Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW Q and A Session

Written by Jon Liang on 05 Jul 2010

After the London BFI screening of Welcome to THE SPACE SHOW, the audience was treated with the presence of the film’s director Koiji Masanori and producer Tomonori Ochikoshi for a little question and answer session. Questions came from both our BFI hosts and members of the audience whilst an interpreter acted as an intermediate voice. What was lost in translation; what was revealed for all? Have a read of the transcript below to find out.

Can you tell us a little more about your previous TV work?

Well we worked together (Koiji Masanori Tomonori Ochikoshi and Atsuhiro Iwakami) on Kamichu and were privileged enough to receive an award for it. The success gave us the energy to make this film.

The three of you seem to work together under a collective pseudonym. Can you explain what it means?

The collective name that we work under roughly means "Kiss me please". All three members are in our 40s so we wanted something that sounded cool.

How do you manage your projects?

A-1 Pictures is a new studio. One of our priorities is the product we make. We choose our crew based on that on a per-project-basis. As I personally take care of our projects, we have 10 currently on-going - most of them for TV.

Any more films in production?

We have several TV shows that will be coming your way soon. Look forward to them together please.

Since this is your first feature film did you have to do anything differently?

The actual making of TV and films is not so different but the expectations are much higher with film so we put much more effort in them.

Does making a film give you much more creative freedom?

Yes. In a film the director has more control and thus we get more involved whereas in TV we have many directors.

How are you liking the international reception so far and was a global audience in mind when you made this film?

To be honest we didn't expect any form of international reception. When we first heard of our showing in the Berlin Film Festival we were pleasantly surprised.

And the use of English language songs?

I had spoken to the musical director about his. We had some mind for the international market and so we deliberately chose the English language 'Happy Birthday' and other songs.

When writing the film does the character design come out first?

We started with the names of our characters and from there we chose their personalities and from there are able to get character sketches.

Why make the main alien a 'dog'?

I just simply thought of an alien that young children would get along well with. We also thought it would be funny and cool.

Can you tell us a little more about the Dog Planet's unique architecture?

Pochi's planet is called Planet-One (which is a pun in itself since 'Wan' is the Japanese for 'Woof). For Pochi's home planet we took a lot of inspiration from English country homes.

Any merchandising plans?

We often get requests for plush-toys of Pochi and Meppo.

And Wasabi?

*laughs*

Were there any particularly difficult scenes to animate?

Yes, it did take a lot of time to do some of them. Dogs and bright colours can be very difficult.