Interview with Koji Yamamura
Four years after his last offering comes animator Koji Yamamura's latest release, entitled 'Muybridge's Strings'. Bringing together two separate stories - that of the life of photographer Eadweard Muybridge, one of the main contributors in the evolution of motion pictures, and that of a mother watching over her daughter as she grows up - this dream-like film is woven together from a diverse range of images relating to the subject of time. With 'Muybridge's Strings' Yamamura has set himself the challenge of using the animated medium to give expression to an abstract motive like time, and the result is a film which reaches to the very core of the cinematic medium, inviting its viewers on a journey to a far-off destination to consider the nature of time itself.'Muybridge's Strings' is Yamamura's first work made in collaboration with Canada's National Film Board (NFB). The NFB has produced a myriad of top-quality animated films from the likes of the master of experimental animation, Norman McLaren, not to mention Caroline Leaf, Jacques Drouin and many more, and is held as the animation mecca even by those within the field. In the case of Yamamura, for whom working with the NFB has been a dream since he saw the works as a school student, the NFB could be said to be the origin of his creations.
In fact, it would seem that with the conjunction of the NFB element and the idea of time itself in this latest creation, Yamamura was returning to his own roots as a film-maker. We spoke to the man himself, and asked him about his intentions for the film.
How and when did the idea for 'Muybridge's Strings' come about?
When I finished making 'Mt. Head' (2002) and began to think about my next project, I did what I always do, which is to make rough sketches of many different ideas that I had. I started to draw animals in places where they don't usually exist - sheep and horses inside rooms, and that struck me as kind of interesting. That's how it all started.
Also, I reread the history of cinema by Gilles Deleuze and I came across a description of how Eadweard Muybridge* used a thread in order to take a series of pictures of horses galloping, and I was really inspired by the idea of using a thread as a motif. I'd say they were the two most important points of departure for the film, the animals and the thread.
Then something else which lay even further at the core of the film was my own daughter growing up. My wife and I often wonder where our baby girl has gone. It's the same daughter, but she's turned into a completely different person. When I was thinking about that, the idea of time as a theme came to the surface, and I started to feel that I'd like to portray time itself.
* Eadweard Muybridge(1830-1904). British photographer. In 1878, succeeded in capturing on camera a series of pictures of a galloping horse, and made a large contribution to the development of the motion picture.
This is your first project with NFB. How did the collaboration come about?I sent my idea sketches to producer Michael Fukushima in 2006, and he replied immediately, saying that he wanted to make the film. He'd seen some of my work before, and been planning to get in touch with me at some point. NCB is a studio that I've longed to work with ever since I was at high school, and I came to be a bit better known as an animator with ' Mt. Head' (laughs), so I thought, well, I might as well try and approach them.
The thing was, at that time I still had no storyboard, but just five or six rough sketches. They didn't even have captions. That's the really amazing thing about NFB. I was sort of thinking that if it ended up leading to something that would be cool, and when they simply accepted the idea without even any discussion, it almost seemed too easy (laughs). But I was so delighted.
The film has two storylines - that of Muybridge's life story, and that of the woman bringing up her child. How did you come up with the idea of combining these two?
For ages I couldn't decide whether or not to include Muybridge himself as a character in the film, but then, when I was in London for a film festival, I visited the Muybridge Collection in Kingston upon Thames, Muybridge's birthplace, and the interest I felt towards Muybridge's life intensified. I thought that the film would probably turn out better if it wasn't just fantasy, if there was some degree of factuality in there too. And then the Muybridge part developed, and eventually the film ended up being about half about him, and half about the mother.
For this work, I really felt that I wanted to show two totally different kinds of time. Muybridge was a living person, so he has the kind of direct time which belongs to people who live a fixed number of years. I wanted to have the woman and her child represent a cyclical, abstract, universal kind of time, so I didn't make them into particular, distinguishable characters. Did you encounter a lot of difficulties in portraying an abstract thing like time?
I started drawing the storyboards in 2003, so it took me quite a long time. I would break off to write scenarios, then go back to the story board, making drawings for the actual films... you know, doing lots of different kinds of work for around four or five years.
The biggest issue I faced was the matter of ordering. Stories usually progress in a linear fashion. But when you take time as your theme, you can also introduce non-linear time, so you can play with changing chronological orders, and adjusting lengths. You can't use the passage of time as a form of background scenery, and it's that which makes things difficult.
Do you have ideas about time of your own?Yes, very much so. I think I arrived at the idea of taking time as a theme through my experience of working in the field of animation. When you make animated films, you have to think about the true nature of time. Animation is a medium which deals with time itself.
When people talk about animation it's always the artwork, the visual side itself which gets spoken of, but what supports that is the difference in the temporal gap left between frames. A sense of time is born from the gap between the frames, and from there you can build up rhythm and tempo. You need to always be thinking and experimenting with how to capture and manipulate time.
I believe that animation is the art of time. Time is born through the projection of frames which have no temporality whatsoever. This is one point where it differs fundamentally from films which capture real events, real time. The element of creating a temporal form from an atemporal one is one of the things that makes animation so fascinating for me, and makes it so satisfying.
There are 6400 images used in 'Muybridge's Strings'. This is less than half the number than you used for 'Mt. Head' or 'Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor'. Why is that?
I didn't' want to start complicating the screen by using different layers as I did for 'Mt. Head' (2002) or 'Franz Kafka's A Country Doctor' (2007) - I wanted something simpler, and so I decided to use the original animation technique of using just one image per frame. Somehow, with the sense of these things that I've built up over the years, I felt that technique would work better for this film.
This was your first time working with NFB. What do they represent for you?When I was 16, my art teacher in school showed us NFB films on 16 ml film. They were N'eighbours' (1952) by Norman McLaren and 'Mindscape' (1976) by Jacques Drouin, and they made a huge impression on me, because I'd never seen animation like that before. At university, I joined the Animation Society, and because there were lots of older students who really liked the works of Norman McLaren and experimental cinema, so we used to rent lots of NFB films from Hibiya Library or the Canadian Embassy, and watch them.
Then at the first Hiroshima International Animation festival in 1985, I saw a retrospective of the work of Ishu Patel, who was there as a member of the judging panel, and that was the biggest catalyst in my wanting to become an animator. I always get inspired by NFB at the crucial times. That's why I was so delighted to be able to work with them this time around.
You had Norman Roger doing the music and sound design for this film, who's been involved with many amazing projects that have become staples in the history of animation like Frédéric Back films. What was he like to work with?
I really felt that he was an artisan, a true artist. He was always giving all kinds of specialist help and advice, making suggestions and having ideas which took into consideration the directorial direction. But he was never at all pushy. He's the sort of person who views the director's decision as sacred. I feel very satisfied that I got to work on a project alongside Norman, who's helped shaped animation history.
Bach's 'Crab Canon' which you use in the film has a unique structure, so that if you play the music in reverse it sounds exactly the same as if it were played normally, from beginning to end. Why did you choose to use this piece of music?We thought that the crab canon, with its structure like a musical palindrome, was interesting when thinking about the theme of time, and ended up incorporating it quite naturally into the film.
It shows time going backwards. Also, the film has various different animals serving as metaphors for time, and from a very early period on I had been thinking that the crab could play an important role.
I was struggling with what to do about the order, how to show non-linear time as part of a work of art with a linear time flow, but the Crab Canon itself has a way of running in reverse whilst still having a linear structure, which made me think, well maybe if I use that kind of structure then I can manage it.
You were working for seven years on this film. How did it feel to finally finish it?
In December 2010, after the editing was finished, we had a private screening in the NFB for about 60 members of staff, producers and other animators. That was the time when I felt it the most intensely. I didn't think that I'd get emotional myself, but when Michael gave a speech and I could tell from his voice that he was moved, I had this rush of emotion, and I thought uh-oh... (laughs). Loads of people had come, including the director of the NFB, and everyone was really positive about the film. At that time I felt a real tangible sense of joy at finally having accomplished it.
Finally, is there anything that you'd like to say to your fans, to the people who watch this latest film?
I don't want to explain the film to people, because that's boring. It's much better if people watch it and experience it in their own way. If people watch the film with an open mind, then I think there'll be one aspect or another about it which will strike them. There are lots of different features like that in this film. If those strike people in different ways and make them feel different things, if that sense of diversity is felt by the audience, then I'd be very content.
"Muybridge's Strings" at Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography
Sep. 17 (Sat) - Oct. 7 (Fri)
Closed Day : Sep. 20 (Tue), 26 (Mon), Oct. 3 (Mon)
Official Site：http://www.muybridges-strings.com/
twitter：@MuybridgeNoIto
facebook：http://www.facebook.com/MuybridgeNoIto
Text_Takashi Michikawa
Translation_Polly Barton
Edit_Keiko Kamijo
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Koji Yamamura
Animator.
Born 1964 in Nagoya City, Japan.
Has made animated shorts using a diverse range of techniques,
including 'Mt. Head', 'The Old Crocodile' and 'Frank Kafka's A Country Doctor'.
http://www.yamamura-animation.jp/
