A FAMILY STORY

Bronze Spike
TitleA FAMILY STORY
BrandTHE SHINANO MINICHI SHIMBUN
Product / ServiceNEWSPAPER
CategoryA10. Animation
EntrantFRONTAGE Tokyo, JAPAN
Entrant Company FRONTAGE Tokyo, JAPAN
Advertising Agency FRONTAGE Tokyo, JAPAN
Production Company TAIYO KIKAKU Tokyo, JAPAN

Credits

Name Company Position
Shiro Ueshima Frontage Inc. Creative Director
Akira Kano Frontage Inc. Art Director
Yuki Asai Frontage Inc. Planner/Copywriter
Shiro Ueshima Frontage Inc. Planner/Copywriter
Satoko Kanno Frontage Inc. Agency Producer
Tekken Yoshimoto Creative Agency Animation
Sachie Aihara TAIYO KIKAKU Co.ltd. Producer
Otoaki Oki Kobayashi TAIYO KIKAKU Co.ltd. Producer
Takeshi Izumida TAIYO KIKAKU Co.ltd. Director
Mariko Tsutsumi TAIYO KIKAKU Co.ltd. Production Manager
Kohei Higuchi TAIYO KIKAKU Co.ltd. Production Manager
Masami Ouchi TAIYO KIKAKU Co.ltd. Production Manager
Akihiro Morita Freelance Audio Mixer
Hiroki Ando Freelance Cinematographer
Makoto Jyukuroki Freelance Lighting
Takuro Watabe Freelance Editor
Daniel Mueller Audioforce Music
Robert "robster' Henke Audioforce Music
Yukihisa Yoshimura Frontage Inc. Web Director
Naohiro Utsumi DENTSU INC. Account Executive
Koichi Yokozeki DENTSU INC. Account Executive
Kohei Morimoto DENTSU INC. Account Executive

Brief Explanation

A local Japanese newspaper based in Nagano, created a new-styled flipbook animation using a newspaper printing press for its 140th anniversary. "A Family Story" is about a young man and his parents unfold through a series of local newspaper articles. An ordinary but touching story of young man that leaves his small town for Tokyo to pursue his dream and fails to succeed but is saved by parents’ unconditional love. The story consists of 1,918 flipbook images and they were printed and shot in real time by precisely calculating the number of images per second, the frame rate of camera, and the running speed of the machine. Without any CG, the images come alive, transforming the printing press into a "Newspaper Cinematograph". A family bond is a history of little happenings in everyday life, and we connected this with the local newspaper, as its purpose is the circulation of everyday history through local articles.

Creative Execution

Our biggest challenge was to create a flipbook animation through using the newspaper printing press. It was very important for us to not use any CG in the production in order to keep the natural look and feel of the traditional local newspaper media as well as convey the simple, yet nostalgic and warmth of the story. To realize this idea, it was necessary for us to run a complex simulation. The following are unique procedures that we took in creating the “Newspaper Cinematograph” animation on the printing press: ・6 images/sec Hand-drawn flipbook animation for 6 images per second. ・6 frames/sec Set the frame rate of the camera to 6 frames per second to produce the exact same animation as the original pictures. ・98.2m/min We originally calculated the printing machine’s rotations/minute speed by determining the paper length needed to perform an animation in a single second. In reality, however, when we ran the operation through the press machine, we encountered paper slack. Therefore, we had to work out an ideal speed where images stayed stable. We adjusted the predicted rate at an increment of 0.1m/min and checked the animation through the camera each time. At first, the printing speed of the machine could not be changed to a rate other than in 1m/min unit increments, but with the hard negotiations with the engineers, we solved the problem by making adjustments within 0.1m/min increments.