured piece Algol (2008) about a world in which only machines and the scientist who created them exist. Yusuke Sakamoto, whose stop motion film Dandelion’s Sister (2007) totally blew me away at Nippon Connection 2008, was back with another atmospheric work, this time done in paint, about the end of a relationship.  Takeuchi Taijin is another great young animator, whose film A Wolf Loves Pork (2008) made my list of Top Animated Shorts of the Decade,  won recognition from the JMAF Jury in 2010 for his film a song like a fish, which I would describe as Tomoyasu Murata’s stop motion animation meets Takashi Ishida’s stop motion painting of interior spaces.

If I had been the programmer, I would have rounded the animated shorts out with Atsushi Wada’s In a Pig’s Eye (2010), Kunio Kato’s La maison en petits cubes (2008), Tochka’s PiKA PiKA (2006), Amica Kubo/Seita Inoue’s Bloomed Words (2006), Akino Kondoh’s The Evening Traveling (2002), Tomoyasu Murata’s Nostalgia (2001), or other worthy winners of the JMAF Animation Excellence Prize.

Although the music videos and the Nike commercial are all entertaining and very creative, it was odd having them mixed with the less commercial fare. I would have put them into a separate programme of their own.  There have certainly been enough creative music videos and CM winning awards at JMAF in the past decade and a half that it has been running to do so.  My hands down favourite of these is the music video Hibi no Neiro (Tone of the Everyday) which has used webcam technology in a most original way. The videos embedded below are all belonging to commercial works or those shared online by the artists themselves. Where possible, I encourage supporting independent artists with your wallet – which you can do by purchasing Koji Yamamura’s work – see my review of A Child's Metaphysics for purchasing options.

Fumiko's Confession 

(フミコの告白, Hiroyasu Ishida, 2010)

natsu wo matteimashita

music video for amazarashi (夏を待っていました, YKBX, 2010)

Animal Dance 

(アニマルダンス, Ryo Ōkawara, 2009)

read my review

A Child's Metaphysics 

(こどもの形而上学, Kōji Yamamura, 2007)

read my review

the river 

(川旅行, Yusuke Sakamoto, 2009)

Algol 

(Noriaki Okamoto, 2008)

Musashino Plateau

(ムサシノ プラトー, Nobuo Takahashi, 2006)

a song like a fish 

(魚に似た唄, Taijin Takeuchi, 2010)

make.believe / Genki Rockets 

(Tetsuya Mizuguchi/Kenji Tamai, 2010)

arukuaround / sakanaction 

watch video at JMAF website
(Kazuaki Seki, 2010)

Hibi No Neiro (日々の音色/Tone of everyday)

(Magico Nakamura/Masayoshi Nakamura/Masashi Kawamura/Hal Kirkland, 2009)

Nike Music Shoe 

See how they made the commercial here.
(Naoki Ito/Frank Hahn, 2010)

Ski Jumping Pairs

(スキージャンプ・ペア, Riichiro Mashima, 2003)

Koji Yamamura interviewed on Dommune

Earlier today (around midday Central European Summer Time), Dommune did a live broadcast event with Koji Yamamura on USTREAM Live. He was interviewed by Shuzo Shiota, the president and CEO of Polygon Pictures – and one of the co-producers for Muybridge’s Strings. Also participating in the talk was animation expert Yukio Hiruma. In addition to co-producing some of Yamamura’s early work (Kid’s Castle and Kipling, Jr.), Hiruma also recently acted as a digital effects supervisor on Keita Kurosaka’s masterpiece Midori-ko (2010)

The middle of the day was a bit awkward for me because my live-in translator (ie. my husband) was not around to help me out with the nuances of the Japanese language and I had to pick up my kids from school. Some of the highlights that I did catch included:

Original drawings from the production of Muybridge’s Strings:

Behind the scenes photographs from the soundtrack recording and mixing sessions in the NFB studios in Montréal – Yamamura talked reverentially about the whole experience of working at the NFB studios. . . and with shock about how cold it gets in Montréal in the winter.

Normand Roget at work

The original music and sound design are by Normand Roger, Pierre Yves Drapeau, Denis Chartrand. Yamamura talked a bit about the impressive career of Norman Roger - who has done the soundtracks to more than a hundred films by top animators from around the world. Yamamura mentioned in particular Roger’s collaborations with Frédéric Back such as Crac! (1981) and The Man Who Planted Trees (1988). Yamamura was careful to point out that although the two men have collaborated together that Back was not an NFB employee. Learn more about this collaboration at filmjourney and Back's official website.

Yamamura getting the NFB studio experience

I tried to get a couple of screencaps of a wonderful illustration of how a sequence of music borrowed from Bach should go together with the animation. The image was too shaky to get a good shot of it, so I do hope that it appears in the Making Of footage / DVD extras when the time comes – it was a piece of art in itself.

Shiota, Yamamura, and Hiruma then moved into a discussion about the Muybridge’s Strings Road Show, which opens on September 17th and runs until October 7th at the at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Ebisu. They went through Program B discussing the films by Norman McLaren, Jacques Drouin, Ishu Patel, Georges Schwitzgebel, Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby that will be running alongside Yamamura’s work.

Admiring Norman McLaren's handiwork

Before I had to race out the door to pick up my kids, I managed to catch a some the clips of McLaren’s Canon (1964), Drouin’s Mindscape and Patel’s Afterlife (1978) - not a part of the program but they indulged in a clip anyways - and The Bead Game (1977). Yamamura had brought along some wonderful items from his personal collection including a present of 5 pins from Drouin who is famed for his use of the pinscreen technique.

5 Pins for Koji from Jacques Drouin

He also told an anecdote about meeting Ishu Patel for the first time when he was a very young man. I thought I heard him say that it was at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, and when I looked it up I found that Patel had indeed been on the International Jury of the first ever animation festival in Hiroshima in 1985 when Yamamura would have been a university student.

First meeting with Patel - look how young Yamamura is!!

Can’t wait for Muybridge’s Strings to make it to Europe!

To see all the screencaps I took, see my Google Plus Photos

Support Koji Yamamura buy ordering his work on DVD:

Order from Japan via cdjapan:

The Old Crocodile and Selected Works (JP/EN/FR)

Mt. Head and Selected Works  (JP with English subs)

Kafka Inaka Isha (JP only)

From the US:

Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund, Part IV

Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund
Dortmunder U, September 11, 2011

Part I: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part II: Masaaki Yuasa at Japan Media Arts Festival Dortmund

Part III: Masaaki Yuasa on Kaiba and working for Madhouse

Part IV: Morimoto, Mind Game and more

Noiseman Sound Insect (音響生命体ノイズマン, Kōji Morimoto, 1998)

This 16-minute animated short was the first time that Masaaki Yuasa collaborated with Kōji Morimoto whom Yuasa calls a “free thinking director.” He was called by Morimoto himself – which shocked Yuasa because he is such a star in the animation world [having worked on such animated classics as Tomorrow’s Joe 2 (あしたのジョー2, Toshio Takeuchi, 1980-81) and  Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira (アキラ, 1988) before directing his own films].

Morimoto told Yuasa that  he wanted to work with him. Yuasa laughingly said that Morimoto later realized that he had had something quite different in mind than what Yuasa ended up giving him – though that was not  necessarily bad thing. It was during the making of Noiseman that Morimoto showed Yuasa Robin Nishi’s manga Mind Game. Yuasa said that through working together Morimoto and Yuasa realized that they are very different from each other. He again laughed and said that it really wasn’t until they went out drinking together that they realized that they had a few things in common. Though they may have artistic differences, Yuasa spoke earnestly of his deep admiration for Morimoto.

Mind Game

It took a long time to complete Mind Game. The storyboards themselves took at least 8 months and animating it took about 2 years. The project started off small with only 3 to 4 people involved. Yuasa did all the storyboards himself. As production for the film got under way, more and more people joined the team.

The beginning and ending of Mind Game appear to be very similar, but the viewer should notice small differences. If they do, then Yuasa feels that he has succeeded as a director. Many criticized the film for not having a clear story, but he disagrees with this view. In contrast to TV series, which have certain story constraints, everything is allowed in films.

On commercial pressures:

Especially for TV, there is a lot of pressure for the characters to be kawaii and for the story to be easily understood. He has been criticized by financial backers for having difficult to understand storylines. At one point while making Tatami Galaxy, the financial backers wanted him to change everything and Yuasa said that he refused. When asked what effect his refusal had, he replied that they just stopped bothering him after that and they didn't fire him.

Yuasa has noticed that he often does the opposite of what others expect of him. When people ask him for something soft, he gives them something hard. When they say something should be complicated, he makes it simple. He likes for people to see his work on a big screen – they should enjoy it like a trip to Disneyland. The story should be simple but powerful.

Does Yuasa see himself as an artist?

“I am an anime person,” responded Yuasa, “I don’t really know what art is, but I find it interesting.”

TV Series vs. Films

As a kid he loved TV series, but film is different. There is more attention to detail. You watch it in the dark on the big screen. A lot of talented people come together to make an anime series and this is something Yuasa enjoys. He thinks that most people enjoy working freely and on their own. He would like to make another film at some point because he thinks he can go deeper into subject matter and be more individualistic in that medium.

As a freelancer, where does he like to do his storyboards? At the studio or at home?

Yuasa likes to go into the studio so that he can feel like he’s going to work. That being said, he actually draws everywhere: on the train, on the shinkansen, in cafés.

Is he still considered a freelancer?

He is still a freelancer and has never been anything else. There are not many permanent jobs in the anime industry; most people are freelancing from job to job. Yuasa enjoys the freedom that freelancing allows him.

What are Yuasa’s future plans?

He wants to make another film. He’s seen some scripts but he would really like to do his own original idea. Failing that, he’s quite happy to do an advertising campaign or music videos until the right project comes along.

How did the March 11th earthquake affect Yuasa and did he notice any effects on the animation industry in Tokyo?

The severity of the quake was such a shock and Yuasa thought that it would mean the studio he was working at would have to close for a short time – but all the meetings went on as usual as if nothing had happened. His producer said to him: “Even if there has been a disaster, our deadline hasn’t changed”

This event was recorded on video by a Japanese crew, so there is the possibility of it turning up online at some point. This is not a transcript of the Film Talk with Masaaki Yuasa but a writing-up of the notes that I took during the event. There are a few points that I know I missed because occasionally the simultaneous translation from Japanese into German occasionally caused my brain to go into melt down. As the conversation between Stefan Riekeles and Masaaaki Yuasa did not follow a chronological order, I have for clarity’s sake assembled my notes on Yuasa’s responses in thematically.

To see photos from this event, see my Google Plus profile or the Nishikata Eiga Facebook page.

Order works by Masaaki Yuasa:

MIND GAME (English Subtitles)

Kaiba 1 [DVD+CD]

The Tatami Galaxy Vol.1