You Are Viewing Freedom Project

Takeru from Freedom and Ray from Steamboy greet visitors at the entrance of Sunrise Emotion Animation Studios ( Steamboy Studios ) in Ogikubo, Tokyo. We’ve just moved to this bigger studio last week ( which actually is just a block down the road ), check out this older post.In case you are wondering why that Steamboy cardboard figure look like it was made by a fan, that’s because its really old ( Steamboy took 8 years to complete ), and must have been made during the early stages of production, maybe even before Ray Steam’s character design was finalized.

While most of the the action is happening at the Anime Expo in California with the release of Freedom on HD dvd, back in the studio work goes on for the 6th installment of the television commercial that will go on air later in July, in conjunction with the release Freedom 4. I was just watching the rough cut during the production meeting this afternoon and one of the scenes from the commercial bears resemblence to Utada Hikaru’s Deep River promo clip. Her song “Kiss and Cry” will continue to be used as the theme music.

Takeru graces the lid of a Nissin Cup Noodle, illustrated by Sajiki-san. In Japanese it says “Mobile item get campaign”, to spare you a splitting headache from trying to figure out what that means its basically a promotion for a chance to win some Freedom merchandise by accessing Nissin’s website using your mobile phone. I’ve known this to exist for quite a while now but its the first time I’ve actually bought one that came with the contest form attached.

The earlier campaigns featured the Otomo Katsuhiro illustrated Takeru ( the image I have on my sidebar ) which had Freedom fans eating insane volumes of Cup ramen just to collect it.

Meanwhile at work Freedom 4 is finally completed after slogging 18 hours daily on fine-tunes for the past few days. *Minor spoilers ahead* This episode must be the most hilarious so far with Takeru and Bisu’s misadventures on earth. We’ve also spruced up the opening sequence, I can’t show any images as yet but stay tuned for more updates.

There’s good reason for a little elation today as lighting for Freedom episode 4 is finally completed, a total of about 350 shots spread between me and my chief Matsui-san, averaging about 10 cuts per day. Its a big relief there were no Crab Robos ( folks who have been following the series should know these critters, nasty buggers not only in Eden but to us too, for they consist of so many individual moving parts our workstations slow down to a crawl whenever there is one in the scene; imagine having to light a dozen. ) this time round or we would have been dragging polygons through molasses again.

Over dinner with 2 of my colleagues at Sukiya banter turned to the topic of life after Freedom – where each of us are heading or are planning to do and Matsui-san expressed his interest in games design.

“Square Enix huh ?”, I suggested, the obvious top candidate to mention.

“Jyoudanjyane ?( which roughly translates as “Are you kidding me ?” ) Advent Children was neat, but what if I get assigned to the fluid simluation detail ? I’ll drown before the first week is up.” and we had a good laugh.

If I may be allowed to explain his derangement, Matsui-san was just voicing his innate fear of pigeonhole specialization in Square Enix, or actually any other major effects company for that matter, where you can be assigned to a specific task, say, the effect of a drop of water landing on concrete; and drone on that task for eons. The bigger the company, the higher the risk. For the dauntless however, Square runs recruitment ads in CG World every month.

A few updates before I concuss into bed.

I slogged till 3 in the morning finishing up some shots so I can take sunday off ( yes, take SUNDAY OFF ) and amongst other things, rewatch Paprika, undoubtably one of the better anime films of late. Check out that sumptous box set !

Talking about neat dvds everyone in the studio also recieved a limited collector’s edition of Freedom 1 yesterday, a little consolation for toiling all nighters for the greater good of Freedom Committee. It’s comes with a special gold print cover and is not for sale in stores.

Earlier in the evening Morita-san treated us to a tasty Tonkatsu dinner because the higher powers that be ( namely himself and Matsuo-san, who joined us recently and had worked on Kon Satoshi’s Perfect Blue and Millenium Actress ) made a high level decision that demanded, well, the re-rendering of all completed shots hiterto. Yamaura-san, our DOP and compositing chief, was not pleased. I took the opportunity during dinner to quiz Morita-san about certain rumors that have been circulating heavily in the studio, and though not nearly written in stone just as yet, there will be exciting things coming up after the completion of Freedom 6. Morita-san will be attending the launch of Freedom in the States at ANIME EXPO and might make the announcement then.

And lastly, a friend alerted me about this piece of news in the local papers; click on the image to read the whole article.

The 2nd series of magazine ad spreads for the release of Freedom 3, illustrated by Sakiji-san. See the first series here.

The article as in appeared in Straits Times. Big thanks to all the folks who sent word of support, and also Mr Kwan for the article.

Its mad rush hour again for Freedom 4, but I will try to write a little more if time permits.

Freedom’s official English (US) website is up here :

http://www.bandaivisual.us/freedom/

Just as I suspected they have completely removed all Nissin Cup Noodles elements; check out this previous post here. As far as spiffiness of web design is concerned, the Japan site is definitely the much better of the two.

Screen caps from Freedom’s 5th television commercial, airing on Japanwide TV from today on. ( 20th April ) You can watch it from Freedom’s website by following the link below :

http://freedom-project.jp/?filenumber=4018

The theme song for this spot was initially Utada Hikaru’s “Flavour of Life”, but was changed during production to her latest single, “Kiss and Cry”. In any case, I love both the songs.

Freedom Committee’s celebration parties are always the best time to catch up on some industry news and gossips, considering all of us are always buried under a ton of work on normal working days. Yesterday we were out celebrating the completion of Freedom’s 5th television commercial that is to go live on Japan TV from the 20th April, I will post some pictures once press is released. Matsui-san, my lighting chief, handed me the reins for this project; I must have lighted about 75 percent of all the cuts in this commercial. Tiring, but satisfying too.

Anyway, here are the snippets:

Trivia 1) During the early pre-production stages for Freedom, Otomo Katsuhiro was deciding who should head the project, and Makoto Shinkai, whose achievements on Distant Star is somewhat of a legend, was also considered. It would have been interesting to see how Freedom would have turned out if he had indeed been director.

Trivia 2) Small talk turned to Genius Party, Studio 4C’s soon to be released animation film. Interestingly, Morita-san, Freedom’s director, used to work in 4C.

Trivia 3) Tatsuyuki Tanaka is one of the directors for Genius Party, author of the amazing artbook “Cannabis Works“. Tatsuyuki worked as an animator on Akira; remember Tetsuo’s mutating hand ? Sajiki-san, Freedom’s character and concept artist, calls him “an absolute genius”. Ditto.

Cover art for Freedom 3.

Its confirmed: Freedom Project will be seeing its US release on the 26th of June 2007, with both DVD and HD DVD versions to be made available. I’m wondering how the entire marketing campaign for the US version will turn out should they remove the Nissin Cup Noodles elements, ( Freedom been a huge tie up animation project with the giant noodle company Nissin, a ubiquitious, household name here in Japan but probably not in the states, making it somewhat irrelevant ) but I hope it turns out catchy in any case.

With the bulk of work for Freedom 3 completed there is finally some time to catch my breath before the rush sets in again when Freedom’s TV commercial postpro starts, and not till that is finished may I, there are rumours abound, get a week off work. I think I’m just going to sprout wings and fly straight out of the studio when that actually happens.

Anyway. I was fairly thrilled yesterday to recieve Abe-san’s signature on my Jinroh Boxset ( see pic below ) ; its always been one of my favourite animation films since watching it a full 8 years ago at the Singapore Film Festival. Abe-san, who was previously from IG and had also worked on GITS SAC, commented she too was a newbie when she joined Jinroh’s production. ( she’s now the colour designer for Freedom project. )

Outside work I also finished my 2 year film school at Toho Gakuen, here’s a photo at the graduation ceremony with my classmate from Shanghai, ( he tells me the animation studio that made Monkey God and Nezha is just right behind his house, s**t. ) we had quite a time shooting our graduation film together. See this post.

That’s all the updates for now I think. Its spring in Tokyo. I need a break !