5Q's w/Takeshi Yashiro "Gon, The Little Fox" Director

#1: Can you describe your movie and why somebody should see it in less than 140 characters?

This shows the struggles of animals and humans through having a relationship between the two different living things.

#2: What do you want the Borrego Springs Film Festival audience to know about your film that isn’t obvious from its title?

I directed “GON,THE LITTLE FOX,” a stop-motion animation using the puppets made out of wood.

The original story has been popular in Japan. I think most Japanese people have read it at school and so did I.
The most memorable thing for me was when I happened to read it at the library after I became an adult. I felt a very deep story in it like the back side of the story that I didn't feel when I was a kid and various imaginations swelled in me. That's when I felt I wanted to make a film by translating what I felt, which could speak to us even at the present day.

Many years have passed since then and I had an opportunity to make it into an animation.

#3: What is your movie making background? Tell us about yourself.

Originally, I was a director for TV commercials. At that time, I directed live-action commercials and since I was studying art when I was a student, I liked drawing and making things myself, and I started making animations on my own. It was about eight years ago that I mainly started making stop-motion animations. Since then, I have directed four shorts about 30 minutes, "NORMAN THE SNOWMAN" series and "Moon of a Sleepless Night."

What inspired me to turn my attention to animation was the work I saw when I was a student, directed by the Russian director Yuri Norstein, called "Tale of Tales" and " Hedgehog in the Fog." It's not a three-dimensional puppet animation, but I became conscious of creating an artistic animation as my own work.

#4: What was the biggest lesson learned in getting your film made?

I was able to realize that the people who are looking for the expressions I wanted to make actually exist in this world. This will be a great courage to make a work in the future.

#5: What does the future hold for your film and you?

Currently, there is nothing concretely in progress, but we are working on some ideas. It may not the next work, but I'd like to make a feature film someday.