Muybridge's Strings Flip Books (マイブリッジの糸 フリップブック, 2011)

Fans of Kōji Yamamura who live outside of Japan may not be aware that it has become a tradition for the great animator to publish a book tie-in along with his latest film releases.  For Kafuka Inaka Isha, he published a slim, hardcover illustrated storybook edition of Franz Kafka's acclaimed short story A Country Doctor in Japanese translation.  


For his latest animated masterpiece Muybridge’s Strings (マイブリッジの糸, 2011), Yamamura and his publishers came up with the ingenious idea of creating  flip book tie-ins.  According to the introduction,  Yamamura wanted to create a book that would reflect the temporal themes of the animation.  Although I have not yet seen it, I have read that Muybridge's Strings employs a parallel editing structure that interweaves a story from the past (the time of Muybridge) with a story set in the present.  

Front covers: book slipcases, flip books, info booklet 

There are two complementary flip books available: (マイブリッジの糸I and マイブリッジの糸II).  They are published in a format of 13x8cm and consist of a slipcase and flip book in full colour, accompanied by a monochrome paper booklet.  When the front covers of both slipcases are pushed together (top photograph) they form the full length poster for the film.

Back covers: book slipcases, flip books, info booklet

Each flip book features a series of images on the right-hand side pages and transcribed music from the film by Normand Roger and J.S. Bach on each facing page.  The pages are of two different alternating lengths which means that once you have flipped through one side of the book, you can turn the book over and flip through a different series of images.  This forward and backward structure is also drawn from the animated short which references J.S. Bach's Crab Canon - a clever piece of music which is the musical equivalent of a palindrome.  It is best scene and heard, so I recommend checking out this helpful explanatory video.

Info booklets

Both flip books are accompanied by the same information booklet.  It features an introduction by Yamamura as well as an interview with him about not only the flip books but also the making of this Japanese-Canadian (NFB/NHK/Polygon) co-production.  See all photos on Google Plus or Facebook.  Even if you cannot read Japanese, these books are a visual delight and a must-have for collectors of independent animation.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

ISBN 978-4-89194-909-9
ISBN 978-4-89194-910-5

Order the Flip Books today:

Muybridge no Ito 1  [Flip Book]

Muyvridge no Ito 2  [Flip Book]

Nishikata’s Best Japanese Animated Shorts 2011

2011 has been an exciting year in the world of Japanese independent animation.  Kōji Yamamura released his much anticipated NFB co-production Muybridge’s Strings (マイブリッジの糸, 2011) to great acclaim in Canada and Japan.  It has already won several awards including the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival.  Mirai Mizue was invited to the Biennale to show his latest "cell animation" Modern No. 2 (2011) in which he experiments with increasing the speed of movement and uses washi paper as a background.

There was also much sadness in 2011 as the animation community mourned the loss of Masahiro Katayama and Nobuhiro Aihara.  Both belonged to the first wave of “art animators” of the 1960s and 70s and both had been very influential teachers at art colleges in Japan.  Katayama will be best remembered for the amazing series of DVDs of world animation he put together for Geneon.  His legacy lives on in the amazing work of the students he inspired at Tamabi to give animation a try such as Oscar-winner Kunio Katō, Mirai Mizue, and Akino Kondoh.  Kondoh released her latest animated short Kiya Kiya (2006-11) this autumn – a film that took the artist five years of painstaking work to complete.

Aihara passed away during Nippon Connection 2011. One of his former students, Takeshi Nagata of TOCHKA, was a guest at the festival and I learned a great deal about this influential experimental animator’s life and career from him.  His final collaboration with Keiichi Tanaami, DREAMS (2011) was released at the Image Forum Festival, and I look forward to seeing it in the New Year.

As it takes some time for animated shorts to make their way from Japan to Germany, my criteria in selecting Nishikata’s Best Animated Shorts 2011 are as follows:  I need to have seen the films either at festivals, through artist releases online, or by artists sending me their work for consideration.  The works must have been completed at some point during the last two years and be either handmade (direct, drawn, puppet, paint-on-glass, cutouts, etc.), experimental, or avant-garde in nature.  I do consider CG animation if I feel that it is innovative in some way.  Although many amazing animators screened their works at events like Image Forum 2011 and the CALF Short Film Festival in Summer, I cannot take films into consideration that I have not viewed in their entirety with my own eyes.  That means that I am looking forward to seeing  not only the aforementioned films, but also Hiroco Ichinose’s TWO TEA TWO (2010), Takashi Ishida’s Three Rooms (三つの部屋, 2011), and Naoyuki Tsuji’s Wind Spirit (風の精, 2011) sometime in 2012. 

Here are the top films that I saw this year, in the order in which I saw them:

Getting Dressed (服を着るまで, Aico Kitamura, 2010)

Last year, Kitamura’s graduation film just barely missed my official list because I had already submitted it to Midnight Eye for their year-end round-up.  It is a highly sophisticated film for a student and makes me very excited about Kitamura’s future as an artist.  The last I heard, she was working on a new animated short which should be released sometime this year.  Read Full Review .

Timbre A-Z (Mirai Mizue, 2011)

In January, Mirai Mizue shared a series of daily shorts on Vimeo and Youtube in which he explored the relationship between music , colour, shape, and movement.  It was fascinating to see him experiment with minimalism when his  “cell” animations like Jam (2009) had been moving towards greater and greater complexity.  Read about it here.

Shunga (Keiichi Tanaami + Nobuhiro Aihara, 2009)

Eroticism has long been a theme in the animation, paintings, and illustrations of Tanaami and Aihara.   For this collaborative work they draw specifically on the tradition of Shunga (春画) – Japanese erotic  art usually executed in the ukiyo-e woodblock print style.  As in Shunga, the film uses exaggerated genitalia and poses.  In translating Shunga to animation Tanaami and Aihara add the element of sensual movement.  They also literally translate the concept of genitalia being a “second face” by surrealistically depicting a couple with faces shaped like male and female genitalia making love.  This film appears on the DVD/Book set Portrait of Keiichi Tanaami.

Mechanism of Spring (春のしくみ, Atsushi Wada, 2010)

Mechanism of Spring is Wada’s most light-hearted film to date, capturing the delight that young children and animals take in the season. The chubby youths examine the wildlife, take off their shirts and run about gaily, and observe a plant sprouting out of the earth, among other delights. The frogs behaving like humans recall the famous picture scrolls Chōjū-giga (鳥獣戯画, c.12th-13th centuries) which depict frolicking animals.  This film is available on the CALF DVD Atsushi Wada works 2002-2010.  Wada is also expected to release a new film in 2012.

Tatamp (Mirai Mizue, 2010)

Like Timbre A-Z, Tatamp continues Mizue's exploration of the relationship between image and movement through his distinctive “cell animation” technique.  As the onomatopoeic title suggests, this animated short employs percussive sounds from keyboards to snare drums.  As with Fantastic Cells and Jam, the film begins minimalistically then builds to a fantastic crescendo of colour and movement.  The call of loons combined with the bright colours against heavy blacks reminded me of Haida and Inuit art.  Learn more about Mirai Mizue and find out how to order a DVD of his works.

A Gum Boy (くちゃお, Masaki Okuda, 2010)

This dynamic film was one of my favourites in the CALF Animation Special at Nippon Connection 2011.  Masaki Okuda has an inspired talent for using animation to poetically interpret music through moving images.  Read Review.

Steps (Tochka, 2010)

A stop motion film inspired by Norman McLaren and Claude Jutra’s A Chairy Tale (1957).  The animation team of Tochka (Takeshi Nagata and Kazue Monno) incorporate elements of their famous PiKA PiKA animation technique into the film. Read Review.

The Woman Who Stole Fingers (指を盗んだ女, Saori Shiroki, 2010)

Saori Shiroki’s graduate film from the Tokyo University of the Arts.  She creates a haunting and melancholic atmosphere using paint-on-glass to explore the psychological impact of abuse.    Read Review. 

Hana no Hanashi (はなのはなし, Taku Furukawa, 2010)

A clever little short by one of Japan’s top animators about men with giant noses from Pinocchio to Cyrano de Bergerac.  Furukawa seamlessly adapts 5 short stories by renowned international authors into a mere 6 minutes. Stories referenced in the film include “The Dragon” and “The Nose” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, “The Nose” by Nikolai Gogol, “The Adventures of Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi, “Cyrano de Bergerac” by Edward Rostand.  Catchy soundtrack composed by Toshiyuki Honda.

TAKU BODA (タクボーダ, Taku Furukawa/Noriyuki Boda, 2009)

Computer animation meets 16mm animation in this modern re-mix of Taku Furukawa's 1977 film Nice to See You (ナイス・トゥ・スィ・ユー).  Read Review. 

Coffee Tadaiku (コーヒータダイク, Tomoyoshi Joko + Hiroco Ichinose, 2011)

2011 was a truly memorable one for the young animators Tomoyoshi Joko and Hiroco Ichinose as they got married and started their own production company together called Decovocal.  This name was suggested to them by their mentor Taku Furukawa.  For Furukawa’s 70^th birthday they made this inspired homage to his 1977 animated short Coffee Break (コーヒー・ブレイク).  Read Review.

SPECIAL MENTIONS (Longer than 20 minutes but not feature length) 

Elemi (電信柱エレミの恋い/Denshinbashira Eremi no Koi, 2009)

Hideto Nakata was the winner of the 2009 Noburo Ofuji Award for innovation in animation for this sentimental stop motion animation.   It also won an Excellence Prize from the Japan Media Arts Festival.  The film wasreleased on DVD by Pony Canyon in late 2010 and made its way to my post box in January.    It tells the story of an anthropomorphized utility pole who falls in love with a human being.  Read Review.  Order DVD.

Midori-ko (Keita Kurosaka, 2010)

One of the highlights of Nippon Connection this year was the screening of Keita Kurosaka’s masterpiece of the grotesque Midori-ko.  It is a complex work that is difficult to sum up in the space of a paragraph, so I refer you instead to my review of the film.  No word yet on a DVD release, but fans are hopeful that someone will pick up Kurosaka’s catalogue of films for a Takashi Ito-like boxset.

THANK YOU

I wish to extend my thanks this year to the generosity of so many who helped make my reviews possible this year.  A big thanks to all the artists and directors who sent me samples of their work or were kind enough to answer my questions about their work: Aico Kitamura, Saori Shiroki, Mirai Mizue, Atsushi Wada, Kei Oyama, Takashi Nagata of Tochka, Taku Furukawa, and Takashi Sawa.  Marion Komflass, Petra Palmer, and Dennis Vetter of Nippon Connection very generously took my advice and invited CALF animators to the 2011 festival and I am delighted to announce that I have been asked to curate the animation programme for 2012. 

In the realm of feature film animation, I remember fondly my conversation with Keiichi Hara (Colorful, Summer Days with Coo) in Frankfurt am Main in March.  Hara-san warmly shared his views about the current state of independent anime production in Japan and was a real delight to chat with.  I very much enjoyed chatting with Yuki Iwamoto, Marie Miyayama, Julia Leser, Clarissa Seidel, and Ryō Yoshikawa at Japan Week in November.

I am very grateful to my fellow bloggers and film critics who have offered their support throughout the year.  Some people who have gone the extra mile include: Nobuaki Doi of CALF and Animations: Creators and Critics, Ben Ettinger of Anipages, Chris MaGee of Shinsedai Fest / Jfilmpowwow for allowing me to sneak an animated short by Tomoyasu Murata into World Film Locations: Tokyo, John Berra for asking me to write about Kihachiro Kawamoto for the forthcoming book Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2 (2012), Jon Jung of Vcinema, Sayoko Ono at Zakka Films, Isamu Matsue, Franco Picolo of Sonatine, Joel Neville Anderson, Negativ: Magazin für Film und Mediankultur (Ciprian David / Dennis Vetter / Elisabeth Maurer / Christian Alt), Wildgrounds, Klaus Wiesmüller of Japan Kino, and the guys at Schöner Denken.

This blog would not be possible without the inspiring work of / information provided by Anido, Animations: Creators and Critics, CALF, Image Forum, Tokyo Art Beat, Tokyo University of the Arts, and Tomoyasu Murata and Co.

The greatest thank you of all goes to my loyal readers, friends, and family whose support made this year the best ever for Nishikata Film Review.

Wishing you all Joy and Prosperity in 2012,  Cathy

MOM Productions and the Making of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

It’s the Christmas season again and my children have already watched our DVD of the 1964 stop motion animation of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) half a dozen times.  I never tire of watching this Christmas special which was something I looked forward to watching on TV every year when I was a child.  The characters have clearly been lovingly brought to life by the hand of some animator.

As I reported last year in my post Rankin/Bass Christmas Specials: Made in Japan, Rudolf and many other animated Christmas specials produced by Rankin/Bass were animated in Japan.  Rudolf is an early example of an international co-production for television.  The production, concept, and screenwriting were all done by Americans.  Apart from the star, Burl Ives, the voice acting was all done in Canada.  The stop motion “Animagic” was subcontacted to Tadahito “Tad” Mochinaga’s MOM Production studios – a place where many animators including the great Tadanari Okamoto got their start.  Rick Goldschmidt’s The Enchanted World of Rankin/Bass tantalizingly offered up a few tidbits about MOM Productions, but I could not afford his book about the making of Rudolph.  Fortunately, he released The Making of the Rankin/Bass Holiday Classic: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Kindle edition this year.  It gives the answers to a lot of questions I had about the production, and provides highly detailed testimonies from former MOM Productions employees.

A few of the nuggets of information about the production:

• Arthur Rankin supervised the production in Japan while Jules Bass was responsible for the production outside of Japan.  This meant that it was rare for people working on Rudolph to see both men together.

• There are two conflicting stories about how Rankin discovered Mochinaga.  One is that he saw Mochinaga’s Little Black Sambo at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1958 and contacted Mochinaga about making TV series The New Adventures of Pinocchio (130x5 minute episodes).  The other story Rankin tells is that he was invited to Tokyo in 1958 by a trade delegate called Minoru Kawamoto and one of the studios they visited belonged to Mochinaga. (note: date typo amended 26 Dec 2011)

• I had long wondered about the role of Kizo Nagashima, who is listed as a director in the credits of the Rudolph.  I could not find any evidence of Nagashima as an animator or a director online.  Goldschmidt solves this mystery by reporting that Nagashima “was an elderly gentleman who supervised the business affairs of the Tokyo studio.  Perhaps due to Japanese traditions of respect, he was given a prominent creative credit.  However, the credit was entirely honorary, as Tadahito Mochinaga was undeniably in charge of the entire animation process.” 

• Mochinaga began animation in 1938 at Geijutsu Eigasha (芸術映画社 aka GES/ゲス).  [This isn’t in Goldschmidt’s book but Mochinaga spent much of the war and the years following working for an animation studio in China].  When he returned to Japan after the war (c. 1953), Mochinaga started up his own studio.  He formed MOM Productions in 1960 with many of his old colleagues from GES in order to make puppet animation for Rankin/Bass.

• Assistant animation director Hiroshi Tabata recalls that he and Mochinaga took the 10 hour sleeper train from Tokyo to Nara to see the famous sika deer in Nara National Park.  The spent two days observing the movements of the deer in order to prepare for the animation of Rudolph.  The animation studios were housed in a building that had previously been used to test engines for fighter planes.

• Ichiro “Pin-chan” Komuro was the puppet maker for Rudolph.  He used the wood of the Katsura tree (カツラ/ Cercidiphyllum japonicum) for Rudolph’s head and torso.  The head was carved out to make it lighter and therefore easier to control during animation.  The joints of the puppets were made of lead and copper wire which were padded with cotton and polyurethane.  The antlers were formed using polyurethane.  Rudolph’s eyelids and irises were made using finely shaved leather.  Rudolph’s exterior was made of thick-piled white wool that they dyed themselves.  The hooves were made of wood and had 1mm holes drilled in them in order to affix the hooves to the sets using pins.

• The biggest problem during production was the fight to keep the puppets and sets from collecting dust and dirt.  The animators all wore white gloves, and the figures were sprayed with a magnetic spray flock to diffuse reflections for the camera.  The most difficult sets and puppets to keep clean were the white ones. 

Goldschmidt’s book is a must-read for fans of stop motion animation and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Add the Kindle edition to your holiday reading:

Learn more about Rankin/Bass Productions on Goldschmidt's blog or in his book: