Director Ueda Shinichiro made a name for himself with filmmaking that has embraced self-reflexivity: the beloved cult zombie film “One Cut of the Dead” was continually transforming, from a single-take horror-comedy into a meditation on the act of filmmaking and then the chaos of actually being on set.
His new feature “Earthlings in Love,” showing in the Nippon Cinema Now section of the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival, brings that interest in how filmmaking influences us into a curious new space: the vertically shot, social media-friendly microdrama.
“Earthlings in Love” follows Shinpei, a director who discovers that he has young-onset dementia. Setting out on a journey to record his memories, he decides to finish shooting a film he began making with friends as a teenager. The film began as a series of 30 short episodes released on social media, each only a few minutes long. According to Ueda, an enthusiastic online response encouraged its adaptation to feature length and a theatrical release. Variety spoke to Ueda about bridging the gap between mediums, and about filmmaking about filmmaking.
Was the method of vertical filming decided before the script was written, or after?
Vertical first, and then we thought of the screenplay. The work itself was not originally conceived as a feature film – I did plan it as an idea for vertical social media, but I think I have more of a nature that fits feature films, and that’s what I’ve been doing.
[As for] where the storytelling and the concept come from, I visited my local town and met my old schoolmates there. We were having drinks, and when we were talking about memories, I realized that there were some differences in how we interpreted the same events we had experienced, and some things that were completely forgotten. So my own experience is the basis for some part of the story. I wanted to create a story about the difference between memory and what has been recorded.
What appealed to you about filming this way, and what took readjustment in how you frame scenes with less horizontal space?
I believe that the aspect ratio really fits human [proportions] very well. [While] it’s a good format for shooting one person, when it comes to group shots, there are some challenges and restrictions.
The vertical frame often, deliberately, leaves out information that we then discover later from a different angle. Was that intentional?
That is how I took some advantage of it – it leaves things to the viewer’s imagination. There’s also another thing, because the topic here is young-onset dementia. You may know that some symptoms of dementia do limit vision. So the vertical format, with its omitted areas of vision, actually does have a connection with that as well.
You’re also the editor on your films – what changed in the rhythm of your editing between this story as an internet series and as a feature?
The total [runtime] of all 30 episodes was 76 minutes when we originally released it on social media. When we re-edited it for the feature film, it became 111 minutes. On social media, you always have to be mindful about keeping people’s attention. If you make it too slow, they’re just going to swipe away to different content. But with the feature version, once they come to the theater and they’re seated, you know that they’re not going to go away. You can get their attention for two hours. So I could take advantage of that and spend time on the direction, making sure that I show off the acting, on the assumption that they’re going to focus for a while.
With the runtime increasing, were you reintroducing footage you had already shot, or were there reshoots?
Both – there were some shots and some lines that I couldn’t include in the social media version, which I added back into the feature. We did some additional shooting too. Also, there were some things in the social media version, cliffhanger scenes to entice people to watch the next day, that I didn’t need in the feature, so I cut some of them out.
How did it compare to shooting “One Cut of the Dead” or “Special Actors”?
The obvious difference is the vertical frame, but to be very honest, apart from that, I didn’t change my approach from feature films. When you think about actors in Japan, or maybe globally as well, in short dramas or a vertical format they tend to overact. The output is a bit bigger. But the actors in my work have acting experience in feature films anyway, so their performances were of the quality they would give in feature films. So besides the format, there wasn’t a big difference.
You’d released a number of microdramas before – what did you learn from them that you brought forward into “Earthlings in Love”?
When I think [about] what I learned or what the main difference is, it’s not about how I shoot or make the work itself. It’s more the reactions of the viewers: it’s so fast. As soon as you release something, you see the comments filling up the space on the social media platform.
To give you a very extreme example, I might come up with an idea in the morning, shoot it in the daytime and release it in the evening. It’s like making a comment or tweeting something. With a feature film, you have to start planning, and it’s going to take 12 months at least until it gets into the theater.
Because you’ve worked both in the theatrical format and in the microdrama space, do you feel that the theatrical space will continue to be valued?
I think both will exist over time. I even think that the vertical shorts market will grow further, but the theaters will stay. Because, at least in Japan, it is now the only place where people will turn off their phones and sit together for two hours, listening to or watching something. I’m borrowing this phrase from a senior director friend of mine, but he said that it’s like a church or a sacred place, because you sit in the darkness, you’re all together, and you’re listening to [someone] preaching, right? It is like a ritual, one that will stay, because it’s very unique and it’s the only place where it works this way.
