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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.

Respect for Production I.G’s Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex creative team; 26?! mind- blowing episodes that left me completely hooked and hungry for more. As far as quality of the production is concerned, if I may be allowed to translate in our local island colloquial; “biangz, dun play play.” Hanpa ne-.

Respect also, for Japanese photographer/filmmaker Ninagawa Mika. This lady has a near frightening, unbelievable sense of colour. Bleeding from the eyes may result from prolonged viewing of her imagery. Bleed away right here : http://ninamika.com/

Bollocks. Gotta work harder.

Sitting in for a preview screening of Freedom 2 with the rest of my colleagues yesterday I was engulfed by a pang of surreality watching the scenes I had so painstakingly lighted for the past 2 months materialize in its final, finished form, complete with background art and effects. Calculating the number of shots I was assigned, I must have lighted about 1/4 of the entire episode, the rest covered by my chief Matsui-san and some minor scenes subbed out to other studios.

Later in the evening at Freedom 2’s celebration party I had a chat with the director Morita-san, where I was told more and more challenging scenes will be assigned to me from Freedom 3 onwards. That simply translates as reduced sleeping hours, non existent weekends, a constant sophorific state. Heck, bring it on I say.

Freedom 2 will hit the stores from Febuary 22th and is available for preorder from Amazon here.

Its 6 weeks into work here at Freedom Committee and I continue to be astounded by the animation giants that surround me. ( I am composing this post in a rare studio moment where work stands still for a second while waiting for lighting jobs to come in. ) For starters, my effects chief Yamaura-san, a nice lady who offered us delicious croissants last week, worked on Morimoto’s Noiseman Sound Insect, as well as Glay’s Survival 2D, a piece very personal to me because I first saw it as an animation student 8 years ago and which had a very big influence on my final year animation project. Then there’s Abe-san, the colour designer, who addresses me as kou-chan, worked on Jinroh The Wolf Brigade and Watabe-san, the background artist and mecha designer, whose credits include Ghost in the Shell 1 & 2, Patlabor 2, Nausicaa, and of course, Akira. The list continues. I’m pretty microscopic around here, a tiny microbe stuck on a speck of dust.

Ok, back to work…

Working 12 hour days is becoming the norm as the deadline for Freedom 2 draws closer, and with the animators finishing up their scenes work is piling up as they get passed on to us for lighting and rendering. Just last friday we had first look at the 30 second spot for Freedom 2 that will be up on Japan TV soon, and it feels great to be involved in a project that is always on air, at least for the better part of the next 2 years until Freedom Project concludes with episode 7. Crunch time has barely started.

I’ve not had any decent chance to watch films the past few months, but with me settling down pretty comfortably at work now I really want to make up for lost time. Its time to get back to the source.

Steamboy Studios in Ogikubo, Tokyo. Previously the workplace for Otomo Katsuhiro’s Steamboy crew, its now home to the Freedom Committee team.

Today the entire Freedom Committee team bugged out of the office earlier for our ( 3 newcomers, including myself ) welcome party. Certainly its but a good excuse for everyone to get sloshed but the Japanese do take their drinking very seriously !
The lowermost photograph just above this text shows ( from L to R ), Matsui-san, my lighting, rendering and compositing chief, next Morita-san, director of Freedom Project, and Sajiki-san, whom together with Morita-san were the genius minds behind Kakurenbo, the award winning short animation film.

With Freedom 1 releasing on the 24th this month and its preorders hitting the number one spot ( beating Stand Alone Complex, yeah ! ) on many Japanese websites I suppose there’s reason for some celebration afterall. Next stop, Freedom 2.

Some cool stuff that comes along with work on Freedom Project : 1) My email address is myname@steamboy.net, which I am more than ok with; 2) Otomo ( yes, the dude who created that somewhat famous animation Akira ) came by the studio yesterday, tying up some loose ends on a new animation film soon to be released. His work desk by the way, is really untidy…ha.

Here at Sunrise Studios Ogikubo work has commenced on episode 2 of Freedom, with epsiode 1 scheduled for dvd release later this month. Today as the entire Freedom team sat down with the director to run through the storyboard it dawned on me that I was the only foreigner working on Freedom. I wonder if I should feel hououred or alienated, perhaps a bit of both. Its no mistake however that my companions are some of the most talented animators here in Japan, many of whom have worked on Otomo’s Steamboy; my animation “supervisor” is a kid 21 years old.

So…back to work.