Satoshi Kon CTS

Within in the first CTS lesson this term, we learnt about an late animator and director called 'Satoshi Kon', whose works included: Paprika, Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers and other notable works. I hadn't realised that I have already consumed some of his works until very recently as I had watched Paprika at a much earlier age, as well as just recently finished his series 'Paranoia Agent' which details 12 self contained stories all revolving around the theme of paranoia through social media.

This CTS helped me think more critically about films, as there is an abundance of information on screen for me to pick out and dissect. I have come to realise that there are a lot more film techniques that go into animation than previously thought as there are multiple instances of shot types and movements that would be seen in Hollywood movies. The fact that Kon was able to extract that knowledge and implement it into his animations, all by hand-drawn frames is emblematic to how skilled of an artist and director he is. 

One example that was shown in class of how skilled he is at allowing his knowledge of film direction flow seamlessly with his abstract storytelling, was the scene where the detective was dreaming. It showed a whimsical chase scene between a killer he is trying to investigate, and one way to uncover his face and find out his identity is to find and catch him in his own dream. He is shown in many different locations with dreams interweaving with each other, all as he is running in and out of them. Then, as the audience is hit by a blinding white light and an echoing gunshot, the pacing comes to a screaming halt as a figure is falling to the ground in slow motion, as he has been shot in the back.

I was stunned by this sequence of events as not only was it superbly animated with all movement by the characters be highly accurate to that of real life, but the way each shot is angled to give the right amount of information, setting the scene of each dream as if it were replicating it's own inspiration, the original source material. What struck me from this film, and every other piece of film Kon has created, is that his character's aren't exempt from the laws of physics. The movements of his characters have the right amount of bounce to them, so much so that to the untrained eye it could look as if each scene was roto-scoped, which plays hand in hand with how realistic the designs of his characters are. They all have proportions similar to average Japanese facial features, which were quite different to the trend of flashy, beautiful and stylistic trends of anime in the 90s. All of this had further pushed my interest in Satoshi Kon's discography, as well as his psychology, where he drew his inspirations and themes from.