What can you see from a film made by a blind director？
(Observer Network News)
Wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, the man who is sitting calmly in front of the computer screen discussing the details of film production with the team members may surprise you that he has been blind since birth, and the sci-fi movie he wants to shoot comes from the imagination that ordinary people can’t perceive with their eyes alone.
Jia Teng Xiuxing, who discussed the details of the film system with team members (Photo: Asahi Shimbun)
Hideki Kato (43) lives in Machida, Tokyo. He has multiple identities, a system engineer, a bass player in a band, and his competitive ability in fighting games is not lost to ordinary people. He has also been handy in cooking since he married his wife for 11 years. Now, he wants to challenge making movies again.
Just shoot, a 12-minute short sci-fi movie was finally successfully completed under his repeated tossing. His friend Makoto Sasaki directed and recorded the whole process of Kato’s film making. This 144-minute documentary "Night Cruise" is composed of these two parts.
What is expected is that this film will be released one after another all over Japan on the 30th of this month.
Documentary poster, "What can you see in a film directed by the blind-a documentary recording the whole process of film creation for the congenital blind" (Photo: official website)
The sci-fi film directed by Kato is called "Ghost Vision", which takes an asteroid in the near future as the stage and describes the story between a man who was born blind and his partner called "Ghost". In Kato’s view, although the relationship between them is trustworthy, the invisible barrier between them is like a ghost, which is magical and interesting, so the story unconsciously emerges in his mind.
In the process of film production, in order to facilitate the communication with the team members, Kato specially used the method of "sound separation" to explain the story, and he also wrote lyrics for the narration and lines himself.
It is worth mentioning that the lineup of the film production team should not be underestimated. In addition to inviting the production teams responsible for visual processing and film and television special effects in the films "New Godzilla" and "Resident Evil", the research and development team of the popular online game "Final Fantasy 15" and the modern artist Jin Cheping, the famous seiyuu Kōichi Yamadera, Hiroya Ishimaru and the popular animated seiyuu Noto Mamiko who were responsible for the dubbing of classic works such as "Silver Soul" also participated in the production of this film.
The picture shows the game Final Fantasy 15 R&D team.
The picture shows the production teams of the films "New Godzilla" and "Resident Evil".
Kato joked about this: You see, with their help, I can make movies even if I am blind. Isn’t this a good proof?
In addition to the script and shooting, he also put his own music into the film. This is due to his experience of playing part-time in a bar in high school. Fifteen years ago, he started playing a band with three members.
"I don’t absolutely think that the possibility of realization is zero when I look at anything. Anyway, there will always be a feeling of wanting to achieve it, not to say that I don’t work hard, but I think there may still be ways to look at the problem from a different perspective and enjoy it." Kato said in an interview with Asahi Shimbun.
Nevertheless, the film creation process is not smooth sailing, and how to solve the start-up capital of filming is a difficult problem first.
To this end, members decided to adopt crowdfunding. On December 21, 2017, the crowdfunding project was formally established. The initial target amount was 3 million yen. After all efforts, a total of about 3.35 million yen was raised.
"Night Cruise" crowdfunding project was established Source: Twitter
During the project crowdfunding, many people also actively supported and responded.
Ryuichi Sakamoto, a famous Japanese musician, expressed his expectation: "I doubt whether all the sensory organs such as hearing, touch and taste have become visual sensors to help Mr. Kato’s imagination to be infinitely extended. It’s like a dream. I wonder what color this dream is full of. In order to properly express the images in the brain through language, we need rich exchanges and communication between people who can freely swim in the snow-white canvas to create. This kind of image works created by breaking common sense is even more exciting. "
Ryuichi Sakamoto, a famous Japanese musician, expressed his expectation for the film.
Zeyuan, head of the technology research and development center of Microsoft Corporation in Japan, thinks: I am actually extremely dependent on vision because of the professional needs of speaking, and you will form some inherent values through it slowly. Today’s technological development demands more and more emphasis on vision-centered, such as VR, GUI and so on. But now a person who has lost his visual ability wants to shoot a film that focuses on visual entertainment. What kind of different angles should we interpret and appreciate it? It will make people feel excited and look forward to it.
When talking about why he wanted to make such a documentary, Makoto Sasaki, the director of Night Cruise, felt that this theme was in line with the film he wanted to shoot. As early as 14 years ago, he was lucky enough to be invited to take part in an art project with the theme of exploring the boundary between the majority and the minority in life. There are many disabled people in the project participants, but he didn’t feel any difference between them in his daily communication and work, that is, he began to pay more attention to disabled people, and wanted to record their lives and attitudes truthfully and present the original diversity in the world, which was also his initial intention of creation.
"The word’ disability’ has no special meaning for me when I associate with them. Whether I have a physical disability or not, it doesn’t affect my choice to associate with interesting people and become friends. I simply think so. " Makoto Sasaki said truthfully.
People with disabilities are no strangers to us, but they are often easily ignored by society.
According to the statistics of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare last year, the number of people with physical and mental disabilities is about 9.366 million, accounting for 7.4% of the total population, an increase of more than 1.49 million compared with 7.879 million in 2013. Especially in recent years, with the serious aging and people’s understanding of "disability" gradually deepening (the definition of disability in Japan is divided into three parts: physical disability, intellectual disability and mental disability), the number of people identified as disabled has also increased.
In order to better integrate these disabled people into society and guarantee their basic rights, the government has also formulated various measures and paid more attention than before. Based on the Basic Law for Persons with Disabilities amended in 2010, a five-year basic plan for persons with disabilities from 2018 to 2022 was formulated to comprehensively promote policies. The White Paper on Disabled Persons, which is reported in Congress every year, introduces in detail the actual progress of relevant policies. These laws and policy measures are expected to create a basically good living environment for them.
A sports classroom for severely disabled children in Hiroshima City (Photo: Asahi Shimbun)
Of course, what is more important is people’s concern and understanding, and the disabled people’s own discovery and affirmation of the value of personal life. In addition to building a space for everyone to communicate together, people with disabilities always pursue their dreams like ordinary people, and they are novel and challenging the unknown, just as the protagonist Kato Hideyoshi has not lost his imagination of the unknown world.
Kato Hideyoshi is on the film set (Photo: Youtube)