Kotatsu Japanese Animation Festival

Today I attended the Kotatsu Animation Festival at Chapter Arts Centre. It was a three day festival, but due to weather and nanowrimo I was only able to get there today (the last day).

On the previous two days there were a couple of workshops and screenings of the Studio Ghibli film, Ponyo, but today was the day that interested me most.

In the afternoon there was a showing of several short Japanese animations, not just in the popular anime style but also handcrafted and artistic films. We were also shown an episode of the anime Samurai Champloo and saw guest speakers Midoriko Hayashi (organiser of independent animation screenings in Japan) and Tetsuji Kurashige (university lecturer and independent film maker).

One of the first selection of films we saw (the "anime style" selection) was She and Her Cat by Makoto Shinkai.

I really enjoyed the short as it was a simple "slice of life" film, yet had so much power to it. The storyline is simple yet sweet and the music adds to the piece without being overpowering of feeling out of place. The concept of the film being from the cat's perspective is clever and allows you to see the story of a seemingly quiet and overlooked woman: You aren't told the whole story, but you understand what is happening.

The next type of film was the "Handcrafted" short films. Unfortunately, none of these were available online, but they were all very clever and interesting. The first was a short that started with a small origami caterpillar which ate and grew, using bigger pieces of paper until it turned into a chrysallis and then a butterfly. This was short and effective and reminded me of the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Of the other two handcrafted films, one was aimed more at children and was knitted, and looked very sweet, and the other was quite a scary tale of a demon, with jerky yet stylized stop frame animation.

The final type of short film was "artistic". The first was an amusing and cute tale called The Mechanism of Spring and showed how everything links together in spring time and builds each other. It features heavily on connections and was very well recieved. The second film was hand drawn with graphite pencil. It was done entirely on one piece of paper and the characters were rubbed out and redrawn as they moved across the page. This was very effective and gave the impression of showing the marks that people leave in the world, even on everyday occasions such as a lunch break. Although I was not impressed particularly with the art style used, and the storyline was a little non-existent it was still really interesting and a clever technique.

The final film in the art style was very peculiar and nobody knew what was going on, even with subtitles. It was most odd.

The organiser of the event, Eiko Ishii Meredith, also showed us a trailer of her own short film which is the making. I look forward to seeing the full version.

In the evening, there was a showing of Summer Wars, a 2009 film which had been highly aclaimed and submitted for Oscar Nomination. It looked very interesting, but due to the weather I had to leave, as if I saw it I may not have been able to get home. It was a shame, but I hope to see the film sometime in the near future when it's released.

http://www.kotatsufestival.com/

http://www.chapter.org/

Halfway through NaNoWriMo...

...and I have an overwhelming sense of achievement.

I've written 25,000 words of a novel in twelve days, and, as I've never done anything like this before, I feel that my happiness is quite justified. I'm telling the internet because it's a glorious way of getting it out of my system without having to bore people irl with my humdrum life.

Music's a big help I think. I'm not one of those people who ever says "Music is my life". Unless you're a musician, I don't think you have any right to say that at all (note, I just typed write instead of right. I changed it though), and that if music really is all you have to live for that you ought to get some help. Not in a mean way, just that, maybe you should make some friends and that. Gosh, what a ridiculous way to type: "and that". Golly.

Anyway, music, right? That's what I was typing about. I've been listening to quite mellow music today whilst writing and I definitely believe that music can help what you write, if not influence it. A few day ago I listened to non-stop cheery Japanese Pop and I knocked out 4000 words in no time. The subject was very fast paced and hyperactive though. Today I listened to a mixture of bands like Stars, Islands and Sia, as well as the Amelie soundtrack by Yann Tiersen. It made for more mellow writing, but it worked well with what I was going for and I road over the halfway mark amidst a rather tragic back story. I hope I can manage to give that character a happy ending because he really is quite lovely.

My music was all floaty and dreamy as I was writing just now, then cheery Amelie accordians came and butted in. What are they playing at!? Goshhh.

Paranormal Activity

No, not the film.

Last night, I had a great trouble sleeping. I had that creeping feeling on the back of my neck and I was positive there was another person in the room. I'm not particularly a great believer of ghosts and the like, but it's not the first time I've felt some sort of "presence" in my room. The previous time was a week after my grandpa past away, and I woke in the night, knowing he was there. At the time I was crippled with fear and absolutely petrified, but afterwards I felt okay about it. I'm sure he was just checking up on me and saying goodbye.

This time was different as I didn't recognise the person (?) at all. I was equally terrified though, and couldn't find away to rationalise the situation.

There are probably many contributing factors causing my burst of insanity. Firstly, my imagination's been taking a life of its own this month due to the 50,000 word novel I've been writing (I'm about 10,300 words in so far after four days of writing, so I'm definitely feeling dedicated).

Secondly, I'm on some tablets which have in the past given me both hallucinations and nightmares. I had thought I was through with these side effects, but apparently not.

Thirdly, the said tablets (which I really ought to get sorted, but the nurse refuses to return my call - what did I do to her??) have been giving me asthma. Last night I couldn't move without a great pressure hitting my chest, momentarily suffocating me. This would have most likely sent my fragile mind into a panic.

Fourthly, I'd been on a forum for nanowrimo, and came across a person discussing strange happenings in her house. A pair of scissors managed to migrate to the freezer, and a cupcake got taken away and was replaced with a dollar note and a plate of sweet and sour sauce. It was the thought of the scissors that shook me.

Last night, whilst I was failing to sleep, I finally started to drift off at about half four in the morning. I woke up with a start when I felt a person next to me breathing. Just before panic truly gripped me, I suddenly felt a chill run through my bones. It was very surreal and almost like an out-of-body experience. I say almost, because it wasn't as though my mind floated away, it felt more like my body had drifted off. After that I didn't feel scared at all, though it took me another two hours to get to sleep.

During this time I heard movement on the landing outside my room. I am going pretend I know for definite that it was one of my parents. I'm pretty sure it was. There's no point fretting.

After my hour of sleep, I dragged myself from my bed, and proceeded to get ready for college. I felt a little paranoid but tried to shake the bizarre night from my head. It was then that I saw the orange plastic cup.

This was a cup that had been in my room for a couple of weeks. Every morning it moved a little on my desk, but I always put it down to me knocking it in the night. Every morning, I'd push it back on the table, telling myself I really ought to take it downstairs to the kitchen some time: It's not like I was using it.

This morning the cup was on the floor, a foot or so from it's place on the desk. It was the right way up. How could it have fallen in this way?!?! I am going to ignore the cup and hope that it doesn't try to kill me in the night.

Later, the last of the strange occured. Tears welled up in my eyes for no reason and I felt inexplicably sad. I got over it.

I do have one more theory before I go: This could all be a delayed reaction to Paranormal Activity 2 (which I watched about two weeks ago). I laughed all through the movie and found the people that were scared hilarious. How ironic.

This isn't really something to do with my blog, but as I've been cutting out the internet, I've not really had a lot to post. Also, writing it down makes this seem more like fiction. It's writing practise. Or something.

No internet for a month!?

Okay, so a little exagerration with the title. I will still be using the internet, just only specific sites.

Too much of my time is wasted, staring at my facebook live feed, whilst I mindless refresh the page, even though I know it updates automatically, and that the F5 button that I have come to love, will actually make many updates dissappear.

I also spend far too much time on youtube. I start with a search for a specific video, and then I see something of interest in the related videos section. So I watch that. Then another. And so on, until eventually I'll be back with the inevitable, looking at videos of small, sneezing animals, and children biting each other.

I can't tell myself to cut down on this procrastinating. It always starts with me saying "I'll just go on for five minutes. I'm just doing this", and then three hours later, I look up, with bloodshot eyes and an empty soul.

This November, I'm taking part in Nanowrimo, aiming to write a 50,000 word novel before the end of the month. I really really want to complete it, so it seems like a good idea to get rid of my distractions.

Therefore, from this day until the 1st December, I shall not go on facebook, youtube, twitter, tumblr, you name it. I will, of course, not be able to cut out the internet completely. As you can see, I'm using my blog, but it's mostly for college, and I'll need something to use to vent my feelings when I get struck by the demonous writer's block. I also have to still use googlemail (and google and subsequent sites, if I have to research anything), hotmail (so I can keep in touch with people) and, of course, the nanowrimo website.

You could say that I'm basically cutting out trash. Like watching the dramas on tv, and not bothering with Snog, Marry, Avoid or The Only Way is Essex.

Wish me luck!