Japan Media Arts Festival: Ryukyudisko’s “Nice Day”

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I’m having trouble embedding the video; maybe I’ll figure it out later

I discovered a brilliant film in Frames per second in a post by Emru Townsend. Ryukyudisko’s “Nice day” was a stand-out in the 2007 Japan Media Arts Festival’s Entertainment Division. I can see why. This film begs multiple viewing. This is what Emru Townsend had to say:

‘The entire video is a progression of still photographs starting somewhere in the 1970s, with a couple getting busy under the covers and producing a young boy. We watch him get older, get a job, and then he hits the clubs and meets a girl–and the whole starts going into reverse, as we go back into the girl’s history. However, we find ourselves going back even farther than her parents …’

It’s staggering when you think about the time it would take to orchestrate such a skillful and dynamic progression of images. It makes you think about the power of storytelling, and the possibilities within visual media without speech or text. I think the inclusion of speech or text would have weakened the impact of the film.

I’m thinking of the way students could be inspired to create their own story using a similar stills technique. There is much to discuss here. Movement forwards and backwards in time is an interesting concept in the visual form. The speed of the film is not only a solution to the practical problem of covering more storyline, but creates a perspective that is very large, one you would normally not have, by whizzing through the characters’ lives, not dwelling on one thing more than another. I love how the intertwining of lives occurs, with the movement back and forth in time, almost like the tangling and untangling of string.

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