Future Visionaries in Osaka
Who are you?
My name's Fay Heady. I'm an animator, producer and director. I have done a lot of different things. After graduating from Tama Art University, a big project for me was working as an animator on the Netflix series Cyberpunk with Hiroyuki Imaishi and Studio Trigger. More recently I've been involved with VFX such as the live-action version of Yu Yu Hakusho and Alice in Borderlands. I worked in production on a TOEI animated feature for children called Hypergalactic which is soon to be released. A lot of commercials too. Stuff like Monster Strike, Cookie Run Kingdom, Uber Eats, all kinds of things. I had the thrill of my life seeing my animations on the Shibuya crossing screens. I’ve done animation for games such as Ratatan by the creators of Patapon. The list goes on.
What do you like about animation?
It's the ultimate! It's drawing obviously, but it’s also writing, music, performance and even sculpture. I’ve also done quite a bit of work that mixes live elements like dance, spoken word and music with on screen animation. I like to mix together different techniques and artforms into a pan-media thing.
Do you prefer working solo or with a team?
With a team, definitely. Other people bring so much. It's a little different when working on commercial projects of course. Then you gotta make sure the client is happy. But as a director I work with collaborators that I trust enough to give as much creative freedom as possible. The mixed-media style helps with that because then I don't need to say to them "hey you need to stick strictly to this style". That’s actually how a lot of commercial animators would like to work, but they don’t get that opportunity very often. For my latest film the animators could work in clay if they wanted, 2D, 3D, whatever. That said, next I think I’m going to do a quickie solo project. I don’t know what it is yet. It’ll be something loose. Something incorporating the unpredictable. I want to surprise myself!
Could you talk a bit about your recent production?
Yeah! It's called Party Of The Apocalypse. It is animated by a large international team in a wide variety of styles and techniques and took several years to complete. It’s a sort of road movie in which our heroes, Kimono & Chibby, are fleeing 'The Disappearing', a mysterious fog-like phenomenon into which things are vanishing. The story world of Kimono & Chibby is populated by an array of oddball human, alien, robot and animal characters including Momo & Mitzy the Marmosets, Captain Mario and the fabulously hedonistic Girlyman who is throwing a party to “celebrate” the end of the world. At this incredible party all the art-styles come together in a spectacular scene of sound and vision. It gives me such joy to see what the artists have come up with. I'm very excited about Party Of The Apocalypse. It’s a wild ride of a film featuring kick ass music by Amsterdam-based band, The Doppelgangers, and the seminal Japanese psychedelic rock band, Acid Mothers Temple.
Kimono & Chibby wear Mexican wrestler masks. What's that about?
A lot of people ask me that actually. I could just say "it's a look isn't it?" But the look of the characters developed from live masked performances by the Amsterdam band The Doppelgangers. The live costume design started in quite a haphazard way with what was to hand, and was then honed over time. The original masks came from Harajuku, the wig was given to us by a drag queen, Kimono’s dress was from Waterlooplein market in Amsterdam. The Doppelgangers’ style was somewhat influenced by the punk ethos and the immediacy, spontaneity and abandon of the FCKN BSTRDS, legends of the Dutch underground (members of The Doppelgangers have even performed as FCKN BSTRDS in the past), who create an unholy ritual of insane noise, often performing naked apart from bucket head masks with props and costumes made from garbage. Compared to them, The Dopplegangers are quite dialed back!
Generally speaking, masks create safety and freedom in anonymity for performers, enabling them to go to extremes and create alternative versions of themselves. Like drag. This is very appealing to me. Paradoxically though masks amplify reality in practice, often revealing more than they hide. In a way, animation is also an anonymous performance. You don't need to reveal your real identity at all. It's one of the appealing things for shy nerdy types. When animation is combined with live performance, it can create real magic. For example, an on screen character stepping onto the stage can deeply shock and even frighten an audience which is great fun!
We're sitting in a house right now with a lot of history.
Yes, well. It's an old traditional Japanese building built by the Kishimoto family. It was previously a calligraphy school as well as the home of calligrapher and artist Rikuseki Kishimoto. His son very kindly let us own this building. What we've created here is an animation studio called Future Vision Osaka. As well as animation we do all kinds of projects here like games, comic-books, music, television shows and we have started working with artists-in-residence such as dancer and animator Sylvester Gerritsen. He performed at Future Vision Festival Osaka and worked on Party Of The Apocalypse. I think if you're a musician you have a heightened sense of rhythm, timing and musicality which you can apply to animation. A dancer is similar and Sylvester is especially tuned into the movements of characters. I've never worked with a dancer/animator before. I’m really enjoying it and hope he continues because he's brilliant! Another artist-in-residence is Andres Arrazola Castillo. He's a very talented and determined young artist who came here all the way from Rotterdam to create 64 pages of comics in the Kimono & Chibby universe. Andres also contributed wonderful work as an animator on Party Of The Apocalypse. He is inspired by Japanese manga making him a great fit and he has plans to come back to Japan soon to create more work. He loves the city of Osaka. Osaka banzai!
Future Vision organizes events. Could you talk about those?
We've been organizing screenings and live events in the Netherlands and Japan for over 10 years now. Future Vision Festival started with television and online screenings in 2020 and grew to include free live events at venues in Tokyo, Osaka and Amsterdam. A recent international programme of LGBTQIA+ shorts, called Queer was shown at Nanigotoya, Osaka, at the Osaka Pride Centre as well as de Rode Bioscoop, Nieuwland and on SALTO television in Amsterdam. We’ve also expanded into Kimono & Chibby video-games and were delighted to showcase at Bitsummit, Japan’s largest Indie-game festival in Kyoto. Our most recent programmes showed at Nambar10 and Copyhouse Namba with plans to screen in Amsterdam later this year. We're very grateful to the Embassy of The Netherlands, Japan who have been supporting us over the years. The festival keeps growing and growing. We now receive around 3000 film entries each year. We watch every single one, and curate programmes with themes that emerge from the work, rather than imposing these in advance as many other festivals do. It’s fascinating to see what the collective psyche is busy with year on year and amazing to get to watch films from all over the world. We have received films from over 125 countries so far. There's mind-blowing stuff in there in terms of techniques and styles as well as subject matter. It gives you a feel for how the world is doing in a way.
What is the future for Future Vision?
Oh! We want to continue to make space for our artist-in-residency program. The environment here in Japan inspires artists to create great work. We’re continuing to expand our comic-book publishing and disseminating unusual animation / film from unheard voices around the world. Many animation students are in contact and we’re happy to offer educational opportunities and training. We’re planning to expand more into music publishing, creating visuals for club-nights, performances, drag queen shows and continuing work as a commercial animation house. Our new season of Future Vision Amsterdam for Salto TV is currently in production. And we’re always looking for collaborators and opportunities.
What colour underwear are you wearing?
I'm not wearing underwear actually.