The View
From Below
2020 | Documentary Video Production
Sharing the narrative from "below." Grandma Katsue and Great Aunt Miyako share their experience during the 1945 Tokyo Bombings.
Production Process
Growing up, whenever I visited my family back in Japan, my Grandma Katsue and Great Aunt Miyako would share their war stories with my siblings and I. From a young age, I was captivated by these stories and my interest in studying the Pacific War grew. Perhaps this interest came from the dynamic environment I grew up in: being Japanese with family who experienced the war and growing up in Hawaiʻi, near Pearl Harbor where it all began. Moreover, I had grown up learning the history from both sides.
In January 2020, I sat down with my Grandma Katsue and Great Aunt Miyako. I pulled out my camera and recorded an interview with them, mostly with the intent of archiving and creating a personal oral history project out of it.
Fast forward to Fall 2020, upon taking my first documentary production course at USC (virtually), I decided to form a short documentary purely of the interview and archival footage. The film was created in hopes of educating youth about the perspective from "below" and highlight the value of oral storytelling through this personal take.
Reimagining Storytelling
When thinking about various ways my film can be shown in spaces, I created a mock-up of a projection mapped installation as a way to merge spatial design with film.
The room is designed to physically illustrate how the audience in the room would have to turn their back to one of the sides narratives to fully watch the other and it takes intentionality to see both sides of the story. I carried over concepts of my documentary, “The View from Below” by casting visuals from “above” and “below” from the Tokyo Bombings.
