Kinema Club V impressions

[Wei Ting Jen]

It's not a necessity, and in fact there were many presentations which were 
well-delivered without the use of handouts. 
But it becomes annoying when half the audience has the handouts and the 
other half doesn't, and especially more so if the presenter makes constant 
references to the handout throughout the presentation. 

On 7/12/05, Eija Margit Niskanen <emniskanen at wisc.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Since when has it been a custom to deliver handouts at academic
> > conferences?
> E.N.
> 
> 
> > As for the paper presentations at Athenee Francais - I thoroughly
> > enjoyed the ones that I attended, but was very annoyed that many of
> > the presenters didn't prepare sufficient handouts which made it that
> > much more difficult to follow the discussion. I was very impressed by
> > the breath of topics being researched and the quality of some of the
> > presentations. A word of advice for presenters though - eye contact!!!
> > It was very painful when some presenters just read off their scripts
> > and made no effort to engage the audience.
> >
> > Thats it from me for now, its been quite a while since the conference
> > so forgive me if some of my recollections are a bit faulty...!
> >
> > cheers
> > Wei Ting
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 7/7/05, david henry <dahenry at umich.edu> wrote:
> >> recent Kinema Club V and since no one else has written on it I
> >> thought I'd forward some impressions. Since this is my first post I
> >> should probably introduce myself: David Henry, ABD at the University
> >> of Michigan working on Folktales, Textuality, and National Identity
> >> in modern Japan.
> >>
> >>
> >> The first day, Wednesday, at Sagamihara/Kyobashi was great if
> >> somewhat rushed. At Sagamihara we divided into 2 groups of 10 or so
> >> each for separate 25 minute tours of the film vaults. There were 2
> >> basement levels, each with 9 large rooms, for a total capacity of
> >> 200,000 cans of film (they're now at 60% capacity, so I guess roughly
> >> 120,00 cans right now?) The main storage rooms were set at either 10
> >> or 15 degree celsius (why the difference? hmm) with a special room
> >> for films that had 'caught' vinegar disease(?) set at 5 degrees.
> >> There were jackets provided at the entrance for us, but they were one
> >> short, and as I was the last one in the door it made for a rather
> >> chilly tour!
> >>
> >> Seemed like excellent facilities. Nice landscaping up top to keep
> >> things cool down below, a special air filtration system for the
> >> vinegar diseased film that pulled air out through the floor and was
> >> separate from the general air flow. They're also storing a fair
> >> number of films for the major studios in return for reduced fees if
> >> they want to strike copies, etc. For better or worse most of their
> >> collection (at least almost all of the film canisters I passed by)
> >> was porn. As the staff person was extolling the excellent facilities,
> >> I noticed the film next to me was 'Shinjuku mesu nikki.' (something
> >> like that) Later, there was an awkward pause, but he mentioned that
> >> film center employees simply preserve everything they can get their
> >> hands on without making any artistic judgements about value; hearing
> >> this seemed to put everybody back into a good mood.
> >>
> >> Aaron did a good job herding us around, although it was raining and
> >> we decided the (train) route as we were going (meaning we had to keep
> >> on our toes hopping on and off trains). I heard they watched some
> >> clips of very early Japanese films at Kyobashi, but I missed the
> >> afternoon segment.
> >>
> >> I thought quality and variety of the panel presentations was really
> >> good and I'd be interested in hearing other people's observations in
> >> this area.
> >>
> >> I missed Rey Chow on Sunday, but Saturday's Avalon screening and talk
> >> were great. Lamarre and Ueno were a little worried at first as Oshii
> >> was maybe 10-15 minutes late, mentioning he got lost walking the
> >> local streets. A Japanese woman (from Japan Foundation?) with a
> >> British accent provided excellent translation for Oshii; opinion was
> >> mixed on how Lamarre/Ueno decided not to translate each other's
> >> comments but try to roughly recap each other in J/E. I really liked
> >> it; thought it made for a dynamic interplay; J or E speakers
> >> obviously didn't notice, and some J/E speakers I talked with found it
> >> mildly irritating. Ueno questioned Oshii about criticism of fascism
> >> in his works; which lead to a 15 minute criticism of Miyazaki and
> >> Isao, comparing them to yakuza, dictators or Stalin for their
> >> humanistic vision but dictatorial production methods. Lamarre
> >> forwarded the question of dogs/wolf/wolfman in Oshii, Oshii responded
> >> with mostly platitudes although mentioned that he's given up
> >> collecting wolf T-shirts and is now collecting dog T-shirts. Hmm.
> >> Well, he also mentioned wolves may seem like noble natural creatures,
> >> but dogs are really the more developed, especially after living with
> >> humans. He did have an interesting comment on close-ups; how they
> >> lead us to expect truth in what they're expanding in on and their
> >> dictatorial power; specifically he mentioned you can't do close-ups
> >> in cel animation, but you can with CG, so he really enjoyed playing
> >> with that in Innocence.
> >>
> >> As to military images in his works, he confessed to loving war
> >> machines, buying those glossy Naval Warship or Aviation magazines in
> >> Ochanomizu and lamenting how the old woman at the register always
> >> looked at him like a criminal. He hazarded the opinion that if you
> >> can't tell the difference between an armored personnel character and
> >> a main battle tank then maybe you really shouldn't be commenting on
> >> war/peace issues. Also that Japanese always assume the role of
> >> higaisha, but maybe they should try to assume the perspective of
> >> kagaisha sometimes. Ueno broke in at this point to suggest that of
> >> course Oshii wasn't suggesting aggressive war, but the need to stop
> >> hiding behind a victim mentality, which is probably what Oshii meant.
> >>
> >> Anyway, this is getting long, but I'd really be interested in hearing
> >> other people's impressions of the conference.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> David Henry
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward, You
> > can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the
> > dots will somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs
> 
> 


-- 
"Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward, You can 
only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will 
somehow connect in your future." - Steve Jobs
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