I met director Sotoshi Kon at a Paprika premiere

Paprika directed by Sotoshi Kon.

Around 07-08 I had the privilege of meeting one of the best directors of Japanese cinema. Paprika had just been released in the united states. I had seen the film on DVD but when the opportunity of seeing it on the big screen with director Q&A presented it self I jumped to it. I bought tickets for one of the New York screenings (which there was only two dates). I got to see the film in Japanese with english subtitles, which is usually the way to go when it comes to foreign films.

If you haven’t seen Paprika I highly recommend it. Paprika is one of those film you just gotta own and rewatch from time to time. It’s director Sotoshi Kon is, was, and will always be a legendary man when it come’s to story telling through animation. I am beyond grateful to have met the man.

1910194_18252054957_7172_n.jpg

Above is a autographed original drawing done by Sotoshi Kon. It was a gift I received personally after the premiere. When the Q&A started my hand was the first one up. I don’t remember exactly what I asked him, in hindsight it probably wasn’t a great question, but I was young and I have always enjoyed asking questions so it doesn’t really matter I suppose. After the question he asked me up to the stage and handed me this piece of paper It was very surreal and still feels that way now. He said since I was the first person to raise my hand this was a reward. I’ve had this for more the a decade, and Im sure I will have it for the rest of my life. I wonder how many other’s there are in the world, can’t be to many of that i’m sure off.

If you are not familiar with any of Sotoshi Kon’s films you MUST educate yourself and go watch them. They are ALL amazing films. There is a great video easy about his editing style. Watch it for a quick synopsis about this legend. This is a great channel about film making, support if you like it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz49vQwSoTE

My mentor Tsukasa

processed_20200525_215316.jpg

When I was in art school I had a mentor named Tsukasa. He was about 10 years older then me, grew up on 90's hiphop lived in Brooklyn and was from Tokyo Japan. I was very drawn to the man for several reasons. His artistic voice and abilities as a draft men and animator where some of the best I'ed ever seen. His key poses where something unlike anything I’ed seen. They contained so much movement and power, I would study his drawing in awe.

processed_20200525_201101.jpg
processed_20200525_201234.jpg

Unfortunately while he was working on his final project the Tsunami hit Japan and he ended up leaving to help his fellow country men rebuild forcing him to pause his thesis project. Before this occurrence I was helping him with his project. I would clean up some of his scenes and scan them, preparing them for compositing. He was an upper classmate and as tradition goes they usually enlist the under classmates to help. After his return I was knee deep in my own thesis and didn’t have much time to help him, I tired my best but as is usually the case with thesis projects it was a huge undertaking and he just didn’t have enough time to polish his.

processed_20200525_200828.jpg
processed_20200525_202718.jpg
processed_20200525_203003.jpg

However he did manage to complete the majority of his rough animation and a few cleaned up scene. Long story short I ended up storing a few boxes of his during one of his moves. These boxes contained his thesis drawing, I have recently re discovered them after about a decade in my basement closet. There is a lot of animation and the majority is beautiful worth studying and sharing.

processed_20200525_201409.jpg

So this lead me to the purpose of this post, within the coming weeks I will be re scanning some of his drawing. I will try and composite some of the scene’s and I will share them on this site. I don’t know exactly how long that will take, I am knee deep with my own animation project so it will be an on going restoration project, but believe me when I say it will be worth it. I also don’t know the timing of his scene so I will be using my judgement and opinion when the time comes.

processed_20200525_215237.jpg

Final note about mentors, I have had two mentors since my journey as an animator started in 2007. Both have influenced me in different ways, I have fallen out of contact with both but I still feel like I will carry their teachings with me for the rest of my years. Do you have a mentor story? How have they helped you grow?

These are some key poses from the project. As you can tell…AMAZING!!

processed_20200525_200540.jpg

Museum Sculpture 3

Some more sculptures from the museum of art in lyon France. Really cool stuff! I spent almost all the morning drawing and admiring the museum. It was quite lovely

processed_20181018_150344.jpg
processed_20181018_151401.jpg
processed_20181018_150240.jpg
processed_20181018_165344.jpg

Hand made feel animation

IMG_20200510_213730_184.jpg

This production still is very fond to me. Back in 2008 I was a young artist learning the animation ways. During my freshmen year I made two friendships that would last a life time. The end of the semester had come but me and my two new friends wanted to continue working. We had more ideas then we could ever produce and an endless amount of enthusiasm.

There was a contest for etsy.com we had heard of and the theme was “hand made feel". Naturally we decided to produce a contest entry and try our luck at winning. It took us (the trifecta, what we ended up calling the group) roughly 2-3months to write design and produce.

Needless to say we didnt win the contest, however we again something way more valuable, experience and a short animation. The short and it is short, roughly 40sec in length was fully animated but never colored.

I think I still have the drawings somewhere, I have to file also buried away in on old used drive somewhere. It so cool to see pictures like this after such a long time. This was the first group project I was a part of, it lead to years of collaboration with friends in producing short animation, for freelance and for pleasure.

Have you ever worked on group projects? Have they lead to something larger? I believe the trifecta will reunite one day. Our story has not ended only momentarily paused.