Project Summary

The objectives of this project are to develop local talent by dispatching experts in the fields of cinema and animation, areas in which Japan excels, to rapidly developing ASEAN countries and holding practical workshops for local young people thereby to strengthen Japan’s presence in terms of cultural transmission and promote international cultural exchange.

　While society as a whole is rapidly becoming dependent on technology, it is culture that provides the soil from which well-nourished minds grow, and only human beings can cultivate the fertile sources of culture. Although it has become easier to exchange cultural “knowledge” through the Internet, the “experience” of being at the same place and feeling what is in the air together with other people, all acknowledging one another’s physical presence eye to eye and sharing an intense experience at a more profound level, is irreplaceable. We aimed to facilitate cultural experiences at this profound level, which we hope will help build a solid foundation in the lives of young people who participated in this project.

　More specifically, we came up with a program for “cultural understanding through the experience of creating together.” Even though Japanese pop culture is widely accepted in the ASEAN countries, few people have genuinely “experiential” knowledge about how this pop culture is created, and by whom it is created. At the same time, the “experience of creating together” helps to build relationships of mutual respect where participants listen to what others want to accomplish, and teach each other how to accomplish their objectives. Participants have eye-opening experiences of collaborative processes, which enable outcomes that exceed what individuals can achieve on their own. With these ideas in mind, we executed cultural exchange programs in the fields of cinema and animation with a focus on practical production experience. To be more specific, we dispatched top-notch veteran film and animation creators to Malaysia and Thailand and held hands-on workshops. Through these workshops, we aimed to cultivate human resources in each country’s corresponding fields, as well as to share with local young people the advanced skill levels of Japan’s top film and animation creators and the profundity of their underlying philosophies.

We executed the previous year’s project in three countries, namely, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand; however, we decided to limit this year’s project to Malaysia and Thailand so that we could offer better contents in each workshop.

　In Malaysia, the government has been actively promoting the motion picture industry. The Digital Cinema Production Workshop was held at the Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios (PIMS) in the state of Johor, which is adjacent to Singapore. Last year’s cinema workshop focused specifically on motion picture lighting and was limited to two days. In contrast, this year we extended the workshop to six days and enhanced the workshop to have students compete a short film. Thus, the workshop encompassed post-production, including editing and sound mixing, and the participants completed a short piece in the end. The teaching methods and curriculum for the cinema workshop were based on the methodology developed in the project titled “Establishing Asia’s Hub for Motion Picture Education by Standardizing the Production Process of Digital Cinema.”The Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts worked on this project from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2015.

　In Thailand, we held a workshop titled “Animation Boot Camp,” which directors Koji Takeuchi and Taruto Fuyama have held in Japan since 2012. The program was aimed at teaching the basics of expression through animation, with top animators who are actively engaged in Japan’s animation industry invited as instructors. The Sanam Chandra Palace Campus at the national Silpakorn University was used as the venue. Like the film workshop, this workshop was extended from last year’s two days to three days in order to offer a more comprehensive program.