Sophia Magazine vol.7 / SUMMER 2018
27/36

ing. Between part-time jobs and club activities, the students could only get together late at night. They would continue the editing in all-night sessions at a local karaoke box near campus.Says Tsuda, “We used the scene of dining at the eel res-taurant as the opening scene. All three of us agreed that we wanted to start with the smiling face of Shizue.” But they did experience both the highs and the lows of journalism. “Editing meant actually throwing away the words of Shizue. In the end we made the cuts, but we felt the pain of media responsibility,” recounts Kurihara.Once completed, Kyo mo Anata to Issho ni was received very well at lm contests around Japan. While some criti-cized the documentary for not going deeper, others praised it. One said, it was an “up close and personal treatment of the subject from a student perspective, exposing aspects that may not have been shown to professional media.” Mukojima says of the feedback, “We are students. We made the lm in a quest to see how far the student eye would see. We succeeded in our aim of bringing a new perspective for the generation that lived through the attack, and of bringing the attack to the attention of the generation that came after.” They have heard from their peers that their lm was “clear,” and that it revealed the victim’s families to be “normal people.”In lm production seminars at other universities, the lec-turer often provides detailed guidance on lming and ed-iting. However, the Mizushima students were left almost completely to their own devices. This may have resulted in a lot more trial and error – and mistakes – but, notes Mukojima, Professor Mizushima helped with a lot of aspects. “He gave us advice on the core point.” “Professor Mizushima advised us to ask for Shizue’s thoughts not as a person in a public position as leader of her association, but in her capacity as a member of a fam-ily tragically affected by the attack,” recounts Kurihara. “But we hesitated with his guidance, as it [Takahashi’s thoughts on her experience] was hard for us to hear.” Yet when they asked Takahashi frankly, she revealed how she felt about the long struggle: “Shizue Takahashi is synonymous with the sarin gas attack. Why does it have to be me? It’s hard to bear. It’s not easy.” Obtaining this statement was surely testament to the trust built over the course of lming with Takahashi.The time they spent with Shizue during the production of Kyo mo Anata to Issho ni had a deep impact on the three students. “Personally, I came to understand journalism more deeply and just how difcult it is,” says Kurihara. Mukojima reects, “I found myself becoming more sensitive, picking up more on events in society.” As for Tsuda, “Meeting some-one as fascinating as Shizue made me notice for the rst time attractive aspects of those around me.” Meanwhile, the interaction with the three students saw some changes for Takahashi too. At rst, she felt reluctant to hand over family photos and other mementos for use in the documentary. But after repeated requests from the stu-dents, one day she relented. “I found them,” she said one day, bringing them to the students with a smile.Recalls Tsuda, “Apparently they were locked away in stor-age, but now she has them nearby in her home and can look at them whenever she likes.”Perhaps as a result of the students’ lming, where the clock had stopped, it has now begun to tick again.In their engagement, the interviewers and the subject have sparked changes in each other. Kyo mo Anata to Issho ni, the work of three journalism students, is a production that encapsulates the power and thrill of documentary-making.Unique Student PerspectivePraised in ContestsProducing Film Demonstrated the Difficulty of JournalismMiyuKuriharaShizue Takahashi and students at the river Arakawa, Tokyo27Student

元のページ  ../index.html#27

このブックを見る