I haven’t blogged in so long that I almost forgot my password. And this is what happens to me sometimes – in particular this year; where I am in the midst (the deep tunnels) of several different kinds of projects that seem to start out in a very traditional Capricorn-like format. BUT for some reason, as life does – takes a turn and things change…and well, here we are in August with several projects on the go.  I will blame it on the year of the unpredictable Water Dragon…

My summer days have been filled with animating – more specifically rotoscoping (tracing every frame of a pre-shot video) and in the middle and sometimes end of a short film called Shiro Yagi.  The film uses the found music of my late maternal grandfather as a starting point of several interweaving narratives and sites of memory. In this very final stage it has really become a process of suturing together images and stacks of drawings. It is even more comparative and closer to the actions of painting. The layering of textures and tones. I had not imagined I would focus so much time on a single image that would later become an assemblage of moving images that will very quickly speed by in front of our eyes.

The film has gone through several phases over the last few years and I’ve had the  pleasure of working with some fantastic collaborators including Antoine Bédard, Takeo Yamashiro , mimi’s ami, Catrina Megumi Longmuir, Asa Mori, Maiko Bae Yamamoto, James Long, James Proudfoot, a great Japanese Canadian line dancing team, and more. And of course, my mother, several family members and friends who’ve stood in for the characters that appear in the animation.

I’m completing this film as part of the Cineworks LAIR (local artist in residence) program. You can find me down at the Cineworks Annex -plugging away – come knock and visit; but bring a snack, please. The finished work will be screened October 6th! But a small installation version of it will be shown as part of SWARM September 7th from 8pm-11pm at the studio. Don’t miss out!

Here are some of the ‘behind-the-scene’ and in-process stills from the production. As we lead up to October I promise to blog more about the details and my process.

shooting for rotoscope footage

green screen footage

testing the paper cuts

production still Shiro Yagi

animation still from Mörkö

We just opened the workshop presentation of Mörkö last night at the Russian Hall. We’ve had a lot of fun working on this one with a group of great people. It is sold out! But you can get a chance to hear excerpts of the audio pieces created by Emma Hendrix at Spatial Poetics  XI July 5th! The audio pieces use only the sourced sounds and text from the interviews that I’ve been collecting over the past year.

Here’s a description of the work:

mörkö is an interdisciplinary performance integrating sound by Emma Hendrix and live video and animations by Cindy Mochizuki with direction by James Long.

The piece is built from two elements:  the text and the associated ambient sound from the interviews and the objects sourced from a basement closet of Mochizuki’s childhood home lovingly called the ‘Choo Choo’ room.  ‘Choo Choo’ in Japan is the equivalent of ‘’squeak squeak’ in the English speaking world – the sound that mice make.  In the Mochizuki home the children were told that there were human-sized mice living behind the shelving in this room and if they misbehaved they would be sent to join them.  This room eventually became a storage space for old toys and forgotten household items.

Tonight we present  a 40 minute exploration of sound, artifact and moving images that shapes a city through the ‘monstrous’- a space, creature or thing of fear that arises in our everyday lives when faced with the unknown.

Artistic Team: Jamie Long (direction), Emma Hendrix (sound artist and creation), Cindy Mochizuki (Animation, performance and creation), James Proudfoot (lighting), Asa Mori (Production Coordinator & Technical Assistance) and Elia Kirby (Technical Director).

pencil sketch from Happy Ghost

subtitle

Went in on Sunday to do some more sequences on the oxberry stand. I’m focusing more on the ghosts in the film and not so much on the subtitled text. I wasn’t even noticing what was being said between the characters until I decided to have a careful look at the subtitles. ‘Godfather, you trick me?’ was what was staring up at me for many many frames.

dinner scene

I was just going through old photos when I came across this still of 2 plasticine characters having a pizza on a toad stool.  I had made these characters for a stop-motion workshop I taught at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Family Fuse in 2009. You can view the the film, Adventures at Squishy Lake.  The sound was created through a sound workshop led by Lee Hutzulak.

This is a 2011 Year of the White Metal Rabbit Greeting created by my partner Marc and I through a new venture coming to you in the new year - www.hakidesign.com. The sound design for the card is created by Yota Kobayashi.  The 2011 Rabbit Year is said to bring us a restful and quieter time in contrast to the 2010 Year of the Tiger. Enjoy!

The Carrot Card Reading from Cindy Mochizuki on Vimeo.

I’m in Toronto at the moment working on the beginnings of my installation as part of the Secrets of the Lost Royal project commissioned by LIFT and Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival . The exhibition will launch November 2011 and also features works by Louise Noguchi, Daichi Saito, and soJin Chun.

My installation involves rotoscoping using the Oxberry Animation stand and we are all integrating, re-mixing, collaging, or tracing the films from the dusty, old collection of 35 mm Hong Kong films saved from the Royal Cinema. I’m animating 24 frames a second; and every time I mention that I get this look from everyone that reads underneath the skin as ‘ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND..’ Anyways, I’m having a lovely time with the headphones on and with the support of the folks at LIFT. Thank you Thank you.

And speaking of thank yous! Thank you to my loving partner, Marc, for helping me put my blog page up and mel roth design for technical support and advice. My actual website should go live soon…maybe when I get back to Vancouver. I’m entering this century of social networks and web worlds with baby steps..baby steps..