關於 two point perspective room ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

【水世界】的前製設定與現場劇照

WATERWORLD (1995)
In celebration of today’s anniversary of this wet mess/epic. Let’s celebrate the hard work this crew put into bringing this world to life. Water movies are never easy but when it comes to this movie anytime you bring it up and a crew member from it is in earshot, the stories pour out. Not always bad, I know a AC that said he had a blast, he loved the boat rides out and all the camaraderie the crew had to have to get thru it. To all the crew that helped bring WATERWORLD to life, We salute you and thanks for the memories. I personally enjoy this hot mess of a movie, it’s one of the last ones of its kind...done practically...in a way.
let’s take a deepest of dives into WATERWORLD

The director, Kevin Reynolds, knew there would be problems before production had even started, “During pre-production. Because having never shot on water to that extent before, I didn’t really realise what I was in for. I talked to Spielberg about it because he’d gone to do Jaws, and I remember, he said to me, “Oh, I would never shoot another picture on water”.
“When we were doing the budget for the picture, and the head of the studio, Sid Sheinberg, we were talking about it and I said, “Steven told me that on Jaws the schedule for the picture was 55 days, and they ended up shooting a 155 days”. Because of the water. And he sat there for a moment and he said, “You know, I’m not sure about the days, but I do know they went a hundred percent over budget”. And so, Universal knew the potential problems of shooting on water. It’s monstrous.”
The film began with a projected budget of $100 million which had reportedly increased to $175 million by the end of production. The principle photography had overrun for at least thirty days more than originally planned due to one major decision.

Whereas today they would film in water tanks with partially built sets, employing green screens to fake the locations, back in 1995 they decided to build everything full size and shoot out on the ocean.

This causes extra logistical problems on top of those that already come with making a major action blockbuster. Cast and crew have to be transported to sets. The camera boats and sets float out of position and will have to be reset between takes taking up valuable production time.

The first draft of Waterworld was written by Peter Radar, a Harvard graduate who wanted to break into the film business. His contact in the film industry was Brad Kevoy, an assistant to the legendary director Roger Corman.

Roger Corman is best known for making films very quickly on a small budget. He also liked to give young talent a chance to direct and write their own films. Brad informed Peter that if he could write a Mad Max rip off, he would arrange to finance and let him direct the picture.

Radar came back and pitched the idea for what would become Waterworld. Kevoy took one look at him and said,

“Are you out of your mind? This would cost us three million dollars to make this movie!”
So Radar kept hold of the idea and decided to re-write the script but, this time, going wild. He wrote what he wanted to see on-screen, limited only by his imagination, not a real world production budget.

He managed to get the newly written script shown to a pair of producers with whom he had made contact with. They loved it and ironically they passed it onto Larry Gordon. He shared the enthusiasm saying it had the kind of cinematic possibilities he was looking for. A deal was signed on Christmas Eve of 1989.

As further script rewrites progressed, it became clear that Waterworld was too big for the Larry Gordon’s production company to undertake by themselves. In February 1992, a deal was signed with Universal Pictures to co-produce and co-finance the film. This was now six years after the first draft had been written.

Universal had signed director Kevin Reynolds to Waterworld. Whilst he was finishing his latest film, Rapa Nui, pre-production for Waterworld was already underway.

The decision was taken that the largest set for the film, known as the atoll, would be built full size. The atoll was the primary location for film and in the story served as the location for a small population of survivors.

The logic behind this decision was due to the high percentage of live action filming required in this location, as well as a huge action set piece. No sound stage would be big enough to incorporate this number of scenes and it was crucial that we see the mariner sail his boat into the atoll, turn around and set out again. A full-size construction was the only way to go as the use of miniature and special effects would be impractical.

The next problem was deciding where to build this huge set. After much research, Kawaihae Harbour in Hawaii was chosen as the location. The atoll could be constructed in the harbour and rotated when needed thus allowing for open sea in the background. Later towards the end of principle photography, the atoll could be towed out into the open sea for the filming of the big action sequences which would be impractical to shoot in an enclosed harbour.

Director Kevin Reynolds also discussed the possibility of using the same water tank as James Cameron’s The Abyss, which had filmed there around five years ago,

“We had even entertained the notion of shooting at that big nuclear reactor facility where they had shot The Abyss, to use it for our underwater tank. But we found it in such a state of disrepair that economically it just wasn’t feasible. We didn’t have as much underwater work as they did. Most of The Abyss is interiors and underwater and model work, ours is mostly surface exterior.”

The production company had originally envisioned building the atoll by linking approximately one hundred boats together and building upon this foundation, just like the characters in the film. The production crew set out to search Hawaii and get hold of as many boats as possible.

During this search, a unique boat in Honolulu caught their attention. Upon further investigation, they discovered it was built by Navitech, a subsidiary of the famous aircraft production company, Lockheed.

They approached Lockheed with the strange request of figuring out how they could build the foundations of the atoll. Lockheed found the request unusual but didn’t shy away from the challenging. They agreed to design the atoll foundation and Navitech would construct it.

Meanwhile, an 11ft miniature model of the atoll was sent out to a model ship testing facility in San Diego. Scaled wave tanks are used to determine the effects of the open sea on large scale miniature models of new untested ship designs. This would help determine what would happen with the unusual design of the atoll when it was out of the harbour.

The atoll, when finished, was approximately ¼ mile in circumference. It took three months to construct and is rumoured to cost around $22 million. As the atoll would be used out on the open sea, it required a seafaring license. Nothing like this had been done before and after much deliberation, it was eventually classed as an unmanned vessel. This meant that all cast and crew would have to vacate the set whilst it was towed into position. By the end of production, the atoll was towed out to sea a total of five times.

Shooting out on the open sea presented a series of logistical problem as Reynolds describes,

“We had an entire navy, basically – I mean, this atoll was positioned about a mile off-shore in Hawaii, it was anchored to the bottom of the ocean so it could rotate. What you don’t think about are things like, you’re shooting on this atoll to maintain this notion that there’s no dry land, you always have to shoot out to sea. Away from the land. So we chose a location where we had about a 180 degree view of open water. Nevertheless, any time when you’re shooting, there could be a ship appear in the background, or something like that, and you had to make a choice. Do I hold up the shot, wait for the ship to move out, or do we shoot and say we’re going to incur this additional cost in post-production of trying to remove the ship from the background.

And at that time, CGI was not at the point it is now, it was a bigger deal. And so, even though if you’re shooting across the atoll and you’re shooting out onto open water, when you turn around and do the reverses, for the action, you had to rotate the entire atoll, so that you’re still shooting out to open water. Those are the kinds of things that people don’t realise.

Or something as simple as – if you’re shooting a scene between two boats, and you’re trying to shoot The Mariner on his craft, another boat or whatever, you’ve got a camera boat shooting his boat, and then the other boat in the background. Well, when you’re on open water things tend to drift apart. So you have to send lines down from each of those boats to the bottom, to anchor them so that they somewhat stay in frame. When you’ve got a simple shot on land, you set up the camera position, you put people in front of the camera and then you put background in there. But when you’re on water, everything’s constantly moving apart, drifting apart, so you have to try to hold things down somewhat.

And these are simple things that you don’t really realise when you’re looking at it on film. But logistically, it’s crazy. And each day you shoot on the atoll with all those extras, we had to transport those people from dry land out to the location and so you’re getting hundreds of people through wardrobe and everything, and you’re putting them on boats, transporting them out to the atoll, and trying to get everybody in position to do a shot. And then when you break for lunch, you have to put everybody on boats and take them back in to feed them.”

The final size of the atoll was determined by the size of the Mariners boat, the trimaran. The dimensions for the trimaran were finalised very early on in pre-production, allowing all other vehicles and sets to be sized accordingly.

Production required two trimarans boats which are so called because they have three hulls. The first was based on the standard trimaran blueprint and built for speed but also had to accommodate a secret crew below decks.

During wide and aerial shots it would have to look like Costner himself was piloting the boat. In reality, a trained crew could monitor and perform the real sailing of the boat utilising specially built controls and television monitors below deck.

The second trimaran was the trawler boat which could transform into the racer through the use of special practical effects rigs. Both of these boats were constructed in France by Jeanneau. Normally this type of vessel requires a year to construct but production needed two boats in five months!

Normally once the boat had been constructed, Jeammeau would deliver it on the deck of a freighter, requiring a delivery time of around a month. This delay was unacceptable and so the trimarans were dismantled into sections and taken by a 747 air freighter to the dock Hawaii. Upon arrival, a further month was required to reassemble the boat and get them prepared for filming.

sets recreating the inside of the tanker were built using forced perspective in a huge 1000ft long warehouse which had an adjoining 2000ft field. In this field, they built the set of the oil tankers deck, again constructed using forced perspective. Using the forced perspective trick, the 500ft long set could be constructed to give the impression that it was really twice as long.

There’s more to a film than just it’s sets and filming locations. Over two thousand costumes had to be created with many of the lead actors costumes being replicated many times over due to wear and tear.

This is not an uncommon practice for film production, but due to the unique look of the people and the world they inhabit, it did create some headaches. One costume was created with so many fish scales the wardrobe department had to search the entire island of Hawaii looking for anyone who could supply in the huge quantity required.

Makeup had to use waterproof cosmetics, especially on the stunt players. As everyone had a sun burnt look, a three-sided tanning booth was setup. The extras numbering in their hundreds, with ages ranging from six to sixty-five, passed through the booth like a production line to receive their spray tan. The extras then moved onto costume before finally having their hair fixed and becoming ready for the day.

In some scenes, extras were actually painted plywood cutouts to help enhance the number of extras on the set. This can easily be seen in one particular shot on board the Deez super tanker.

Filming on the water is not only a difficult and time-consuming process but also very dangerous. It’s been reported that Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino nearly drowned on their first day of filming.

Waterworld’s star Kevin Costner reported having a near-death experience when filming a scene in which the mariner ties himself to his catamaran to survive a storm. The pounding water caused him to black out and nearly drown.

Unbeknownst to most of the crew, Kevin Costner’s stunt double was riding his jet ski across 40 miles of open ocean between his home on Maui and the film’s set on the Big Island. When he didn’t show up for work one day, the production team phoned his wife, who informed them he had already left for work. The stunt double’s jet ski had run out of gas halfway through his “commute” and a storm had swept him farther out to sea. It took a helicopter most of the day to find him. The stunt doubles name was Laird Hamilton.

As well as the logistical problems of creating a film of this scale and on water, they also had to deal with the press who seemed intent on wanting the film to fail. Director Kevin Reynolds discusses the situation,

“It was huge, we were constantly fighting – people wanted to have bad press. That was more exciting to them than the good news. I guess the most egregious example of that that I recall was that the publicist told me that one day…we’d been out the day before and we were doing a shot where we sent two cameras up on a mast of the trimaran and we wanted to do a shot where they tilled down from the horizon down to the deck below. We’re out there, we’re anchored, we’re setting the shot up and a swell comes in, and I look over and the mast is sort of bending.

And I turned to the boatmaster and I said, “Bruno, is this safe?”. And he looks up the mast and he goes, “No”. So I said, “Okay, well, we have to get out as I can’t have two guys fall off from 40 feet up”. So, we had to break out of the set-up, and go back in a shoot something else and we lost another half-day.

Anyway, the next day the publicist is sitting in his office and he gets this call from some journalist in the States and he goes, “Okay. Don’t lie to me – I’ve had this confirmed from two different people. I want the facts, and I want to hear about the accident yesterday, we had two cameramen fall off the mast and were killed”.

And, he goes, “What are you talking about?”. And he goes, “Don’t lie to me, don’t cover this up, we know this has happened”. It didn’t happen! People were so hungry for bad news because it was much more exciting than…they just said it, and you know, it hurt us.”
Upon release, the press seemed to be disappointed that the film wasn’t the massive failure they were hoping it to be. Universal Studios told Kevin Reynolds that one critic came out of an early screening in New York and in a disappointed tone said,

“Well, it didn’t suck.”

It is true that during principle photography the slave colony set sank and had to be retrieved. However due to bad press, the rumour became much bigger and to this day when you mention the sinking set, most people assume it was the huge atoll.

During production, press nicknamed the film “Kevin’s Gate” and “Fishtar”, referring to 1980’s box office failures Heaven’s Gate and Ishtar. Heaven’s Gate failed so badly it led to the sale of United Artists Studio and has become synonymous with failure in Hollywood.

As well as the exaggerated set problems and other various production rumours, there were also difficulties with the script. In a risky move, the film was green lit and moved into production without a finalised script.

The final total is a reportedly thirty-six rewrites. One of the writers involved was Joss Whedon. Joss had worked on many scripts before becoming a director having being at the helm of both The Avengers and the sequel Avengers: Age Of Ultron. He described his experience on Waterworld as,

“Seven weeks of hell”
Everything came to a head just three weeks before the end of principle photography. Kevin Reynolds who was an old friend of Kevin Costner allegedly walked off set or was fired. There was no official statement on what happened.

When Reynolds left the production this event caused many changes to be made. Composer Mark Isham had already composed approximately two-thirds of the film’s score by the time Reynolds left and that event ultimately caused him to leave production. As Mark describes in this interview excerpt,

“Kevin Reynolds quit the film, which left me working for Kevin Costner, who listened to what I had written and wanted a completely different point of view. He basically made a completely different film — he re-cut the entire film, and in his meeting with me he expressed that he wanted a completely different approach to the score. And I said, “oh let me demonstrate that I can give that to you”, so I presented him with a demo of my approach to his approach, and he rejected that and fired me. What I find a lot in these big films, because the production schedules are so insane, that the directors have very little time to actually concentrate on the music.”
Rumours report that Costner took control of production. He directed the last few weeks of principle photography and edited the final cut of the film that was released in cinemas.

Reynolds discusses his surprise at discovering that one of the most famous scenes from what is known as the extended version, was left on the cutting room floor,

“…it would have differed from what you saw on the screen to some extent, and one of the things I’ve always been perplexed by in the version that was released, theatrically, although subsequently the longer version included it, and the reason that I did the film, was that at the very end of the picture, at the very end of the script, there’s a scene when they finally reach dry land and The Mariner’s sailing off and he leaves the two women behind, and in the script they’re standing up on this high point and they’re watching him sail away, and the little girl stumbles on something.
And they look down and clear the grass away and that’s this plaque. And it says, “Here, near this spot, 1953, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary first set foot on the summit of Everest”. And that was in script and I was like, “Oh, of course! Wow, the highest point on the planet! That would have been dry land!”. And we got it! We shot that. And they left it out of the picture. And I’m like, “Whaaat?!”. It’s like the Statue of Liberty moment in Planet of the Apes. And I was like, “Why would you leave that out?”

Written by John Abbitt | Follow John on twitter @UKFilmNerd

If any the crew cares to share any of their experiences on it please comment.
Thanks for reading
If you want more deep dives visit
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ประภาส ชลศรานนท์ ที่ผมแอบมอง
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จำไม่ได้ว่าผมหยิบหนังสือ "เพลงเขียนคน ดนตรีเขียนโลก" มาจากหิ้งหนังสือของห้องสมุดแห่งไหนในจุฬาฯ แต่จำได้แม่นว่า นี่คือหนังสือเล่มหนึ่งที่เติมสารประกอบสำคัญเข้ามาในสมอง และหล่อหลอมให้เกิดความคิดแบบหนึ่งขึ้นในหัว กระทั่งวันนี้ความคิดนั้นยังคงอวลอยู่ไม่ไปไหน
...Continue ReadingPrapha sachon saranon that I sneak peek at
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I don't remember which library I picked up "music writing" from which library in chula, but I remember this is a book that added an important compound into my brain and forged. One thought in my head until today, that thought is still going anywhere.

The idea that is " many more

Along with the feeling that our little hands can write the world.

I have been listening to "Chaliang" since elementary school. Milk hasn't set (now). I still). I understand. When I was in University, the band disband disband has left just a story on the wood sheet for me. A lot of music never old. Those are written from the end of brother chik's pen - prapha chon Sara non

Reading this book makes you see the idea behind each song, and even more you see the author.

For me, whether brother chik wrote a song, wrote a book or made a movie, all he tried to do is ask people to try to look at the corner with more than just the corner.

See the world and your heart will be expansive.

Many more (many more that we don't know. We see it. Just in case we haven't seen it yet), Hibiscus Tree and blind (blind, but the mind is still bonded beauty), if there are only two of us in this world (time I'm hungry. Two of us will eat sticky rice with chicken noodles. Who to buy), it's up to who (it's up to who sees it, who can hear it, who decides), calm down bro (where are you going to fight with? I don't have time. Search for mind) etc.

Many songs of the lyrics are annoying. Such as when a lot of love songs say, " there are only us in this world brother chik asked me. Who will you want to eat noodles, who do you buy from? During a loud song If you don't love me, tell me. Tell me a word. " brother chik also wrote a song. Calm down. Where are you going? Let's see.

Khun Prapha Somchai cuddle will see the world in the drone corner. It's flying up to see the wide picture and spread out that there may be a corner that we forget to look at. The world could be something else.

...

2
"many more" in the meaning of brother chik doesn't eat just one thing. There are hundreds of thousands of possible sources, but it also means looking at everyone. Everything is equally important. Equally beautiful. Not comparing to take it to take the beams, but look beautiful. Of that person then pull out that potential to create value

" Classic, don't insult jazz
Jazz don't watch clan pop
Pop, don't mind the country.
Don't be sulking with doctor lam.
Doctor Lam, don't think more than classic. It's high "

This is a message on the screen in the concert. The song makes me think of what brother chik told me in this book. "people are like fingers. It's not equal but fingers too and have different duties" is a teacher's speech. Teaching kids in the young movie of piak posters.

To this day, the " finger is not equal " has been interpreted and wittalion. But in the meaning that I understand that brother chik wants to press, the " difference " rather than " inequality " is thumb is different from Index Finger and pinky and brother chik says " you could be a pinky finger which is more important than the index finger in some things read and think that our round fingers are valuable in our way.

"Tao" which sees the value of the nature of things like this. Often seen in the work of brother chik.

...

3
Mr. Prapha is not a big person. If there are two sides, brother chik will not stand on one side. Maybe because of the eyes that sees the beauty of each thing, each mind and an open view. I don't believe that anyone is all right. Or all wrong. Everything is good or bad.

Most importantly, this kind of thought resilience is believed that the people or the extreme thoughts we see are not eternal, but it can always change. The Extreme can also be adjusted, divided, exchange. New ingredients in themselves.

Once I had an opportunity to sit and talk with brother chik. Then we went to consult about making tv show. Our team is interested in a program that focuses on content. Easy, I want to pass knowledge to the audience. When I tell you the pattern and content to you. Listen to the brother ask, " is knowledge necessary that it must not be fun stop thinking and continue asking " is entertainment necessary to be ridiculous "

Just these two questions expand our view. We can see a new area that there is still space in the middle that combines what we thought were irrelevant. Different Worlds. and if we could, we could, we wouldn't cut off any kind of value.

...

4
That's another feature of brother chik that I secretly look at. This guy doesn't teach straight away, doesn't comment, but he likes to ask questions. Let the partner to consider it himself. This technique is used in writing as well.

The question that brother chik throws at can make us think " can it be something else " or " can it really see one way

This kind of conversation is like a kind adult who doesn't block. It doesn't draw the line what it should be. But let us choose by ourselves. This is how to tease you think with the question that khun prapha can use this kind of weapon. Praew praew praw praw praw praw The more and more.

If anyone has worked with brother chik, maybe it feels why I came up with this idea! I'm really good! But in fact, we can think because we are triggered by his brother's questions, but we will feel good because no one has ordered us to do that. We make our own decisions.

So it's not just creative work, but the way of working is also creative.

...

5
The Picture of brother chik that I remember when I was looking at the idol in the conference room is a picture of a playful executive like a little boy who had the big one who had the power to make any decision.

I saw his brother spinning pen, drawing a picture, and poke him out while everyone was meeting seriously thinking about it.

Good ideas often come up during our relaxing time -- I've heard many good thinking people say that. Many people say that if we don't lose our children, we will always keep the potential to imagine and creative.

Photo of Mr. Prapha in the conference room for me like a playful kid.

Another picture that I remember is in the conference room and dining table of the group who often meet each other. Brother Chik will tease the scared by putting a glass of water. The Edge of the table. It seems to fall to test if that person can endure enough. That person keeps moving deep. Mr. Prapha will laugh and says, " can't you stand it? Can't you stand this kind of thing

A Writer, a creative thinker that we have been following for a long time. Admired and thought that he would be quiet. But when he met the real one, he became a playful little boy, fast talking, Pear, praw and questioning. A very fun conversation.

...

6
If I would write about "the" from the eyes that I would have written many pages of paper because I have been looking at brother chik since the work behind my thoughts to read every interview that I saw until I had a chance to meet on the occasion. I'm always looking at verbs, symptoms and thoughts of brother chik. Teacher's Melody.

Finally, brother chik is not crazy. People may see the work, but they don't have to see his own. We know the song. Scream and laugh with brothers and musicians. We love the program of work. Point or many other creative works caused by this brother's mind, but often we don't even know or don't even think there is him behind it.

This is another thing that brother chik taught me. We can make a change or create something without letting people see us. in some cases, it's more powerful than having better cuddle results.

We have seen Mr. Prapha through some work, but I believe there are many pieces of this sharp and round anchor that we didn't know was his work.

The fit of being seen is something that brother chik manages to learn and nan cuddle baht.

Prapha Chon Saranon is a teacher with many lessons to sneak peek and learn.

Thank you brother chik for being an inspiration, an open thought perspective. He ignites the dream of writing books and giving "many more" tips in my heart since I was in teenagers through your work.

Congratulations to brother chik for the National Artist Award in performing arts as the creator of International Thai entertainment and music event this year.

I really want to tell brother chik that "music writing music"

At least one of me is the productivity from your song.

With love and thanks

Ehhh (round finger)Translated

Nobody’s Fool　　( January 2011 )

Yoshitomo Nara

Do people look to my childhood for sources of my imagery? Back then, the snow-covered fields of the north were about as far away as you could get from the rapid economic growth happening elsewhere. Both my parents worked and my brothers were much older, so the only one home to greet me when I got back from elementary school was a stray cat we’d taken in. Even so, this was the center of my world. In my lonely room, I would twist the radio dial to the American military base station and out blasted rock and roll music. One of history’s first man-made satellites revolved around me up in the night sky. There I was, in touch with the stars and radio waves.

It doesn’t take much imagination to envision how a lonely childhood in such surroundings might give rise to the sensibility in my work. In fact, I also used to believe in this connection. I would close my eyes and conjure childhood scenes, letting my imagination amplify them like the music coming from my speakers.

But now, past the age of fifty and more cool-headed, I’ve begun to wonder how big a role childhood plays in making us who we are as adults. Looking through reproductions of the countless works I’ve made between my late twenties and now, I get the feeling that childhood experiences were merely a catalyst. My art derives less from the self-centered instincts of childhood than from the day-to-day sensory experiences of an adult who has left this realm behind. And, ultimately, taking the big steps pales in importance to the daily need to keep on walking.

While I was in high school, before I had anything to do with art, I worked part-time in a rock café. There I became friends with a graduate student of mathematics who one day started telling me, in layman’s terms, about his major in topology. His explanation made the subject seem less like a branch of mathematics than some fascinating organic philosophy. My understanding is that topology offers you a way to discover the underlying sameness of countless, seemingly disparate, forms. Conversely, it explains why many people, when confronted with apparently identical things, will accept a fake as the genuine article. I later went on to study art, live in Germany, and travel around the world, and the broader perspective I’ve gained has shown me that topology has long been a subtext of my thinking. The more we add complexity, the more we obscure what is truly valuable. Perhaps the reason I began, in the mid-90s, trying to make paintings as simple as possible stems from that introduction to topology gained in my youth.

As a kid listening to U.S. armed-forces radio, I had no idea what the lyrics meant, but I loved the melody and rhythm of the music. In junior high school, my friends and I were already discussing rock and roll like credible music critics, and by the time I started high school, I was hanging out in rock coffee shops and going to live shows. We may have been a small group of social outcasts, but the older kids, who smoked cigarettes and drank, talked to us all night long about movies they’d seen or books they’d read. If the nighttime student quarter had been the school, I’m sure I would have been a straight-A student.

In the 80s, I left my hometown to attend art school, where I was anything but an honors student. There, a model student was one who brought a researcher’s focus to the work at hand. Your bookshelves were stacked with catalogues and reference materials. When you weren’t working away in your studio, you were meeting with like-minded classmates to discuss art past and present, including your own. You were hoping to set new trends in motion. Wholly lacking any grand ambition, I fell well short of this model, with most of my paintings done to satisfy class assignments. I was, however, filling every one of my notebooks, sketchbooks, and scraps of wrapping paper with crazy, graffiti-like drawings.

Looking back on my younger days—Where did where all that sparkling energy go? I used the money from part-time jobs to buy record albums instead of art supplies and catalogues. I went to movies and concerts, hung out with my girlfriend, did funky drawings on paper, and made midnight raids on friends whose boarding-room lights still happened to be on. I spent the passions of my student days outside the school studio. This is not to say I wasn’t envious of the kids who earned the teachers’ praise or who debuted their talents in early exhibitions. Maybe envy is the wrong word. I guess I had the feeling that we were living in separate worlds. Like puffs of cigarette smoke or the rock songs from my speaker, my adolescent energies all vanished in the sky.

Being outside the city and surrounded by rice fields, my art school had no art scene to speak of—I imagined the art world existing in some unknown dimension, like that of TV or the movies. At the time, art could only be discussed in a Western context, and, therefore, seemed unreal. But just as every country kid dreams of life in the big city, this shaky art-school student had visions of the dazzling, far-off realm of contemporary art. Along with this yearning was an equally strong belief that I didn’t deserve admittance to such a world. A typical provincial underachiever!

I did, however, love to draw every day and the scrawled sketches, never shown to anybody, started piling up. Like journal entries reflecting the events of each day, they sometimes intersected memories from the past. My little everyday world became a trigger for the imagination, and I learned to develop and capture the imagery that arose. I was, however, still a long way off from being able to translate those countless images from paper to canvas.

Visions come to us through daydreams and fantasies. Our emotional reaction towards these images makes them real. Listening to my record collection gave me a similar experience. Before the Internet, the precious little information that did exist was to be found in the two or three music magazines available. Most of my records were imported—no liner notes or lyric sheets in Japanese. No matter how much I liked the music, living in a non-English speaking world sadly meant limited access to the meaning of the lyrics. The music came from a land of societal, religious, and subcultural sensibilities apart from my own, where people moved their bodies to it in a different rhythm. But that didn’t stop me from loving it. I never got tired of poring over every inch of the record jackets on my 12-inch vinyl LPs. I took the sounds and verses into my body. Amidst today’s superabundance of information, choosing music is about how best to single out the right album. For me, it was about making the most use of scant information to sharpen my sensibilities, imagination, and conviction. It might be one verse, melody, guitar riff, rhythmic drum beat or bass line, or record jacket that would inspire me and conjure up fresh imagery. Then, with pencil in hand, I would draw these images on paper, one after the other. Beyond good or bad, the pictures had a will of their own, inhabiting the torn pages with freedom and friendliness.

By the time I graduated from university, my painting began to approach the independence of my drawing. As a means for me to represent a world that was mine and mine alone, the paintings may not have been as nimble as the drawings, but I did them without any preliminary sketching. Prizing feelings that arose as I worked, I just kept painting and over-painting until I gained a certain freedom and the sense, though vague at the time, that I had established a singular way of putting images onto canvas. Yet, I hadn’t reached the point where I could declare that I would paint for the rest of my life.

After receiving my undergraduate degree, I entered the graduate school of my university and got a part-time job teaching at an art yobiko—a prep school for students seeking entrance to an art college. As an instructor, training students how to look at and compose things artistically, meant that I also had to learn how to verbalize my thoughts and feelings. This significant growth experience not only allowed me to take stock of my life at the time, but also provided a refreshing opportunity to connect with teenage hearts and minds.

And idealism! Talking to groups of art students, I naturally found myself describing the ideals of an artist. A painful experience for me—I still had no sense of myself as an artist. The more the students showed their affection for me, the more I felt like a failed artist masquerading as a sensei (teacher). After completing my graduate studies, I kept working as a yobiko instructor. And in telling students about the path to becoming an artist, I began to realize that I was still a student myself, with many things yet to learn. I felt that I needed to become a true art student. I decided to study in Germany. The day I left the city where I had long lived, many of my students appeared on the platform to see me off.

Life as a student in Germany was a happy time. I originally intended to go to London, but for economic reasons chose a tuition-free, and, fortunately, academism-free German school. Personal approaches coexisted with conceptual ones, and students tried out a wide range of modes of expression. Technically speaking, we were all students, but each of us brought a creator’s spirit to the fore. The strong wills and opinions of the local students, though, were well in place before they became artists thanks to the German system of early education. As a reticent foreign student from a far-off land, I must have seemed like a mute child. I decided that I would try to make myself understood not through words, but through having people look at my pictures. When winter came and leaden clouds filled the skies, I found myself slipping back to the winters of my childhood. Forgoing attempts to speak in an unknown language, I redoubled my efforts to express myself through visions of my private world. Thinking rather than talking, then illustrating this thought process in drawings and, finally, realizing it in a painting. Instead of defeating you in an argument, I wanted to invite you inside me. Here I was, in a most unexpected place, rediscovering a value that I thought I had lost—I felt that I had finally gained the ability to learn and think, that I had become a student in the truest sense of the word.

But I still wasn’t your typical honors student. My paintings clearly didn’t look like contemporary art, and nobody would say my images fit in the context of European painting. They did, however, catch the gaze of dealers who, with their antennae out for young artists, saw my paintings as new objects that belonged less to the singular world of art and more to the realm of everyday life. Several were impressed by the freshness of my art, and before I knew it, I was invited to hold exhibitions in established galleries—a big step into a wider world.

The six years that I spent in Germany after completing my studies and before returning to Japan were golden days, both for me and my work. Every day and every night, I worked tirelessly to fix onto canvas all the visions that welled up in my head. My living space/studio was in a dreary, concrete former factory building on the outskirts of Cologne. It was the center of my world. Late at night, my surroundings were enveloped in darkness, but my studio was brightly lit. The songs of folk poets flowed out of my speakers. In that place, standing in front of the canvas sometimes felt like traveling on a solitary voyage in outer space—a lonely little spacecraft floating in the darkness of the void. My spaceship could go anywhere in this fantasy while I was painting, even to the edge of the universe.

Suddenly one day, I was flung outside—my spaceship was to be scrapped. My little vehicle turned back into an old concrete building, one that was slated for destruction because it was falling apart. Having lost the spaceship that had accompanied me on my lonely travels, and lacking the energy to look for a new studio, I immediately decided that I might as well go back to my homeland. It was painful and sad to leave the country where I had lived for twelve years and the handful of people I could call friends. But I had lost my ship. The only place I thought to land was my mother country, where long ago those teenagers had waved me goodbye and, in retrospect, whose letters to me while I was in Germany were a valuable source of fuel.

After my long space flight, I returned to Japan with the strange sense of having made a full orbit around the planet. The new studio was a little warehouse on the outskirts of Tokyo, in an area dotted with rice fields and small factories. When the wind blew, swirls of dust slipped in through the cracks, and water leaked down the walls in heavy rains. In my dilapidated warehouse, only one sheet of corrugated metal separated me from the summer heat and winter cold. Despite the funky environment, I was somehow able to keep in midnight contact with the cosmos—the beings I had drawn and painted in Germany began to mature. The emotional quality of the earlier work gave way to a new sense of composure. I worked at refining the former impulsiveness of the drawings and the monochromatic, almost reverent, backgrounds of the paintings. In my pursuit of fresh imagery, I switched from idle experimentation to a more workmanlike approach towards capturing what I saw beyond the canvas.

Children and animals—what simple motifs! Appearing on neat canvases or in ephemeral drawings, these figures are easy on the viewers’ eyes. Occasionally, they shake off my intentions and leap to the feet of their audience, never to return. Because my motifs are accessible, they are often only understood on a superficial level. Sometimes art that results from a long process of development receives only shallow general acceptance, and those who should be interpreting it fail to do so, either through a lack of knowledge or insufficient powers of expression. Take, for example, the music of a specific era. People who lived during this era will naturally appreciate the music that was then popular. Few of these listeners, however, will know, let alone value, the music produced by minor labels, by introspective musicians working under the radar, because it’s music that’s made in answer to an individual’s desire, not the desires of the times. In this way, people who say that “Nara loves rock,” or “Nara loves punk” should see my album collection. Of four thousand records there are probably fewer than fifty punk albums. I do have a lot of 60s and 70s rock and roll, but most of my music is from little labels that never saw commercial success—traditional roots music by black musicians and white musicians, and contemplative folk. The spirit of any era gives birth to trends and fashions as well as their opposite: countless introspective individual worlds. A simultaneous embrace of both has cultivated my sensibility and way of thinking. My artwork is merely the tip of the iceberg that is my self. But if you analyzed the DNA from this tip, you would probably discover a new way of looking at my art. My viewers become a true audience when they take what I’ve made and make it their own. That’s the moment the works gain their freedom, even from their maker.

After contemplative folk singers taught me about deep empathy, the punk rockers schooled me in explosive expression.

I was born on this star, and I’m still breathing. Since childhood, I’ve been a jumble of things learned and experienced and memories that can’t be forgotten. Their involuntary locomotion is my inspiration. I don’t express in words the contents of my work. I’ll only tell you my history. The countless stories living inside my work would become mere fabrications the moment I put them into words. Instead, I use my pencil to turn them into pictures. Standing before the dark abyss, here’s hoping my spaceship launches safely tonight….

The minutes didn't matter. The Denver Nuggets were just encouraged to see a uniform draping Nene's beefy body again, and that great smile splashed across his face once more.

The big Brazilian forward played the final 77 seconds of the Nuggets' 118-105 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, marking his return to the court 2 1/2 months after surgery to remove a malignant testicular tumor.

"Everybody was excited to see Nene back out there, just to see him back in his uniform, seeing him smile again after the stuff he's been through," said Carmelo Anthony, who scored 32 points and keyed the decisive run in the Nuggets' fourth straight win.

Nene had been out since Jan. 11, and it's been just over a month since he underwent chemotherapy.

In the locker room afterward, Nene never stopped smiling. He said he's still full of nerves, still absent enough stamina but certainly not lacking any strength.

"I survived, I'm still here," he said. "I'm a new man, stronger than ever, I just say, 'Thank you, everybody.' "

Allen Iverson added 31 points for the Nuggets, who are a half-game behind Golden State for the eighth and final playoff spot, and one game behind the Mavericks. The Warriors visit the Pepsi Center on Saturday night for another big matchup.

The Warriors visit the Pepsi Center on Saturday night for another big matchup.

"That game's bigger than this game," suggested Anthony.

But this game will long be remembered, too.

When Nene stripped off his warmups and finally entered the game with 1:17 left, he was given a rousing standing ovation and teammate Kenyon Martin embraced him in a bear hug.

"George Karl said, 'Go ahead, enjoy your party,' " Nene said of Denver's coach. "It's a special moment in my life."

Nene had hoped to play about 5 minutes, but those aspirations were dashed when the Nuggets fell behind by 15 points early on.

Besides, it's not as though the Nuggets were looking for a major contribution or even an emotional lift.

"It's not about how he plays," Karl, a fellow cancer survivor, said before tip-off. "We're just happy he's back and we're going to celebrate his health, we're going to celebrate his coming off of major cancer surgery, and we're just going to celebrate. This has nothing to do with basketball. We're just happy he's with us."

Iverson said this was a night he'll remember forever.

"He's a teammate, and he's somebody we care about and we want around, but life is so much bigger than basketball," Iverson said. "When it happened to him, it put it more in perspective for me that it's not just about this game, it's about life. It was just a good feeling and I was happy to be a part of it."

Karl said he wanted to cry when Nene got into the game.

"It's worthy of tears," Karl said. "To see him come back, he's a hell of a person and to help him through this, if we can help him play this year, it will be a great story, it'll be a great feeling, it will be a great building block for the character and chemistry of our team."

Anthony also chipped in 10 boards and eight assists, helping Denver overcame a 30-point night by Josh Howard and 19 points and 15 assists from Jason Kidd.

The Mavericks are 10-9 since acquiring Kidd from New Jersey, but none of the wins was against teams with winning records. Six of their final 10 games are against teams above .500, including two against Golden State.

Dallas fell to 1-1 since losing MVP Dirk Nowitzki indefinitely with knee and ankle injuries.

But the Mavs controlled the tempo for much of the game. Kidd was left unguarded on the left elbow and swished a 3-pointer in the third quarter to give the Mavericks a 79-71 lead.

The Nuggets responded with an 18-2 run, with Anthony scoring half of the points. His breakaway slam dunk gave Denver its first lead since the opening minutes.

Anthony sank four free throws with 3:17 left in the third quarter for an 86-81 lead after Dallas coach Avery Johnson and Howard received technicals for arguing a personal foul on Howard.

"Geez, I'm the only guy in the league that gets a technical by saying one word," Johnson complained. "It wasn't even a bad word. I was asking for a clarification. They have to get some tougher skin."

The Nuggets built their lead to 94-86 after three quarters and weren't threatened again.

Howard surpassed his scoring average of 19.6 points with a 22-point first half, leading Dallas to a 70-60 lead at the break. But without Nowitzki, the Mavericks couldn't keep repelling Denver's runs.

"I don't know if there was a void. Guys stepped up," Kidd said. "We just couldn't keep them off the boards and didn't take care of the ball in that second half."

Game notes

Anthony (23 years, 303 days) scored his 9,000th career point. Only LeBron James reached that milestone at a younger age (22 years, 352 days). ... The Mavericks are 1-2 without Nowitzki this season and 16-12 (.571) without him for his career. They're 495-255 (.660) with him.

The minutes didn't matter. The Denver Nuggets were just encouraged to see a uniform draping Nene's beefy body again, and that great smile splashed across his face once more.

The big Brazilian forward played the final 77 seconds of the Nuggets' 118-105 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, marking his return to the court 2 1/2 months after surgery to remove a malignant testicular tumor.

"Everybody was excited to see Nene back out there, just to see him back in his uniform, seeing him smile again after the stuff he's been through," said Carmelo Anthony, who scored 32 points and keyed the decisive run in the Nuggets' fourth straight win.

Nene had been out since Jan. 11, and it's been just over a month since he underwent chemotherapy.

In the locker room afterward, Nene never stopped smiling. He said he's still full of nerves, still absent enough stamina but certainly not lacking any strength.

"I survived, I'm still here," he said. "I'm a new man, stronger than ever, I just say, 'Thank you, everybody.' "

Allen Iverson added 31 points for the Nuggets, who are a half-game behind Golden State for the eighth and final playoff spot, and one game behind the Mavericks. The Warriors visit the Pepsi Center on Saturday night for another big matchup.

The Warriors visit the Pepsi Center on Saturday night for another big matchup.

"That game's bigger than this game," suggested Anthony.

But this game will long be remembered, too.

When Nene stripped off his warmups and finally entered the game with 1:17 left, he was given a rousing standing ovation and teammate Kenyon Martin embraced him in a bear hug.

"George Karl said, 'Go ahead, enjoy your party,' " Nene said of Denver's coach. "It's a special moment in my life."

Nene had hoped to play about 5 minutes, but those aspirations were dashed when the Nuggets fell behind by 15 points early on.

Besides, it's not as though the Nuggets were looking for a major contribution or even an emotional lift.

"It's not about how he plays," Karl, a fellow cancer survivor, said before tip-off. "We're just happy he's back and we're going to celebrate his health, we're going to celebrate his coming off of major cancer surgery, and we're just going to celebrate. This has nothing to do with basketball. We're just happy he's with us."

Iverson said this was a night he'll remember forever.

"He's a teammate, and he's somebody we care about and we want around, but life is so much bigger than basketball," Iverson said. "When it happened to him, it put it more in perspective for me that it's not just about this game, it's about life. It was just a good feeling and I was happy to be a part of it."

Karl said he wanted to cry when Nene got into the game.

"It's worthy of tears," Karl said. "To see him come back, he's a hell of a person and to help him through this, if we can help him play this year, it will be a great story, it'll be a great feeling, it will be a great building block for the character and chemistry of our team."

Anthony also chipped in 10 boards and eight assists, helping Denver overcame a 30-point night by Josh Howard and 19 points and 15 assists from Jason Kidd.

The Mavericks are 10-9 since acquiring Kidd from New Jersey, but none of the wins was against teams with winning records. Six of their final 10 games are against teams above .500, including two against Golden State.

Dallas fell to 1-1 since losing MVP Dirk Nowitzki indefinitely with knee and ankle injuries.

But the Mavs controlled the tempo for much of the game. Kidd was left unguarded on the left elbow and swished a 3-pointer in the third quarter to give the Mavericks a 79-71 lead.

The Nuggets responded with an 18-2 run, with Anthony scoring half of the points. His breakaway slam dunk gave Denver its first lead since the opening minutes.

Anthony sank four free throws with 3:17 left in the third quarter for an 86-81 lead after Dallas coach Avery Johnson and Howard received technicals for arguing a personal foul on Howard.

"Geez, I'm the only guy in the league that gets a technical by saying one word," Johnson complained. "It wasn't even a bad word. I was asking for a clarification. They have to get some tougher skin."

The Nuggets built their lead to 94-86 after three quarters and weren't threatened again.

Howard surpassed his scoring average of 19.6 points with a 22-point first half, leading Dallas to a 70-60 lead at the break. But without Nowitzki, the Mavericks couldn't keep repelling Denver's runs.

"I don't know if there was a void. Guys stepped up," Kidd said. "We just couldn't keep them off the boards and didn't take care of the ball in that second half."

Game notes

Anthony (23 years, 303 days) scored his 9,000th career point. Only LeBron James reached that milestone at a younger age (22 years, 352 days). ... The Mavericks are 1-2 without Nowitzki this season and 16-12 (.571) without him for his career. They're 495-255 (.660) with him.

The minutes didn't matter. The Denver Nuggets were just encouraged to see a uniform draping Nene's beefy body again, and that great smile splashed across his face once more.


The big Brazilian forward played the final 77 seconds of the Nuggets' 118-105 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night, marking his return to the court 2 1/2 months after surgery to remove a malignant testicular tumor.

"Everybody was excited to see Nene back out there, just to see him back in his uniform, seeing him smile again after the stuff he's been through," said Carmelo Anthony, who scored 32 points and keyed the decisive run in the Nuggets' fourth straight win.

Nene had been out since Jan. 11, and it's been just over a month since he underwent chemotherapy.

In the locker room afterward, Nene never stopped smiling. He said he's still full of nerves, still absent enough stamina but certainly not lacking any strength.

"I survived, I'm still here," he said. "I'm a new man, stronger than ever, I just say, 'Thank you, everybody.' "

Allen Iverson added 31 points for the Nuggets, who are a half-game behind Golden State for the eighth and final playoff spot, and one game behind the Mavericks. The Warriors visit the Pepsi Center on Saturday night for another big matchup.

The Warriors visit the Pepsi Center on Saturday night for another big matchup.

"That game's bigger than this game," suggested Anthony.

But this game will long be remembered, too.

When Nene stripped off his warmups and finally entered the game with 1:17 left, he was given a rousing standing ovation and teammate Kenyon Martin embraced him in a bear hug.

"George Karl said, 'Go ahead, enjoy your party,' " Nene said of Denver's coach. "It's a special moment in my life."

Nene had hoped to play about 5 minutes, but those aspirations were dashed when the Nuggets fell behind by 15 points early on.

Besides, it's not as though the Nuggets were looking for a major contribution or even an emotional lift.

"It's not about how he plays," Karl, a fellow cancer survivor, said before tip-off. "We're just happy he's back and we're going to celebrate his health, we're going to celebrate his coming off of major cancer surgery, and we're just going to celebrate. This has nothing to do with basketball. We're just happy he's with us."

Iverson said this was a night he'll remember forever.

"He's a teammate, and he's somebody we care about and we want around, but life is so much bigger than basketball," Iverson said. "When it happened to him, it put it more in perspective for me that it's not just about this game, it's about life. It was just a good feeling and I was happy to be a part of it."

Karl said he wanted to cry when Nene got into the game.

"It's worthy of tears," Karl said. "To see him come back, he's a hell of a person and to help him through this, if we can help him play this year, it will be a great story, it'll be a great feeling, it will be a great building block for the character and chemistry of our team."

Anthony also chipped in 10 boards and eight assists, helping Denver overcame a 30-point night by Josh Howard and 19 points and 15 assists from Jason Kidd.

The Mavericks are 10-9 since acquiring Kidd from New Jersey, but none of the wins was against teams with winning records. Six of their final 10 games are against teams above .500, including two against Golden State.

Dallas fell to 1-1 since losing MVP Dirk Nowitzki indefinitely with knee and ankle injuries.

But the Mavs controlled the tempo for much of the game. Kidd was left unguarded on the left elbow and swished a 3-pointer in the third quarter to give the Mavericks a 79-71 lead.

The Nuggets responded with an 18-2 run, with Anthony scoring half of the points. His breakaway slam dunk gave Denver its first lead since the opening minutes.

Anthony sank four free throws with 3:17 left in the third quarter for an 86-81 lead after Dallas coach Avery Johnson and Howard received technicals for arguing a personal foul on Howard.

"Geez, I'm the only guy in the league that gets a technical by saying one word," Johnson complained. "It wasn't even a bad word. I was asking for a clarification. They have to get some tougher skin."

The Nuggets built their lead to 94-86 after three quarters and weren't threatened again.

Howard surpassed his scoring average of 19.6 points with a 22-point first half, leading Dallas to a 70-60 lead at the break. But without Nowitzki, the Mavericks couldn't keep repelling Denver's runs.

"I don't know if there was a void. Guys stepped up," Kidd said. "We just couldn't keep them off the boards and didn't take care of the ball in that second half."