Blue Valentine

I enjoyed watching Blue Valentine a lot and I ended up watching all the DVD extras.
The director has a documentary background and the film is realistic to details, which separates itself from cheesy love romances. Also, superb acting from Gosling and Williams. In order to get into the characters and 'make histories' prior to the shoot, they've rented a house and lived together with budgets. The director spent 12 years planning this film, and actors have also been involved in the process for 6 and 4 years. It's a film that is made with love and time, and that is clearly visible on the screen. 


I couldn't help but notice lot similarities between one of my favorite films London. I guess that's sort of the romance films that touches me the most.

監督の構想に１２年。役者との役作りに６年。家を借りて、予算付きで役者たちが一緒に住んで、役に入り込んだり、見えない部分ですごく手が込んでいる映画。

監督がドキュメンタリーの人ということもあり、多くの部分がアドリブで、役者の多くが、「実際のその職業の人」だったりして面白い。例えば、 Deanが働く引っ越し屋さんは、実在する引っ越し屋さんで、出てくる人たちも実際その引っ越し屋で働く従業員で、彼らが自分たちの恋愛観を話したりしていて、なかなかリアル。部屋などもセットではなく、実際に人が住んでいる部屋でそのまま撮影したりしている。

以下若干ネタバレあり

「過去」のシーンはすべてフィルムで撮られていて、手持ちのカメラ（三脚なし）で、引きのアングルで２人が一緒にフレームに映っていて、ふたりが自由に動き回れるスペースが周囲にある。逆に「現在」のシーンはすべてデジタルで撮られていて、常に２つのカメラが使用されていて、１つのカメラはDeanを、もう１つのカメラはCindyをアップで写していて、息苦しいカットが続く。

わたしは"London"と「ジョゼと虎と魚たち」という映画が大好きなのだけれど、"Blue Valentine"はその２つとの共通点が多い。

共通点のひとつを具体的に挙げると、大抵恋愛の終わりというのは「相手が浮気して、別れる」「相手がジャンキーだから、別れる」「相手が障がい者だから、別れる」「相手のことがすきではなくなったから、別れる」という単純なものではなくて。「これ」といった理由がある訳ではないのだけれど、今でも好きなのだけれど、それでも何かが上手くいかなくなってきた、というような曖昧なもので、この３作品は、そういう曖昧さの表現が上手い。

恋愛というのは、出会いというのは運で、持続させるのは努力だと改めて思います。

Photos from Morocco

I'm finally putting together photos from my Moroccan trip in April on my website. Here are some selections:

You can visit my website to see more photos.

We went on holiday to Morocco in April. That turned out to be right before the final hand in, which I now think was quite suicidal, but it did certainly provided me to finally reflect upon myself. We were riding long hours in taxis (yes we took taxis to go to Sahara desert), and probably for the first time I thought through about school, leaving London, and my new life in Japan.

I don't know if it was the long car ride or the beautiful nature of Morocco, but others who were traveling with me were thinking about deep stuff like "meaning of life" and "how small we are". Quite sadly, my thoughts revolved around practical matters and plan of actions rather than philosophical things that others were getting into. That made me feel how shallow I am, but I won't lie.

During those hours of car rides in Morocco, this song Exodus 04 by Utada was playing repeatedly in my head.
The lyrics goes like this:

Through mountains high and valleys low
The ocean, through the desert, snow
We'll say goodbye to the friends we know
This is our exodus '04 

Post-Degree Show

It's been unexpectedly incredibly busy after the degree show. From looking at previous years, our year seemed to had believed that "the design industry hunts for new talents at degree shows is a myth that rarely happens". But many from my year seem to already found jobs through the degree show, it seems like degree show as a place to get jobs could work. So if you are in second or first years, keep your hopes up, it can work.

From what I see, it seems like the industry doesn't really go to degree show actively searching for the new talent. But rather they go to degree shows just for fun, and they see some work that fits with their current project, and they contact the student if he or she would like to do some work for them. So there is already a nice fit from the very beginning, that students' works are relevant to the studio's. That's my personal experience and I do see that's the case for few others around.

For that reason, it helps to put work that really represents you. My space demonstrated no skills or no design sensitivities, but as I look back to it now, it really reflected my personality and my long-time interests. That was a happy accident and I'm grateful now, as I am currently enjoying the post-degree show times.



ご無沙汰してます。卒業式を半月後に控え、卒展後の充実した日々を過ごしています。

去年の卒業生の様子から、「卒展がきっかけで、仕事が降ってくるなんてことはない」という共通認識があったのですが、多くの友達が卒展をきっかけに仕事をもらっており、どうやら卒展で仕事って決まるものみたい。なので、今まだ大学に在学中の子たちは期待してもいいと思います。

結局、グラフィックデザインの場合、アートやファッションのように「よし、卒展で素晴らしい才能を発掘するぞ！」と出かけて、卒業生に声をかけていく、というわけではなく、趣味で行った卒展で、今自分たちがやってるプロジェクトに合う生徒をたまたま見つけたので、声をかけてみた、という形が多い気がする。私もそういった感じで声をかけてもらっており、最終的にお仕事を引き受けるかどうかは別として、自分と似たプロジェクトをしている会社の方々と話をするのは、お互いにとって有意義。


In any case, post-degree show consisted of watching a lot of football.
Followings are fabulous images from The Green Soccer Journal specially dedicated blog for Euro 2012. Art direction is rather slick (wearing football uniform with Burberry jacket and Acne jeans is totally great), but also successfully tell a lot of story within each image. 

(All images from The Green Soccer Journal)