Graduate School of Film and New MediaA lt hough m a ny f i l m s c ho ol s h ave b e en
est abl ished around t he world, pr i mar i ly inadvanced nations that realized the importance offilm media as an industry, for various reasons thismatter has not been given sufficient thought inJapan. The Tokyo University of the Arts proposed
the establishment of a Film Department to theEducation Ministry in 1949, but even though theplan was approved, it remained unimplemented.
The establishment of film schools and ofmeasures for promoting films has been emphasizedin various Asian countries over the past decades,
and as a result, Asia has produced an array offlourishing creators who have come to represent a
totally new type of Asian talent on the international
stage.

The Graduate School of Film and New Media
is an autonomous graduate college without arelated undergraduate course, offering master’sand doctoral programs. Following the initialestablishment in 2005 of the Department of Film
Production, the Department of New Media,
and the doctoral program, the Department ofAnimation was added in 2008.
A film is a creator that spins contemporarystories out of images instead of words, functioning
simultaneously as a narrator telling these stories.
It is a vehicle for stories about things to come,communicated on a level beyond language barriers.
In its quality as a storyteller, a film is often
compared to literature, but the new expressive
medium of visuals has in fact a much greater
propagation ability than words.

Animation is commonly considered as anextension of pictorial art. However, there is a huge
difference between painting, which has its raisond'etre in its motionlessness, and animation with its
additional notion of time based on motion.
T here i s a lways t he p o s sibi l it y t h at t healluringly new world of artistic expression throughfilm media can become so enslaved by the newnessof rapidly evolving media technology that it loses
sight of the basics of artistic expression.
T he Jap a ne s e word b u n k a , refer r i ng to
education generally and to reading and writing
skills, is a translation of the English term “culture.”
As we can understand from the existence of suchwords as “agriculture,” the meaning of “culture”
encompasses t he rat her essent ia l not ion of“cultivation.” It would be fair to say that art andculture fulfill important roles in social cultivation.
The nature of artistic expression lies in humanbeings’ instinctive resistance against loneliness. We
can perhaps interpret communication as a way of
sharing that battle against loneliness with others.
To nurture outstanding artists means to encourage
individuals to face that sense of loneliness, andto give them the confidence to sublimate it into
artistic expression. In this regard, we want ourstudents to “cultivate” themselves while enrolled
at the graduate school, by exploring the depths ofhuman nature through self-expression.
In an idea l world, this would mean that
individual occurrences of artistic expression aretransmitted to society via new media.

F

ilm Production

Film occupies a core positionin the contents industry, whichis expected to become a key
industry in the 21st century.
The aim of the Department ofFilm Production of the Graduate
School of Film and New Media isto develop creators of narrative
film works with international
potential and cinematographerswith advanced technical know­
how and artistic sensibility.
Students in the Departmentof Film Production have theopportunity to work with thesame facilities and equipmentt h at profes sion a l s from t hefilm industry are using, and tobenefit from the experiencesa n d sp e c i a l i z e d k n ow l e d g eof a va r iet y of profes sion a l
f i l m m a k e r s a n d p r o du c e r s
who function as instructors. In
addition, the course is a place
for fellow students with the sameaspirations to come together.
The door of the Departmentof Film Production is open toeveryone with a serious interestin pursuing a career in the film
industry, as this is the best place
to start.
In this Department, students
specializing in various fields
work a l l ye a r l on g on f i l m
production, sharing a common
goal. Focused on films with adramatic structure, from short
f i lms to feature f i lms, theseproductions use a very broad
range of media standards, so as
to keep pace with the current,
rapid waves of change-from film
to video, 16 mm to 35 mm, as
well as DV, HDV, or HD.
The University provides abudget for each film depending
on its particular scale, while
st udent s t a ke cha rge of t hecast ing and the choice oflocations, as well as ensuringthat all necessary materials andaccessories are available.

New Media
The computer has been
affecting our daily lives on variouslevels. Introduced as a practical
tool providing great convenience,it also offers significant potential
as an instrument for expression—in other words, a medium. It is
possible to define the power ofdigital technology as the power
to convert objects into numericalinformation. This means at once
that the boundary between replicaand original disappears, and that
information can be distributed
freely to any place in the world.
Artists no longer need to fall backon paper or film to display theirworks.
Furthermore, the focus oninterfaces for manipulating information has triggered a shift in
the relationship between creatorand recipient from a one-way
affair toward interactivity. Thereis still much to explore about suchcharacteristic features, as new,uncharted territory is added withevery act of creative expression.
When there is a complete,predefined aesthetic, one may
create works by simply followingthat theory, but in cases wherear t ist ic expression is formed
within a relationship with others,
it becomes necessary to analyze
what occurs during the creation
process from the viewpoint ofmedia. In this sense, the creatorsand researchers who make up
this Department’s faculty, aim
to train creators and at the samet i me, develop t e c h n i que s tointensify artistic expression. We
pursue these goals through actual
creative work and workshops,
based on the four thematic pillarsof expression through media,theoretics, media concepts, anddesign.

Animation

The Department of Animation
aims to reconfigure thei nc rea si ngly d i ff use worldof an i mat ion, eva luate t heoriginality of animation in thiscountry from an international
perspective, and dedicate itself
to education, research, and thecult ivat ion of creat ive t a lentin order to sustain this genre’s
autonomous development.
1) “Talent-spotting education”
nurturing leadership qualities
We eagerly teach the ability to
eva luate the qua l ity and thecultural and economic value of
one’s own work from an objective
point of view. We do so by focusing
on spotting autonomously thinking
creators and giving them ample
opportunity to maximize theirrespective talents.
2) Creat ion-focused, on-thesp o t r e s e a r c h a n d l e a r n i ng
environments
Another central aspect of thisprogram is its systematization ofknowledge to pass on to future
generations, realized throughhands-on learning grounded inpractical creation that has been
fostered in the field of artistic
expression.
3) Innovative animation
We aim to nurture innovative
creators capable of conceiving
and producing new, never-beforeseen works and projects.
4)Formation of a comprehensive
networkW h i l e a c t i ve l y i n t r o du c i n ginternational evaluation systems
that have defined and developed
animation as a form of art andculture, we connect animationrelated institutes and individual
researchers in Japan and abroad
to establish a “contents platform”
as a foundation for the creationof new opportunities.

Doctoral Program in Film and New Media Studies
T h e G r a du a t e S c h o o l ofFilm and New Media’s doctoral
program places importance on
the aspect of gaining insight andexperience through creating,while also building new practicalknowledge. The aim is to conduct
research into the vocabulary andgrammar of film media, andultimately to contribute to thesystematization of this new field.
At present, do c tor ates i nc reat ive f ields a re a subj e c tof worldwide controversy. A
doctoral program must of course
involve research aimed at theformulation of theoretical ideas,
but in the field of art there mustalso be a tangible subject, inthe form of an artwork and thecreative process out of which itemerges. Moreover, the positionsof the artist, the artwork, and the
aspect of culture in a historicalcontext must be defined; based onthese definitions, the respective
work must then be discussed
theoretically in considerationof its relationship with previous
theories of art production.
Concretely speaking, alongwith theorizing art as a creative
human activity, in the doctoral
program, such practical work
is analyzed comprehensively inconnection with the master’s
degree program’s curriculum,
which is centered on practicalcreative work.
While examining concrete
result s, at t he sa me t i me weshould not overlook the evolutionof media technology, including
camera and dig it a l edit ing
technology, as a supporting pillarof art ist ic expression. Whi lereviewing the transformations oftechnology from the past to thepresent, we also keep a close eyeon research and developmentof new media technology thatenables new forms of expression.