The Japanese Filmmakers of Sundance 1998 – Where Are They Now? Whilst browsing the shelves of Book Off in Akihabara, I came across a fantastic time capsule: the original catalogue from the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. At ¥500, I grabbed it immediately, and was further delighted when the checkout staff informed me all foreign books […]
Vintage lens fans and sufferers of gear acquisition syndrome will no doubt be familiar with Tito Ferradans from his YouTube channel and strong presence on Facebook. His channel branding gives him the appearance of a mad professor: his thumbnail shows him in white labcoat and glasses, and regular viewers will be familiar with his wild […]
We last brought you a curated list of short films back in November so I thought it was about time to take a look at some more. Of these five, four were released this year, and one is from 1977, so they should be an interesting look at how storytelling and formal tropes compare now […]
Baseball fans will no doubt be following Shohei Ohtani’s career in the Majors very closely. For those out of the Japanese news loop, he is a headline-grabbing baseball player who has just moved from the Japanese league’s Nippon Ham Fighters to the United States’s Los Angeles Angels where he is cementing his status as a […]
Why filmmakers should stop obsessing over the latest camera technology. Robert Capa’s photograph of a soldier struggling ashore during the D-Day landings is perhaps the greatest ever taken. Blurred almost to the point of abstraction, The Face in the Surf (1944) undoubtedly proves that technical perfection is unnecessary in art or storytelling. The viewer is […]
We invited former English Language Film School Japan student, Anita, to write a guest post on how she is progressing on her filmmaking journey, a couple months after taking our course, Making the Short Film. Read on for her observations and experiences. Making the Short Film — First Baby Steps as a Director by Anita […]
The irony of the internet liberating short films from living and dying at festivals, and making them accessible to viewers anywhere at any time, is that quality content has resultantly become harder to find. Three hundred hours of content are said to be uploaded to YouTube every minute, meaning a simple search for the term […]
As filmmakers, many of us tend to find great excitement in obsessing over shiny new cameras, obscure lenses, and physics-defying stabilisers. I have on occasion, wasted hours looking at such mundane things as batteries or cables online. Despite the appeal of fresh technology, though, I do not believe that using the latest kit directly results […]
Last night, we held the second-ever edition of our filmmakers’ drinks night at 1000 Springs Tokyo, in Yotsuya. We had a fantastic turnout, packing the bar with old and new faces, including directors of photography, composers, actors, and writers. I heard projects being discussed, collaborations being arranged, and deep conversations happening about favourite films, acting, […]
Leo Liwag is a Tokyo-based multi-disciplinarian filmmaker and co-founder of cinema camera rental service, Temple Studios, which offers RED Raven rental packages at an affordable price point. Raised in California, Liwag has worked in production, visual effects (including on The Force Awakens) and is currently developing his own short film, Connections. I sit down with […]