Week 9: Japanese Film-making, Anime and the Pillow Shot

Week 9: Japanimation II

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The Unforgettable Kettle shot from Ozu’s first colour film Equinox Flower, 1958

There are obvious differences between Anime and Western animation. The stylistic differences as well as the content/narrative differences are easy to pick up by even the most passive of viewers. But what about something that is much subtler, something that has seeped into Anime films and has been a quintessential element of Japanese film-making ever since its introduction by the acclaimed director, Yasujiro Ozu in Tokyo Story, 1953.

Grave of the Fireflies, 1988

 

It’s the pillow shot.

 

From My Neighbor Totoro, 1988

Have you ever noticed how two characters in an Anime are interacting with each other in some way, whether it be fighting, arguing, or conversing, for plot or narrative reasons and as they finish up their impromptu session, the shot cuts away to something that is completely still and completely different?

Princess Mononoke, 1997

 

That is the pillow shot.

 

The entire three minute sequence from Ghost in the Shell, 1995  in the middle of the film acts as a form of elongated punctuation

It’s derived from traditional Japanese Poetry, a technique called the pillow-word, and this specific technique is one of the defining characteristics of Japanese Cinema as well as Anime, especially films by Miyazaki and others since the 1980s.

Even in a high action, sci-fi movie like Akira, 1988, pillow shots are littered through the film

Technique wise, it is a cutaway from the previous scene to some other visual element, not necessarily beautiful, or brilliantly drawn, or animated to be magical/fantastical; it can be as simple as a chair, a room corner, or a cow eating grass, and as the shot holds, for few seconds or more, the camera cuts back to the characters/plot again.

And more recently, The Red Turtle, 2016

The pillow shot interrupts the narrative, by injecting a sense of calm and quiet, some might even argue a form of silence; at minimum the shot slows the pacing down even if it doesn’t need to be.

Again from Grave of the Fireflies, 1988; the film is famous for its use of pillow shots

But do not mistake this for a transitional shot because by no means is this technique used as a bridge between one scene and another. Nor is it an establishing shot, since nothing needs to be established between the previous scene and the next.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, 2017

Frankly they can be completely removed from the film itself and most viewers will not possibly notice. But that is how you lose, as mentioned earlier, a quintessential part of what makes Anime, so Japanese and so different from Western animation.

An inconsequential moment where nothing happens in The tale of Princes Kaguya, 2013

It’s punctuation in a sentence, hitting the breaks in an Anime film, so it stands right at the border between narrative and non-narrative cinema. It doesn’t further the story, or plot, or advance character motivations, but it’s still there on screen.

There are even brief pillow shots in an anime series like Dragon Ball Super, 2015-present

The pillow shot gives audiences a chance to breathe, to ponder what just happened between the last scene and wonder what will happen going forward. If the active viewer notices this shot, then it offers a whole new level of appreciation that the passive viewer will not fully grasp and comprehend. Since Japanese Animators are willing to go through all that trouble to animate inconsequential moments for no other reason than a simple “let’s take a break for a few seconds,” then we as viewers, should admire their craft.

There are lots of pillow shots in Your Name, 2016 of urban architecture such as streetlamps, skyscrapers, and power cables

The luxury of unmotivated moments in animation is wholly and quintessentially Japanese and the pillow shot is one of the most common techniques deployed in the majority of Anime films, that most audiences will never be aware enough to notice.

This scene in Grave of the Fireflies, opens with a pillow shot, has one in between, and ends with a pillow shot.

 

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Sources:

Roger Ebert on Grave of the Fireflies

 

”Cloacinae” The strange lives of objects: surrealism, the Prague school and beyond

 

Serge Onnen made this surrealistic animation in collaboration with Sverre Fredriksen. The project has been under its way for a long time. The animation is a, more or less narrative short. I watched the animation at Ottawa Animation Festival this year in September, where it was part of a coopetition. Unfortunately, they haven’t uploaded the animation anywhere. But I found this ‘’behind the scenes’’ video.

The animation is about what Onnen calls the two essential intimate things you have to deal with your whole life, finance and sanitary. This is expressed through a shadow puppet with a 5 cent as a head, who falls into the sewer, where he meets all kinds of odd creatures. The animation is very confusing and the same sequences is played again and again. This is why I think it fits the topic of surrealism excellent. There is a gloomy feeling to the whole animation.

Onnen has been studying shadow puppet making in china, which also inspired him to make Cloacinae, this is also the reason he chooses to use Chinese ancient inspired music for the animation. Fredriksen is an animator, he had had an idea for a long time to do an animation with ice, the two artists got together and found that they could make something interesting and innovative together.

Development of Japanese Animation: Astro Boy to One Punch Man

As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve never really put much time into looking into specific Japanese animators, or even animation studios. This is something I hope to change about myself, especially after doing some research for this post.

I started by watching the original Astro Boy (Osamu Tezuka, 1963) and all I could think was how outdated it was. At the time that animation aired, Disney had already made features like Peter Pan (1953), and One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), but Astro Boy looks worse than Disney’s much earlier Silly Symphonies.

I actually find this quite funny, since some modern day Japanese animation studios are considered titans in the industry, such as studio Bones, studio Madhouse, and several more.

Nowadays, western animation shifts more and more towards CGI and 3D animation, which to be honest I never really cared for. It seems to me that Japanese animation is the only form of media left that really tries to push 2D animation forward. One of the first things to come to mind is studio Madhouse’s own One Punch Man (2015)

In my research I came across this video by a YouTube channel dedicated to highlighting impressive animation in anime. I won’t rehash what this video talks about, but I bring up this link because it does reference several different top name Japanese animators and things they have worked on.

The Canipa Effect on One Punch Man
Anime has become infamous for still frames with little movement other than lip flaps, but there are incredibly impressive moments. The first episode of One Punch Man alone has many elaborate scenes full of movement, all of it smooth while still being dynamic. The exaggeration in specific motions really emphasize the weight behind those motions; the windup to the main character’s punches carry so much weight that is relieved on the delivery. The animation really pulls the audience along with it, drawing them in.

Just looking at the contrast between Astro Boy and One Punch Man not only show how far Japanese animation has come on its own, but also how far it has pushed past where western animation studios dropped 2D animation.

Week 8: Japanimation I – The Emergence of Anime

Momotarō ‘s Divine Sea Warriors (Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei)

Folktales and their characters have often made their way into visual narratives throughout time, and in the Japanese world, a notable example of this is “Momotaro”. This character spurs from an imaginary tale from the Edo period about a boy born from a peach (“momo” in Japanese, hence his name). He saves his village by overcoming evil demons in another land and is known to symbolize heroism as a result.

His character was thus adopted into several animated works during the 1930s and 1940s for propaganda and education. Though we haven’t discussed this in the course, propaganda often used animation as a medium in various parts of the world. The first feature-length anime film of Japan, Momotarō ‘s Divine Sea Warriors (Seo Mitsuyo, 1945), was a 74 minute, black and white product of this endeavour made under the orders of the Japanese Naval Ministry. It depicts Momotarō saving Japan from the Allies (in lieu of the demons) with the help of the same characters that aided him in the original folktale – the monkey, bear, dog and pheasant. At the time of its release, evacuations were underway, and as a result, the film didn’t reach as much of a wider audience.

All of the residents are depicted as “chibi” (small proportioned) animals, while Momotarō is the only human among them, albeit still child-like, and appealing to a younger audience. The residents are seen being taught, and completing tasks in support of the war effort while breaking out into song, reminiscent of Disney works. The Western forces are also depicted as humans, but are contrastingly taller, caricatured, and animated with rubberband-like limbs and motions. Animations were not exceptions to the deployment of propagandist techniques, such as stereotyping and dehumanization.

The real beginning of this film can be traced to a private Tokyo screening in 1941 where Mitsuyo and other animators viewed Fantasia (Walt Disney, 1940). It had been taken from an American ship and was to be viewed to learn more about the enemy. This screening of the acclaimed film would influence many future works. Films like Momotarō ‘s Divine Sea Warriors were purposed for educating military personnel , with the island in the film representing Pearl Harbour. Several other films of this nature were also created for tips, combat protocols and such, but were only viewable to the military and have been lost in history.

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Aonuma, Satoru. “Momotaro as Proletarian: A Study of Revolutionary Symbolism in Japan.”Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 11, no. 4, 2014, pp. 382-400.

Clements, Jonathan, and Barry Ip. “The Shadow Staff: Japanese Animators in the Tōhō Aviation Education Materials Production Office 1939–1945.” Animation, vol. 7, no. 2, 2012, pp. 189-204.

Odell, Colin, and Blanc, Michelle Le. Anime, Oldcastle Books, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/oculocad-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1572137.

 

Animando and the manners of animation

When last week we discussed the different manners of animation, and the three categories, it brought to mind the short film Animando (1983), by Marcos Magalhães and the National Film Board of Canada.

Magalhães employs many different manners of animation to tell a distinct narrative, and also employs the common trope of introducing the animators hand, particularly in the early scenes of cell animation. The intrinsic interactions of the character in a frustrating relationship with the animator that harkens back to early Fleischer Bros. animations.

The animators hand makes repeated appearances to influence all the different manners of animation, from claymation to cell animation to direct film carving.

The character’s freedoms and mannerisms (but not its personality) seem to change with each and every animation technique, representing the different manners of expression that can occur with each type. The character has much more freedom to move around in claymation, and much more energy and whimsy with the direct film painting and carving, reflecting the dynamism and energy of film carvings by Len Lye in works like Free Radicals (1958).

It is also worth pointing out the ways in which Magalhães works each animation style.

There is a distinct lack of smear framing, to make each frame more emphasized, rather than representing realistic worldly motion.

To conclude, Animando provides a great look into all of the animation manners and styles through history, and to see how a character can be expressed so differently depending on which style of animation may be used, while the viewer may still label every individual segment as “animation”.

Week 7 – The Strange Lives of Objects: Surrealism, the Prague School and Beyond

By Jennifer Shon

The Surrealism movement occurred in the early 1920s, and has roots in Dada. Surrealist works depicted the unconscious, by creating the impossible or imagined with realism. The imagination and dream was reborn into reality. The movement would go on to influence not just art, but other branches of media, including film.

Cat Soup: Depicting the Unconscious through Surreality, Sequencing, and Metaphor

Cat Soup (Nekojiru-so) is a 2001 Japanese short animated film that contains surreal and experimental themes. Nyatta and Nyoko are characters who are anthropomorphic cats, they go on a journey together after Nyoko, the older sister falls into a catatonic state. The world around them appears to be illogical, often brutal, and silent as there are no true spoken lines through the duration of the ~30 minute film. The setting is a vague Japan with the atmosphere of a world unknown to anyone. There is a distinct focus of connecting sequences over an explained plotline meant for comprehensive understanding, this creates a collage like feeling while watching scenes link together. In doing this, it creates either a vision of the past or resembles a subconscious realm. Rather than words, absurd events seem to be considered with a vague metaphor or interpretation that is never told directly. As the siblings traverse through different biomes and new worlds, it can be seen that the digital animation itself has a sense of three dimensionality.

The mainstream cinematic storytelling approach is abandoned in exchange for an emphasis of actions, depth, and heavy atmosphere. It creates a connection in which the audience is included and watching the odd journey unfold before them, a realness to the unreal. What truly happened is not forced out but rather left to interpretation, as the concept of reality in this surreal world is warped, or close to nonexistent.

It is important to stress this sort of uncertain aura and direct movement as it is a truer representative of depicting mental state, as it is never really homogeneous (also, humans do not process information akin to cinematic terms). While the conscious may be chronological, the unconscious is jumbled and erratic. Surrealist films are able to reach into the depths by allowing the mind to reinvent what is experienced.

In the climax, there is a series of otherworldly events that occur with experimental and surreal animation techniques. Time stops, rewinds and forwards, all controlled by a God who “eats the world.”

22:35-26:20

The Strange Lives of Objects: Surrealism, the Prague School and Beyond

Surrealism was founded by artist and writers in Paris who wanted to use people’s subconscious minds to unlock their imaginations. Sigmund Freud was a strong influence on the movement. It was believed that the unconscious mind blocked people’s imaginations. Jan Svankmajer, a surrealist movie maker, makes movies using clay and other stop-motion animation, puppetry, and live action to create a surreal feel in his work.

‘A Game with Stone’ by Jan Svankmajer consists of stones in different patterns and moving around the screen and over other stones accompanied by an old musical toy which provides the music for the movie.

Walt Disney was also inspired by the surrealist movement as is evident in ‘Fantasia’ and a scene in ‘Dumbo’

In the ‘Pink Elephants’ scene in ‘Dumbo’ the elephants are formed out of a bubble Dumbo made. The elephants don’t have eyes, they grow and shrink and stretch, they become the boarder for the scene at one point. The scene plays out almost like a nightmare.

Week-6 The motion and Materials

Rainbow dance by “Lan Lye” (1936) is a live action film which exploits the triple images of the Gaspar color system in a pioneering way. In this film Ley filmed dancer Rupert Doone in black and white, then also add colored footage during the development process and printing process, adding stenciled patterns of figure to show every sequence of dance movement. Rainbow dance is a new filmic idea such as moving figures that leave behind a trail of colored silhouettes figure like in Duchamp’s nude Descending o staircase. He uses rainbow color of silhouette form, which constantly in motion, and at the end scene silhouette from of playing badminton figure turned into sleeping mood figure. In this film, some background is still image like painting and some are in motion. He uses a lot of rainbow color geometric shape and organic shape, and changing color for each frame lead our eyes to go with the flow of whole motion, such as, body of figure, changing color as well as moving around to the surface.

Rainbow Dance by Len Lye

 

William Kentridge: Material Meets Process

William Kentridge’s animations have fascinated me ever since I came across his work. Kentridge’s animations have a distinct style that is shaped by his choice of material which he uses to effectively deliver very personal and political subject matter. By opting for charcoal on newsprint, rather than the traditional pencil on paper, Kentridge developed his own unique visual style that draws attention to its own materiality.

Stereoscope (1999-98)

Automatic Writing (2003)

Automatic Writing (2003)

Kentridge begins drawing frames of animation with charcoal, but rather than creating a new drawing for every frame, he erases over his original frame and draws the next portion of the sequential frame on the same piece of newsprint. This technique creates erasure marks on the page that transfer into the animation as a sort of trailing motion. As Kentridge’s animations progress the page becomes filled with a history of motion and a material map of his process. Kentridge talks about the process of using one page for a scene saying, “There are sometimes many hundreds of alterations on one sheet of paper and the sheet of paper that is left is the last frame, not of the film, but of that sequence in the film, of that shot.”

Stereoscope (1998-99)

https://www.sfmoma.org/watch/william-kentridge-transformation-with-animation/

What I found with Kentridge’s work is that his material choice effects the rest of his work in a chain reaction. I feel that his material choices drive his animating process which in turn creates his style. This unique style he has developed is rich with charcoal texture and faded marks which in turn draws the attention back to the materials he employs in his animation, creating a cycle that reinforces itself in Kentridge’s work.

With this post I have linked to a video of William Kentridge talking about his process in studio and also to one of my favourite examples of his work.

A Calculated Display of Animated Space

Performance based works by Adrien Mondot and Claire Bardainne utilize animation practices to create a dynamic relationship between the choreography and projection by associating both living and digital tools as a unified installation. Their works put emphasis on the duality of mediums that play to the audience between the synchronized movements of human and digital forms, establishing a vivacious scene that contextualizes upon the interchangeability of ‘reality and virtuality’ within the boundaries of artistic medium.

Hakanaï presents a dance choreography that is performed alongside the projection of digital animation in the enclosed frame of a cube, where the harmonized movements evoke the illusion of being tangible through the reactiveness between the human gestures and fluidity of digital rendering. The digital animation moves in relationship with the motion of human gestures, this interaction contributes to a heightened expression of the human form that utilizes the flexible qualities of animation for further communication towards an audience.

The limitations of digital animation are explored and broadened by Mondot and Bardainne’s inventive use of projection to express the medium in a tangible context. Their technical use of animation creates an immersive environment in which the performers seem to interact with, and the boundaries of virtuality and reality are blurred into a singular coherent display. From performers crashing into waves to falling alongside walls of animated particles, The Movement of Air is also an another exemplary display of this relationship between digital and physical existence. The free play of animation is a powerful medium that contributes for visual communication and expression, and these works serve as an opportunity for artists to utilize and explore the capabilities of animation beyond conventions of a screen.