[KineJapan] pre-pandemic webcam films

Tue Apr 13 18:20:41 EDT 2021

The DVD / video series 2channeru no noroi includes a couple of short horror
films that involve webcam chatting, including Webbu kamera tsuuwa (in
volume 1). Slightly different, but the later Ring sequels and spinoffs
(Sadako 3D, Sadako) focus on live webcam broadcasts. And the very recent
Jukai mura has a subplot about a group of paranormal enthusiasts meeting
online via webcam and watching live video broadcasts (though it went into
production during the pandemic, not sure if the script was written
pre-pandemic).

--Lindsay Nelson

On Tue, Apr 13, 2021 at 8:15 PM <kinejapan-request at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Re: pandemic Asian cinema for teaching (M Arnold)
>    2. Re: pandemic Asian cinema for teaching (Jim Harper)
>
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2021 00:04:11 -0700
> From: M Arnold <maiku at umich.edu>
> To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
> Subject: Re: [KineJapan] pandemic Asian cinema for teaching
> Message-ID:
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> g at mail.gmail.com>
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>
> Miryam and Everyone -
>
> I hope you are all well.
>
> I agree with Markus that the pink project was charming. I think the
> participants have been working on new things with that 16mm camera since
> then, but as far as I know nothing is complete yet.
>
> Miryam, if you're open to shorter works that aren?t movies, have you spent
> much time looking into network television programs? With nowhere else to
> go, I've stayed at home watching a ridiculous amount of Japanese TV since
> last year--at least hundreds of hours of mainstream news, commentary, and
> comedy shows, mostly Asahi and Fuji with some NHK sprinkled in--and it's
> been really interesting to see where things have changed in response to
> COVID.
>
> The live news commentary programs I watch have been experimenting: using
> different kinds of face masks (though I don't think that lasted too long),
> enlarging the set, separating the commentators' seats, placing clear
> plastic walls between participants, and even replacing usual commentators
> and guests with video chat on profilmic, in-studio TV monitors. The most
> common setup now seems to be socially distanced seats, separated by
> transparent plastic panels that are lit just so that the edges of the
> panels are barely visible. Pre-recorded segments with on-the-street surveys
> or restaurant visits usually have the reporter and all of the interviewees
> wearing a mask or two, and occasionally place the crew?s long boom
> microphones in-frame for establishing shots to emphasize that everyone is
> more than two meters apart.
>
> I always find it odd when commentators are replaced by TV screens. I
> remember a period of time months ago, when restrictions were harsher, when
> it seemed like every daily show had at least one or two HDTV screens taking
> over regulars' spots. It implied that the screen-commentators were staying
> home and were connected on video chat via laptops. However, the videos
> appeared to be shot on sets that were only designed to look like 'home' (I
> do think they were physical sets; not artificial green screen backgrounds).
> The rooms looked so generic, and the camera angles and lighting looked so
> polished and unnatural for a Zoom or Skype-type video chat, that I
> suspected those people were actually showing up to work and then sneaking
> off to a private corner of the studio to merely pretend as if they were
> staying home and honoring lockdown.
>
> The webcam/screen setups altered participation in other obvious and
> distracting ways too. The seconds-long stretching and exercise segment of
> Asahi's Morning Show, for example, fell flat when the usually very
> physically responsive commentators were "staying home? and participating
> from inside close-up video chat frames that amputated their swirling arms
> and legs.
>
> Fuji TV?s Friday night parody show Zenryoku! Datsuryoku Times has made fun
> of that artifice in several recent episodes. One episode last June had the
> three regular commentators replaced by video chat screens from obviously
> fake homes, and the studio set modified with an absurdly long table (maybe
> 20 feet long) to fit the two guest stars, Yamasato Ryota and Hotta Mayu.
> Yamasato ends up sitting so far away from the rest that he can't properly
> hear or respond to the others? comments and questions. That becomes a
> running gag.
>
> After a few communication failures and distance jokes--like the moment when
> Yamasato realizes he doesn't have a pen to write down an answer, and
> someone on the crew strings one from a drone and tries to fly it to
> him--host Arita decides that virtual communication would be more practical
> and sends the two guests off the set so they can complete the episode via
> video chat from ?home.? The gags continue from there. The opening and
> ending of the episode also replaced live action footage of the participants
> with a kamishibai of "courtroom sketch" drawings that illustrated everyone
> on the panel sitting shoulder to shoulder.
>
> It was the June 26, 2020 episode:
> https://www.fujitv.co.jp/DNN/archive/index200626.html
>
> I don't pay much attention to the Neta Parade manzai show that airs after
> Datsuryoku Times, but from the short parts I have seen, it appears that
> Netapare shifted last year from doing in-person, on-stage comedy skits to
> using green screen effects for each shot, which makes all of the comedians
> look like paper cut-out dolls and makes it impossible to tell who was
> present where or how far the participants were from each other (or if they
> were even reacting to each other in real time). That might be worth a look
> too.
>
> I think the latest episodes of some of these Fuji shows are available for
> free on fod.fujitv.co.jp if you have a Japanese IP address. I?m sure it?s
> not too difficult to find random clips on YouTube or Dailymotion.
>
> Some of the other comedy shows I watched stopped shooting new material for
> a while, or spent weeks airing edited clip fests or repeat episodes framed
> by new introductions. Retro video gaming show Game Center CX has continued
> without many obvious changes, but when the ADs sneak into frame to give
> Arino-kacho gameplay tips and cheats, they show up masked. The segments
> where Arino personally visits vintage game arcades and amusement parks have
> been filled with recycled footage from older episodes.
>
> The various Downtown programs haven't seemed to highlight pandemic
> protections as clearly. The members might wear masks when they go out on
> the town to gorge on fried chicken or yakisoba, but they do their regular
> studio-based gag shows together, without masks, standing or sitting fairly
> close to each other. The family members of Matsumoto-ke no Kyujitsu (which
> was just canceled, unfortunately) started to sit farther apart during the
> studio segments, but I don?t recall them using masks, even when they went
> out to dine. I've seen more recent Downtown episodes making jokes about
> Hamada's presumed dementia than episodes making jokes about the foibles of
> social distancing.
>
> In serious news and talk shows, the display of pandemic protections
> sometimes peaks in a ridiculous mise en abyme where the practical tables,
> chairs, charts, and illustrations on the studio set, the clear screens
> separating live bodies, and the opaque screens replacing absent bodies are
> edited in tune with window-in-window reaction close-ups that are
> superimposed on live or recorded video reports of masked and separated cast
> and crew members visiting real city locations. It?s strange to see these
> talk shows experiment with different impressions and sensations of space in
> a TV recording format that is structured as essentially communal, live,
> immediate, and direct... anything but distant.
>
> I haven't watched nearly as much drama in the last year. Since narrative
> continuity is usually fine-tuned toward the opposite function--to sculpt
> illusions of presence, proximity, and interaction out of subjects and
> spaces that are already ephemeral, absent, or artificial--I expect that
> fictional TV and film would reflect the pandemic somewhat differently, at
> least in a formal sense, if they choose to reflect it at all. I can?t
> recall any recent movies or drama episodes where the pandemic and social
> distancing play a role in the setting or story either, but I haven?t really
> been looking.
>
> I've been avoiding anime too (aside from Pui Pui Molcar, which was great!),
> probably because most limited animation already feels artificially distant,
> at least on the surface. I do wonder how transnational anime production has
> changed in response to the pandemic.
>
> This is slightly off topic, but does anyone remember the cycle of pre-COVID
> U.S. films from a few years ago that relied on (fake) webcam footage?
> Searching (2018), Unfriended (2015), Unfriended: Dark Web (2018), parts of
> Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), etc. And others I've forgotten. They were all
> horror movies. Were there any webcam or video chat films like that in Japan
> before the pandemic hit?
>
> Take care everyone,
> Michael Arnold
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 5:59 PM Miryam Sas via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> > My students requested to view some good or interesting Japanese and/or
> > Asian films *made* *during* the pandemic that reflect on the pandemic
> > experience either formally or thematically.  Free streaming works
> (youtube
> > or other) and short works would be the best for easy access, but all
> ideas
> > appreciated. (Something about life on zoom?)   I have lots more from
> before
> > that could be brought into the conversation but not recent ones.
> > Feel free to share to the list or to me privately offline.
> > Thanks!
> > Miryam
> >
> > --
> > Miryam Sas
> > Professor, Comparative Literature and Film & Media
> > University of California, Berkeley
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2021 11:15:40 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Jim Harper <jimharper666 at yahoo.co.uk>
> To: Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu>
> Subject: Re: [KineJapan] pandemic Asian cinema for teaching
> Message-ID: <1795932574.2304615.1618312540573 at mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>  There was David Shin's The Room, from 2012, with Ayumi Ito. The entire
> film consisted of Ito chatting with her boyfriend over something like Skype
> (I can't remember if it was specified what they were using, to be honest).
>
> Jim Harper.
>
> On Tuesday, 13 April 2021, 16:04:56 GMT+9, M Arnold via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
> This is slightly off topic, but does anyone remember the cycle of
> pre-COVID U.S. films from a few years ago that relied on (fake) webcam
> footage? Searching (2018), Unfriended (2015), Unfriended: Dark Web (2018),
> parts of Paranormal Activity 4 (2012), etc. And others I've forgotten. They
> were all horror movies. Were there any webcam or video chat films like that
> in Japan before the pandemic hit?
>
> Take care everyone,
> Michael Arnold
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 7, 2021 at 5:59 PM Miryam Sas via KineJapan <
> kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:
> Hi all,
> My students requested to view some good or interesting Japanese and/or
> Asian films made during the pandemic that reflect on the pandemic
> experience either formally or thematically.??Free streaming works (youtube
> or other) and short works would be the best for easy access, but all ideas
> appreciated. (Something about life on zoom?)? ?I have lots more from before
> that could be brought into the conversation but not recent ones.?
> Feel free to share to the list or to me privately offline.
> Thanks!
> Miryam
>
> --
> Miryam Sas
> Professor, Comparative Literature and Film & Media
> University of California, Berkeley
>
>
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> KineJapan mailing list
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> KineJapan at mailman.yale.edu
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