National Film Archive of Japan visit

While visiting Tokyo last week, I walked from my meeting place to Tokyo train station. The distance was about 1.5 kms, and not a big deal. Fortunately, the temperature that day was about 33 Celsius, and not too bad.

I was not in a rush cause my next meeting was in 6 hours, so I was walking at a tourist pace. I happened to walk by a building with a large Kurosawa poster in the window, and noticed it was the National Film Archive of Japan exhibition of movie posters from Akira Kurosawa.

The German version of "Seven Samurai" by Akira Kurosawa

Not only was there some very cool posters from Kurosawa movies, there was a whole exhibition of early Japanese film.

This is a 'home' version of a movie projector and film. The film is actually paper, and the individual frames are all printed. This version was a bit of a fad and didn't last long because of the quality of the images.

This explanation mentions the early days of Japanese animation.

As you can see from this machine, each animation cell was hand drawn and painted, then photographed with stop motion filming (the terminology may be incorrect). Some people don't realize the intense labour of making a cartoon/animated show.

While there was so much to see, the 1.5 hour visit was well worth the time. I love history, and having a chance to learn about the early Japanese film business was fascinating for me.