Yokohama Tale (ヨコハマテイル, 2011)

This animated short is an homage to the port of Yokohama by three artists who love the city: the stop motion animator Yūichi Itō (I.TOON), the photographer Hideo Mori (amano studio), and the composer Miyuki Onitake (onitake).  The film consists of three vignettes: “Chat”, “Once Upon a Time in Red Brick Warehouse”, and “The White Seamew”.

“Chat”

With his animated short Harbor Tale (2011), Yūichi Itō brought the buildings of Yokohama to life with his unique mixture of stop motion and computer animation, a technique he dubs Neo Craft Animation.  This follow-up film features the star of Harbor Tale, Mr. Brick, and some of Yokohama’s most famous architectural landmarks.  The Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse (横浜赤レンガ倉庫) historical landmark site is comprised of two red brick warehouses built in 1911 and 1913.  In this first vignette, Mr. Brick watches as the two warehouse anthropomorphise, with windows for eyes, and greet each other. 

“Once Upon a Time in Red Brick Warehouse”

This vignette opens with an aerial shot of the pier with the red brick warehouses.  As in Harbor Tale, the ships in the harbour anthropomorphise and greet each other as the pass by.  A red brick motif acts as a break between short montages of Mori’s photographs of Yokohama.  Itō’s animation adds surreal touches to the urban seaside landscape such as a shipping container who opens his eyes to look at a passerby and a fish that flies through a rainy sky.  Onitake’s jaunty music keeps the atmosphere light and playful.  Mr. Brick runs through the puddles outside Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse past “K”LINE shipping containers, and inside the warehouse buildings. 

“The White Seamew”

Seamew (also spelled sea mew) is another name for the common gull or mew gull – what the Japanese call kamome.  In Harbor Tale, such a gull played an important role in rescuing Mr. Brick from a precarious situation.   This vignette opens with a wide shot of Yokohama Marine Tower (横浜マリンタワー).  As a gull flies towards the tower, the tower comes to life.  A flock of gulls flies by the tower, transforming from clay figures into white, transparent shapes.    A lone gull flies over the cityscape of Yokohama and them through beautiful photographs by Mori of the harbourfront area.  Onitake’s lyrical music combined with the repeated close up on the “face” of the anthropomorphised Yokohama Marine Tower suggest that this is the tower’s dreamy, romantic vision his surroundings.  Fireworks appear in the skyline and the film ends with a beautiful shot of Yokohama at night.

The screening of this film at Nippon Connection 2015 was sponsored by the Yokohama City Frankfurt Representative Office, with additional support from the Department of International Affairs of the City of Frankfurt, JFE Engineering Europe GmbH and the ramen restaurant Muku in Frankfurt.

2015 Cathy Munroe Hotes

Impro. (インプロ, 2015)

In the heart of Tokyo, a crew is setting up for this unusual shoot.  Gear is unpacked from the back of a car, and a kitchen space with a hardwood floor is temporarily cleared of its clutter.  Meanwhile, microphones and cameras are set up outside.  Make-up is applied to the dancer (Masumi Endo).  Traffic noise and the sounds of nature are caught on the microphones outside. 

With the space clear, and the performer ready, the sound of a dripping tap (shown in close-up) gives the opening beat for the improvisational dance performance to begin.  The sounds of Tokyo: crickets, jungle crows, whirring of a Japan post motorcycle, latches and windows opening, a gas stove-top being lit, footprints, become the soundtrack to which the dancer dances.

Although the film is called Impro. (short from improvisation), and gives the impression that the dancer is responding to live sounds (cars starting, traffic signals, shop workers’ greetings, trains, etc.) as the sound crew travels the city streets, this is clearly a planned and edited production.  It gives the impression of the dancer responding spontaneously to the sounds of the city, but this is a carefully woven illusion.  The result is an ode to a day in the life of Tokyo, from dawn to dusk, with the dancer working herself up into a crescendo of as the sounds of night life increase.  Finally, a moment’s respite.  A new day dawns on the green space next to a river, the dancer pauses to catch her breath.  A living, breathing member of this vibrant community. 

Impro. was co-directed by Keisuke Nishizaki (西崎啓介) and Tomomi Okamura (岡村知美) of Tokyo Eizo Brig. (東京映像旅団).  Both graduates of the College of Art at Nihon University, Nishizaki is a director, illustrator and animator while Okamura calls herself an independent motion graphic director.  Learn more about them on tumblr.

This film screened at Oberhausen 2015.

2015 Cathy Munroe Hotes

Everything Visible: Japanese Indie Animated Shorts

EverythingVisible: Japanese Indie Animated Shorts

Sunday, June 7^th, 2015

17:15, Naxoshalle Kino, Frankfurt am Main

Nippon Connection asked me to curate a selection of animated shorts for this year’s festival.  We are delighted that Yuki Hayashi, director of the animated music video Fragments of Journey for the band moskitoo will be able to attend the screening.

The title of this programme is an allusion to experimental artist Toshio Matsumoto’s famous 1975 work “Everything Visible in Empty” which itself was inspired by an old Chinese saying.  Visual media has become an inescapable part of our daily lives and it is increasingly difficult for artists to stand out among the crowd.  This programme features recent works by independent artists who are cultivating their own distinct visions through their art.  

The artists come from a range of backgrounds from across Japan.  There are a number of different styles represented including stop motion, hand drawn, and CG animation.  Many of these artists, such as the Oscar-winning animator Kunio Kato and his Robot Inc. colleague Osamu Sakai, have already established themselves at international festivals, while others (Makiko Sukihara, Yukie Nakauchi) are young artists who are just starting out. 

Dino Sato studied architecture and brings an interesting structural perspective to his work.   Osaka based animators Makiko Sukihara and Kohei Matsumura blend scientific observation with artistic impression in their 12 layer hand drawn study of the life of crows.  Similarly, Masahiro Ohsuka takes a scientific approach to his work, investigating the relationship between nature and machines and the abstract and the concrete. 

In contrast, artists like Masamu Hashimoto take a more playful approach to animation transforming everyday objects into objects of wonder using traditional stop motion techniques.  Masanobu Hiraoka’s beautifully colour-blocked works present a riveting kaleidoscopic perspective of life.   

Yoshinao Sato’s Newspaper is the English language version of his film Papers.  Both films present mesmeric montages of newspapers (the English version includes The Japan Times, USA Today, and the International Herald Tribune) in a kind of a tribute to the paper format of a medium that most people these days are digesting via digital means. 

The final film of the program is Dark Mixer by Hirotoshi Iwasaki.  It won the HAFF Grand Prix for Best Non-Narrative Short in March.  Iwasaki has a master’s degree in Contemporary Arts from Geidai and is currently working on his doctorate there.  Dark Mixer was inspired by the connections he sees between alchemy and rotoscope animation.  He writes: “The idea behind the title is to take everyday things and dump them into the mixer/blender to create something that is unfamiliar to us. It may lead us to look at everyday life in a different way” (source).

This is a programme full of contrasts that challenges us to think about our relationship to the world around us in all its diverse aspects. 

Many thanks to Martin Yougle for his assistance in organising this event.

While the Crow Weeps / カラスの涙 

Makiko Sukikara and Kōhei Matsumura / 鋤柄真希子 & 松村康平, 2013, 7’41”

http://sukimaki.com/

http://matsumurakohei.com/

The Osaka-based animation team of Makiko Sukikara (director/animator) and Kōhei Matsumura (screenwriter/producer) are young artists to watch.  Filmed on a multi-plane animation table, this beautifully painted film depicts the natural world in all its beauty and savageness.  The film won a New Face Award for animation at the Japan Media Arts Festival 2013.  Read Full Review

Celebration and Chorale / 祝典とコラール

Yukie Nakauchi /中内友紀恵, 2013, 5’10”

http://nakauchiyukie.hacca.jp/

A beautiful visual interpretation of Niel De Ponte's percussion sextet "Celebration and Chorale".   

De_Riria_Subasutaimu

Shinsaku Hidaka / ひだかしんさく, 2013, 13’

http://hidakashinsaku.blog.fc2.com/

"A man visits his wife in hospital, and goes on a mental journey … a journey through space and time, involving much climbing, sudden death syndrome and a body swap." — Tony Rayns

Digital / デジタル

Osamu Sakai / 坂井治, 2013, 5’10”

http://blog.robot.co.jp/sakaiosamu/

A riveting montage of hand drawn geometric shapes.

Scenes / 情景

Kunio Katō / 加藤久仁生, 2012, 8’

http://www.robot.co.jp/staff/kunio/

Read full review,

Rhizome /リゾーム

Masahiro Ohsuka / 大須賀政裕, 2014, 5’54”

http://www.oskadesign.com/

Fireworks * Beads

Masamu Hashimoto / はしもと・まさむ, 2013, 3’09”

http://www11.ocn.ne.jp/~masam/

- there is a contact form on his website

Land / ランド

Masanobu Hiraoka / 平岡政展, 2013, 3’30”

http://www.jeregarde.com/land.php

Masanobu Hiraoka’s animated shorts play with colour-blocking and metamorphosis.  Watching his films is like peering into a kaleidoscope.  His short, Land, with music and sound design by Aimar Molero, was a Vimeo Staff Pick.

The Sexual Fish – The Fish that Forgot to Breed /性的な魚－繁殖を忘れた魚達

Dino Satō / サトウ・ダイノ, 2014, 2’00”

http://www.dinosato.com/

 Six amusing animated vignettes speculating on the sexuality of fish.  Each scene is placed in a row of what look like a cross between stained glass windows and test tubes.

Fragments of Journey

Yuki Hayashi/ 林勇気, 2014, 4’

http://kanyukuyuki.tumblr.com/

Music video for the singer Moskitoo. 

Newspaper

Yoshinao Satoh / 義尚佐藤, 2013, 7’

http://henkama.web.fc2.com/

Dark Mixer

Hirotoshi Iwasaki / 岩崎宏俊, 2014, 4’55

http://www.hirotoshiiwasaki.com/

Cathy Munroe Hotes 2015