Winter Ghosts : Update 1

I'm on my winter hols now so I'm using the free time I have to work on my Winter Ghosts project. I worked on the editing and recorded some music which is nowhere near completed. (I think I will need Richard Slater's help with that). Anyway, here are a couple of preview shots. You will notice that I am using the VS Effect again and that the film will have a similar look to Tengu.

Winter Ghosts

I am currently working on a four minute experimental music video that I'm calling Winter Ghosts. It will be a mixture of my music and poetry and will feature images shot at Design Festa.

The video will be in the VS Effect style (like Tengu and Interiors:Redux) and will be in stark monochrome. Even the graphics will be simple black and white. It will have a very Gothic feel to it.

The idea for Winter Ghosts came to me after watching back all the footage of random people walking passed my booth at Design Festa that I had recorded on my camera, I thought everyone seem to be drifting along like ghosts and not really taking anything in around them.

Winter Ghosts will be on tribalpicturesjapan.com from January 15th 2007.

Guitars out for MJ Ultra

My film making is taking a bit of a back seat to my music at the moment. I've been busy with Richard Slater rerecording new versions of 2 of the 2+4x4 tracks that we made earlier this month. These newer sparkly janglier versions will become MJ Ultra (Richard's band) tracks.

Next week I will rehearse with them live in the studio so that we can get a better feeling or vibe for the tracks. I must say that's it's a lot of fun being a rock'n'roll star! hahaha...

So with all this music work going on I thought I'd better start investing in a little more equipement. I forked out a few grand on the effects unit below at the weekend. It has some very nifty little effects on it...also, when I was back home in England I picked up my beloved Fender Telecaster and brought it back to Japan. It's great to play it again after so long.

Long live Rock'n'Roll!

History : First new film of 2007

So, after much deliberation I've decided that my next MAJOR project will be History (some small videos may still get made). I'm working on the script right now and I should have it finished by the new year. The story is about a man who falls in love with a grieving widow who visits the cemetery that he works at. Of course this being one of my films you can guarantee that the story will have a nice dark twist to it.

I have spoken to a Japanese actress, Shinobu Tsuji, about playing the role of the widow and she seemed genuinely interested. Also, I've had some contact from another director currently residing in Tokyo, Neil Bilas. He has a production company and we have discussed the possibility of some sort of collaboration; he helps with History and I will help him with his new project.

2+4x4 The Collection

Here are the links to the 2+4x4 videos on the TPJ Theater.






2+4x4 Dreams/Solo
2+4x4 Goddess/The Unholy Temple Of The Accused
2+4x4 Butterfly/Endymion
2+4x4 Snakes & Ropes/Family Viewing

Bloodtype vs History

I've got a couple of projects that I'm thinking over at the moment. I want to make one short film in the early part of 2007 but I'm torn between two ideas. Both of them are moody dark stories but I just can't decide which one I want to make.

Once I've decided I will quit smoking.

1 Year Anniversary

This week sees the 1 year anniversary of the TPJ blog. It's a year that's gone really by really quickly and it's been a fairly successful year. In 2006 I have worked on a number of short film projects. Girl Alone and Tengu being the two biggest and Gloom, Interiors and the 2+4x4 projects being the other shorter videos.

As well as that I open tribalpicturesjapan.com and took part in Design Festa Vol.24. So it's been an action packed year! But none of this would have been possible without the help from a lot of fantastic people. So this is my thank you list.

Thanks to the following people.
Andrey Surcek
Antole Papafilippou
Ali Jaffer
Chikako Suzuki
Dana Hunter
Elle Sison Takagi
Greg Mitchell
Haruna Loffman
Higashi Kenko Plaza
Joe Harper
John Lipartito
Kaneko Tani
Kazuki Nakanishi
Katherine Pham Do
Kensuke Komori
Lisa McCaskill
Masayo Fujii
Morag Yule
The Pink Cow
Richard Slater
Rob Moreno
Scorpion Death Rock
Seiko Sugimura
Sho Ikeno
Terumi Ezuka
Tetsuro Matsui
Tom Melesky
Yorie Akiba
Yuka Nakai
Yumiko Matsui
Yuuri Kaburagi

2+4x4 Now Online

The 2+4x4 videos are now online at tribalpicturesjapan.com.

2+4x4 at TPJ Live Theater

These 4 videos are an experimental collaboration between myself Elle Sison Takagi and Richard Slater.

Credits
A Tribal Pictures Japan Production
Still images by Elle Sison Takagi
Directed and Edited by Richard Loffman
Poems by Richard Loffman
Music by Richard Loffman (guitars) and Richard Slater (programming)
Music produced by Richard Slater

Back in Japan

I returned back from a great holiday in England yesterday morning and I must say that I was happy to get back to sunny Yokohama, despite spotting a smoking stack (see Gloom) at dusk whilst walking up my apartments stairwell. See pic below.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who visited my stall at Design Festa and I will endeavour to get in touch with all over the course of the week.

Design Festa Day 2 (Dec 3rd)

The following is a report on the second day at Design Festa...

Pre-Show
Today I decided to take along my video camera and set it up so that I could do a spilt screen installation. Half of the screen with live video and the other with my films.

11:44
The first visitor of the day...44 minutes after opening. There was some interest in Girl Alone. Some passing interest...

12:00
A young Japanese woman says "me masu" (I'll look) with regards to my website. Thanks JP Girl.

12:17
Another Japanese girl who was watching 2+4x4 Butterfly exclaims "wakkanai" (I don't understand). Oh dear me.

12:37
"Sagoi desho" says another young Japanese girl when watching Tengu, but she also commented that the tengu mask on my display looked like a p***s and was curious to know if I liked such things...mmm...strange one.

12-1:30
Lots of People, and I mean LOTS of people stopping and watching my videos. Some unfortunately don't seem too interested. Ahhh!. Sigh...

2:00
My wife and daughter arrive and so Richard Slater looked after the booth whilst we went and had some food and drinks, chicken and chips from the French food stand, and watched the amazing taiko drummers on the indoor stage. Whilst I was away Mike from America signed up to the TPJ newsletter. Thanks Mike. I'll be in touch soon.

3:30
I set up my amcam and WMV split which made my exhibition much more interactive. First reaction...a middle aged woman on seeing herself on the screen quickly backed away from my booth. Result!

5:20
An older Japanese gentleman informs me that "Tengu is cute number!!". Sorry, no idea what he was trying to say.
Met a photographer from England called Chris Lister. Very nice guy. Got a chance to check out some of his photography and some of his experimental video work being shown in the projection space. Check out his homepage.

6:10
Met up with a Canadian guy called Eric who is into film making in Japan. Hope that Erik will be in touch soon.

6:50
As DF draws to a close Richard Slater and I meet a very nice Japanese guy called Ken Watanabe (??????) who works for a company called Digital Camp ! He invited us to visit his studio in Yokohama some time. I'm sure we will.

7:00
DF finishes with a flurry of activity. Great way to finish a good weekend. So off we went back to Yokohama to have a drink in my favorite izakaya 居酒屋 ...Tengu.

Design Festa Day 1 (Dec 2nd)

Day 1 on Design Festa went well but without any major fireworks.

8am
Arrived quite early to find my white boards but no chair (I will need to address that tomorrow). Setting up my booth was quite easy as Elle Sison Takagi accompanied me from 8am and helped me get all the walls looking OK.

9am
A little later on we were joined by Richard Slater who brought along some speakers and his Mac to make the sound a bit better and a lot louder.

11am
After a slow start I was visited by Aaron Franco, one of the Design Festa staff, who did a short interview with me. Aaron came back later to visit and watch some of my films. So thanks for that.
A young Japanese guy stopped by and watched some of 2+4x4 Goddess/The Unholy Temple Of The Accused and was very intrigued as to why Elle used Japanese women's faces in her art. (?)

Early Afternoon
Lots of people drifting past the booth some stopping but some not. Thanks to the 2 groups of Japanese guys who really enjoyed Tengu and the young Japanese woman and her boyfriend who ask me lots of questions, again, about Tengu.

In fact most questions and interest from visitors centered around Tengu. The basic gist of thing being "why did you make a video using a Tengu mask?". Tengu was the big hit today.

Late Afternoon
Things got quieter after 5. Not so many visitors, just a few casual glances. Sigh. But another Design Festa staff member, this time a photographer, took some photos of my booth.
As it was quiet we all drifted around the hall and had some food and drinks. The Turkish beef kebab and beer was particularly special I thought.

7pm
Time up for today. Hoping to see some familiar faces tomorrow and hoping to make a few more contacts.

Below are a few images, taken on my keitai, of my booth and Elle and Richard.