“How do you creatively and truthfully portray a significant person, group, place, idea, or issue in the community?”
For the Documentary project, we were tasked with portraying one such individual through the use of primary and secondary research sources, and then explain both our perspectives and the significance of the individual through the making of an article (and, in my case, an animated video). The article we wrote in English, the magazine itself we designed in Digital Media, and the animation was done in Animation. This unit was meant to emphasize narrative-style journalism, which I think it did successfully.
For this project, I decided to interview Gen Motouji, the owner of Gochi Japanese Fusion Tapas, a restaurant located in the area. When I first heard of this project, he was the first person to come to mind – the food at his restaurant is delicious, and his fusion would be interesting to discuss in an article. I was eager to ask him if I could interview him for this project, and was delighted when he agreed to.
The initial interview is in Japanese, but I’ll link the transcript (and the translation) for those interested in reading.
After the interview, I was able to more fully flesh out what I wanted to discuss in my article about Motouji – I would discuss why he chose fusion cuisine, how it has brought the restaurant success, as well as mention the amazing community that he fosters with his employees.
For this reason, I ended up taking lots of photos of food, and many photos around the restaurant – it’s very much a fun place to be. I would explain more, but you can just read the article here! (click on the photo on the right):
Animated Documentary
For the animated documentary, we were given more freedom to express the interview how we wished, with any visual style that we wanted.
For this, I chose to go with a style mimicking that of Youtube animatics, specifically the animatics of Japanese Voice Actor Radios. I thought that the way Motouji spoke on the topic of his restaurant would lend to that style, and I thought it would work well considering the interview was in Japanese.
It took a lot longer than I expected it would to make this, and I even had to cut out an entire question I had planned on adding visuals to in order to make sure that I would meet the deadline, but overall I’m proud of what I produced, and I hope that Motouji will like it as well when I show him.
