David @ Tokyo

No, not quite Modern Art, but you never know passes these days. This the aftermath in my bathroom after I punched a whole in a seemingly used canister of shaving cream. Pressing the button wasn't releasing any gas, so I deemed it to be ready to go in the trash. I don't know exactly why this didn't happen before, but when I punched a whole in the side I created a geyser of shaving cream, and you can see the end result, all up the wall and over the mirror. Nasty! At least the place smells great now... 

...and good things do seem to come to an end... the rain on Saturday night and subsequent wind on on Sunday knocked most of the leaves off the trees (this view from out my apartment window). The park will be completely bare now for the next 3 or 4 months.... 

You must be running out of bandwidth now, and I am running out of locations, so this will be my last set of Autumn photos for 2004... this big tree is located right on my doorstep. This photo was taken about a week ago, on the 29th... what a day! 

...and this wraps it up for 2004 - here again is Chie, Yukie and Myself, all on a bit of a high after having drinks with our respective dreamboats, Kyohei and Rena-chan. See you guys again next year!! 

Here is Mira T. again, Masakazu (the man who makes it all happen each year), and Heaven's Train again... straight faces are gone again now ;-) 

This is me with the wonderful Heaven's Train, member of "the secret club" and producer of "37.2" from this years festival. He is also a designer - that T-shirt is his own design... surprisingly shy though - last year he avoided me because he can't speak English!  

Here I am with the director of "Ashi man III" (Ashi means "foot/leg"). In his introduction to the audience he donned his "Doraemon" adorned motercycle helmet out of shyness and implored the audience to go crazy with him for his production next year. I'd love to help him out - hopefully he can dream up a role for a me! Although I don't think I have the balls to go running around the streets of Sendai in my underpants like Ashi-man... (wondering what I am talking about? Watch the digest film!!) 

Here I am with Mira T., the party organizer. Mira T. shot the film for "37.2" with Heaven's Train. Her dream is to hold her own photo exhibition abroad by the time she is 30 (still lots of time!). I'm going to help her brush up on her English grammar. 

Yukie's friend Chie (aka "Chibi"... or so Yukie tried to tell me) and Kyohei-kun again - Chie like Yukie thought Kyohei-kun was very yummy too! 

This is me with Rena-chan, who played the cute girl in "Hitohira". At 21, Rena-chan is a divorced mother of one, model, and also part-time actor! Lots of life experiences there already, and you can see from my face I was pretty happy to be seated next to such a sweety...  

Last year's after show bash was quite a stunner, and to this day I have the words "こちょびてぇ～ぞ、おめぇー" ("hey you!! that tickles!!" in Yamagata dialect) etched into my memory... This year's phrase was "あんちゃんばっかり、めんごがってぇ～。だいがくでが、そんなにえれぇ～のが？！". This year's after show bash (organized by Mira T., the cameralady of "37.2") was memorable too. Various film makers and cast gathered near Yamagata station - starting here we have Yukie (who did some voice work for the Clay Animation "Xin") and Kyohei-kun, who was the young male stud actor from "Hitohira". Kyohei is a 2nd year high school student, the drummer in a band, and the girls all love him!! I too totally admit to being impressed, and I'm straight... hmm 

日本語は英語の後で書くね！Last year I went to Yamagata after receiving an invite from my buddy Masakazu to help out with the 2nd Yamagata Independant Production Image Festival. This is an event where local Yamagata film makers (mostly Hobbyists) put their wares on show for the public to see. Making the films themselves is not enough - getting people to watch is the whole point! So I had such a great time last year (particularly at the after show drinking binge) that I went again last weekend for this year's event. While the 2003 show drew an audience of around 100 to see the half a dozen films on offer (one of which had taken a full 18 years to produce!), in 2004 with more media exposure prior to the event an audience of 250 turned out. And deservedly so, as there were some really good films on offer. Pictured here is Masakazu's living room, temporarily converted into the set of his clay animation film "Xin" (co-produced with his wife Tomi). And now for those who prefer to read Japanese....
先週第三回の山形自主制作映像祭を見に行ったよ！友達の小林さんが代表をやっていて、手伝いをしに行った。詳しい情報はここ http://www.yii.jpにあるので、良かったら読んでみてくださいね。あのリンク先で、僕の写真も写ってるよ（ヒント：受付の写真を探して）。「ダイジェストムービー」もDLできるので、ぜひ見てみてください。僕もさっきダイジェストを見て、やはり記憶に残ってる作品は、「Load」（感動したロードムーヴィー）、「Ｘｉｎ　～シン～」（音楽はよかった！まだまだ頭の中だ！）、「足マンＩＩＩ　～怒りの足マン」（なんといえばいいか、分からない・・・ダイジェストを見るしかないよ！）「ひとひら」（ショートだけど、音楽もよかったし、俳優と女優はふたりともかわいくて、後で打ち上げで紹介してもらったo(^-^)o）。今年、合計250人が見に来てくれた。毎年大きくなっているイベントで、来年も参加させていただくのを楽しみにしてる！ちなみに、この画像で見えるのは、小林夫婦が作った「Ｘｉｎ　～シン～」のセットだよ。日本語は、それくらいでいいかな・・・

 

And yet another picture next to the park in Hakone - thanks again Miwa for the picture!! 

Me with the rest of the crew - Thanks Miwa for the picture!! 

Yup, those red leaves up in them trees are real!!  

This is some other part of the same park... 

So a few weeks back my buddy Miwa organized a trip (as she always does!! thx Miwa!!!) down to Hakone for the day. It was really busy so it was tough to get around all the venues. I forget where this place is now (Miwa, can you remind me?), but it was the first park that we went to in Hakone - and maybe the best 紅葉 ("autumn leaves" - is there a better word for this in English?) that we saw that day... 

This is part of a huge park in Shinjuku, great place to go and sprawl out on some lawn! For some reason there are hardly any grass spaces like this in Japan (I guess it's because nobody has a garden at their home) so a place like this is now strangely appealing. All we need here now is a cricket pitch... 

This was the view of the park with autumn leaves from my place on November 9. It's almost a month since I took this photo, and the leaves are all pretty much gone now...