Asynchronous (Film) Watermelons and Humans more

Watermelons and Humans is an edited short (less than 3 minute-long) ethnofiction video produced in the summer of 2015. It was scripted, directed, and co-edited by a then 17-year- old Suika (pseudonym) from Mainland China. It was collaboratively produced with a group of other young migrant students from Mainland China and Vietnam who were then learning Japanese language at Kaede (pseudonym), a community-based nonprofit Japanese as Second Language (JSL) school located in Tokai area of Japan. I as the submitter of the video was involved first-hand throughout the preproduction, production, and postproduction. The video effectively utilizes as Suika’s preference a stop-motion animation technique of making a continuous movement of flat paper cut-out characters and objects that were physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames with variety of shots. The video was co-edited with me using Apple Final Cut Pro X based on a montaged sequence assembling such animated images of paper characters and objects, variedly shot images of characters performed by the participants, music, and voiceover. The video was extrapolated from Suika’s storyboard that focused on the importance of breaking humans’ habit of judging others, such as foreigners, based only on their appearances and looking instead into their inner sides despite shortcomings. Suika linked this theme to the parallelism between the appearances and inner sides of humans and those (bodies and fruit flesh with seeds) of watermelons. **FILMS may be viewed on Youtube ("About the Conference" drop down menu) or in the Watch Parties: Thursday 8pm-9pm or Sunday 10am-12pm or 2pm-6:30pm!**