Feb 20, 2014

-Proprietary The Art of the Academy Award Nominated Short Film

In a special Cartoon Brew series, we asked five films nominated for the 2013 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film to talk about their artwork. Today, we take a look at the Japanese film "Possessions" (original title), directed by Shuhei Morita. This work was initially included in the omnibus film "Short Piece" directed by Katsuhiro Otomo.

(Click on image to enlarge.) See artwork of other short nominated films: "Feral," "Mr. Hublot," "Broom Room," and "Get A Horse!")

Shuhei Morita: Stories like those in Japanese folktales usually do not have big action sequences or surprising devices. They are very simple, but somehow they attract people. I thought this is one kind of entertainment. I really like them. I thought the challenge of making a Japanese folktale work as entertainment could only be done with a short film.

I made "The Possession" very simply, without adding anything extra. I am attracted to the flamboyant style of "Night Parade of One Hundred Demons" and "Utagawa Kuniyoshi" because I like Japanese yokai very much. But that would make the time format too short to create the Japanese ghosts I imagined. It was difficult to keep it short, but I think I was able to show the entertainment expressed in Japanese folk tales.

The unique idea that objects have souls. For example, when you lose something important on your desk, don't get frustrated and think: " It's trying to come back to me!" Then you won't be so frustrated, and you will be glad when you see it again.

Shuhei Morita: For the past few years, I have been making a "theater project" of a film about "things". It was during this time that I met Keisuke Kishi and was very attracted to his sculptural art. Since then, I have wanted to work with him somehow.

And this time, I finally got a chance to work with him and asked him to do the "plot design" and "draft". The design was changed because he had worked on it before I decided on the title "Possession". I took his ideas and created the script and design.

Shuhei Morita (hereafter, Morita): "Objects" such as characters and items in anime cannot be ignored, so I used sounds such as "ding," "bang," and "crack" to express them. We considered them to look three-dimensional.

Shuhei Morita: As you can see from the design, I paid attention to details. What is interesting is that we used the way the muscles are drawn as a reference to sumo wrestlers from ukiyoe paintings of the Edo period.

(Top: Kozo paper for the skin texture, Japanese paper for the hair texture, and chiyogami for the clothing texture)

Shuhei Morita: Shuhei Morita ("Morita"): In "Possessed Story," I used Japanese paper and chiyogami for all characters. I got the idea when I saw some chiyogami that my wife had bought for our children. At the time, I was looking for something with a warm texture for "Thing. Kozo paper was used for the man's skin. It is made of tree bark fibers. During the final check, I found "freckles" and "moles" on his skin. But I liked it and told everyone not to erase it. But I liked it and told everyone not to erase it. Washi has many different textures, and I used washi for the wood and hair.

Shuhei Morita: The yawning scene at the beginning was eight seconds long. I heard from Mr. Horiuchi, a veteran filmmaker, that the yawn scene in a certain movie was long and impactful. So I challenged myself to make a very long yawn scene of one minute! I thought it would be difficult for a voice actor to handle such a long yawn. But the voice actor, Yamadera-san, finished it in one fell swoop. That's amazing!