Posts Tagged ‘Work’

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Ao from Freedom does a Planet Terror parody outside Sunrise’s entrance. Read : Authorized personnel only.
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It was work as usual yesterday despite the weekend, but in the evening a few of us bugged out for a short breather at the local Matsuri 祭, a traditional Japanese summer night bazaar, or something like that.

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Ayanami Rei from Evangelion graces the September cover of Rolling Stone Japan.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.