Tokyo Loop

Tokyo Strut (Sato Masahiko, Ueta Mio) Tokyo Trip (Tanaami Keiichi) Fishing Vine (Seike Mika) Yuki-chan (Oyama Kei) Dog & Bone (Shiriagari Kotobuki) Public Convenience (Tabaimo) TOKYO (Uda Atsuko) Black Fish (Aihara Nobuhiro) Unbalance (Ito Takashi) Tokyo Girl (Shimao Maho) Manipulated Man (Wada Atsushi) Nuance (Murata Tomoyasu) Hashimoto (Furukawa Taku) Funkorogashi (Kuri Yoji) Fig (Yamamura Kouji) 12 O'Clock (Iwai Toshio) Tokyo's centre for experimental and art cinema, Image Forum, under the guidance of program director Takashi Sawa and coordinator Koyo Yamashita, has a knack for putting together some clever screening packages together for the Image Forum Festival every year. Many of these packages, such as Thinking and Drawing, make their way into international festivals, and in some cases even onto DVD. Such is the case with the 2006 omnibus Tokyo Loop featuring the work of both established artists like Yoji Kuri, Taku Furukawa, Keiichi Tanaami, Nobuhiro Aihara, as well as exciting younger artists such as Kei Oyama, Mika Seike, Tabaimo, and Tomoyasu Murata. Tokyo Loop came out of Image Forum's desire to do something to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Stuart Blackton's animation "Humorous Phases of Funny Faces" (1906), considered by many the first publicly screened animated film. Sawa and Yamashita commandeered the help of Furukawa who contributed to the project with a film of his own and helped recruit other independent animation and experimental artists. The 16 artists were asked to contribute a short film inspired by the city of Tokyo. The films would also be linked by the participation of Seiichi Yamamoto, a well-known musician from Osaka's underground music scene who composed the score. Yamamoto corresponded with the artists during the production process. He composed the music in advance based upon the sketches and storyboards provided by each animator, then revised them to fit the final edit of the film. ://nishikataeiga.blogspot.com/2009/09/tokyo-loop.html