Award of Excellence – “My Little Goat” (Japan)

Title: My Little Goat
Runtime: 10 min
Country: Japan
Director: Tomoki Misato
Placement: Award of Excellence
Competition: March 31, 2020

Synopsis:  The mother goat rescues her little goats from the wolf’s belly. But, she can’t find Toruku, her eldest son! Where is Toruku?!

FILMMAKER Q&A – Tomoki Misato – Director

GS: What was the inspiration for your film?

TM: My inspiration is a TV animation “Courage the Cowardly Dog” and a stopmotion movie “Coraline”.

GS: When did you conceive the idea for your film and how long did it take before it was realized?

TM: The story of this film is based on the Grim’s fairy tale “The wolf and seven little goat”. The wolf tricks the little goats who are at home alone and he eats them. The mother goat rescues her little goats from the wolf’s belly using scissors. But, what if the little goats are already being digested in the wolf’s belly?… I imagined that scenario, which became the start for making my animation. 

GS: What was the most challenging aspect of working in a short film format?

TM: I have make mainly short film but I think most challenging aspect is a storyboard. Because I need to tell to viewer a story and any message rightly in a short scale. To keep the short scale, I kept the dialogue as minimal as possible. And In order to show the tempo well, I also selected unnecessary scenes. Though I made a puppet with much effort, I didn’t use in the shooting because I leaved out the scene that the doll appears on the way.

GS: What was the most challenging aspect of your production?

TM: For the shoot, I wanted the dolls to have life-like expressions and movements, so I shot using 24 frames per second. The hardest part was the action scene in the second half. I combined 6 dolls and and moved the camera dynamically.

GS: Do you have any advice for first-time filmmakers?

TM: If I say badly, I think the video takes away the viewer’s time. So filmmakers need to give presents to their viewer. The present is sometimes a message or entertainment. Please make a film that can communicate with your viewer by your works.