bed quilt in those days

I was often asked to research things, as I was the only one in the team who can search things in Japanese. Also often they've got images but didn't know the name of those thing - like those ‘Shinto - lightening’ I can look for the names, and collect some information about those things, ready for my team mates.

And often things were quite interesting, the things unknown or the reason why they are like so it never bothered me, looking into things.

Bed quilt was one of those things.
When we dressed Mike's bed room in Kira's, the designer wanted to know about how it was like. I went to fetch some information and they used to be a kimono.

This photograph, they said, was taken a little bit later than 47 era but you can see sleeves on quilt.
They put a lots of cotton inside so they are super warm. And they also said that people were wearing these in a house in colder days.

It sounded like one of these, over all fleece blanket - comfy to watch TV on your sofa! I found this quite funny - never changing lazy style... Imagine you wear your quilt has sleeves and you are wearing it in your lounge.

And pillows.

How can you sleep on those unnatural hight but these were the standard type of pillows of this era - because they had their complicated hair-do. They didn't wash, comb and do-ups their hair everyday so due to keep their professionally done style, they had to sleep on those.

I remember ladies in Drape section were making the softer bits on top.
We used to, and still do use the husks of buckwheat for the stuffing of pillow but as they can't get those in UK, they went for alternative, cous-cous. Similar feeling but might get moldy after a while....

Nothing to do letterings or calligraphy but those thing are still very much interesting for me.

more props for the village set

Among the things I dressed or helped making things for the village set were, often, didn't need to be me dressing. I wanted to be in that lovely set, I tried to find any excuses to extend my stay.

Only thing it had to be me is the water storage. Because our farmer's houses were built with wood and paper, it was essential to have emergency water storage in corners in a village.
That was our version of those after we found a reference from wood block print.

‘Water’ character on bottom and a house mark of a village chief on buckets. I pasted paper talisman on corner too to protect our village from fire.

The other things were nothing to do with calligraphy at all.
There was a village shrine at street corner, and they wanted me to dress inside. Could not find any suitable sitting Buddha inside, I decided to have a large rock instead of statue - might have happened at that time, some natural things can be an object of worship.

Neighbors change a cup of water everyday, giving some seasonal vegetables and fruits. Put one ‘Shinto lightning’ too. Mixture of Buddhism and Shinto.

It didn't need to be me at all to make some dried fruits and veg to dress our village houses but I also enjoyed making dried Kaki (persimmon)  and dried radish too!

Notice board in a village

I kept telling the designer how much I love working in a village set - I really loved being outside in fine May, June sky.

Then I was getting more props that I can work on.
The notice board was one of those.
At the wall of a house in a middle of the village high street, there was a board to put the public notice or any important messages.

I don't where this shape came from - it was there when I was told to go and do. A board with a pretty little hat on. Frame and boards are all nicely aged down.

I don't know either whether village people can read the notices. I suppose someone who can read used to tell what it is about to the who can't.

With a oil based paint, I put the heading ‘notice board to the who lives in Ako village’.
Then they can have a paper notice pasted everytime they get one.
Paper was slightly thicker than the normal Japanese handmade paper but has similar looking. I wrote the wording, sprayed to be water proof, and then aging spray.

Looking at now, the edge of the paper looks too sharp as they should not have any sharp knife!

I did put some more bits of papers and peeled them out to look old and used afterwards.

tatami maker

Tatami is the name for the type of flooring mattress.
Still quite common in Japanese houses, it is a mattress covered with rush.
It has standard size and we often still used it to express how big the room is - i.e. 6 tatami mats etc.

When we were setting the set of a small farming village where Oishi came back, designer wanted to have a different characters to each houses. And one of them was the tatami makers house.

I looked for some references from book shelves and on line search but could not find that many, so took idea from one of the images we found.

Each farm house had a little porch outside, facing towards the street.
So when I worked there I could spot people passing, say hi and started a small chat. Very nice system I thought. It was May-June when I worked there, lots of sunshines. Lovely days of working.

The lantern says ‘tatami’ and they are the shop signs.
The rolls are not mattress at all but the sheet of rush, that would cover the surface of the mattress.

This became one of my favorite sets - even with a strange lantern with kilt of straw!

Sinto Lightning

They are called ‘si de’ in Japanese, if you translate this word straight forward, the meaning would be ‘dropped paper’.

They are the paper decoration, shaped like lightning so we called them as ‘Sinto Lightning’. They are to protect or divide area and places from the evil outside. Or to show us this is the sacred area.

It made me smile when I researched more, ‘si de’ shaped like lightning because they are meant to be scary to the evil - so we called lightning wasn't that far off!

I don't know why that was me to make those but I had been making them since I found how to make one. Even with some letterings which you would not see in Japan.

It was fun to find out how to make one and I used them for decorating the little shrine or prayer alters.

When we were preparing for the Kira fortress, our designer wanted to have some of these but really huge. We found some references from books too.

This is the picture from the festival held in Handa, Aichi, Japan. The familiar looking banners has some decorations on top. They were bamboo branches but some are shown with these lightnings.

We figured out how big they should be from the picture, and the buyer got some IKEA white poly blinds - as they would be sturdy in the rain outside.

Cut, folded, spray mounted and stitched together on the top of the high bamboo bars.

Could it be a little bigger and fluffier? 

The bamboo ones were used too on one of our tall banners at the fortress.

I don't why they are bamboos. We saw vary decorations - five coloured silks, three umbrellas,,, they must have some sort of meaning for each one I'm sure.

It was nice to know the proper name for this paper decorations which we don't know how to called them normally even in Japan and even how to make some. 

February

In London, February is always a bit hectic season - with Valentine's Day, Chinese Lunar New Year and London Fashion Week, these events keep us calligrapher busy all through the month.
I will come back here in March but meanwhile, in my other blog I am introducing what I have been doing so far. Please come and visit, and it would be great if you can tell me what your thoughts about.

Thank you x

How to fold

I was helping to set up Mika's rooms after Kira took her away.
The Witch didn't like Mika at all and in our script she was harassing Mika in many ways while she was there.

One scene was Witch encouraged Mika to kill herself with powder, saying killing her is much easier and less damaged than forty seven of them, including Kai and Oiish risking their lives to rescue her.

Designer asked me to sort this powder package.
When I was a small child, the doctors gave me some paper folded sachets, powder medicine inside it. I don't know this was happening in 47's era but that was the only thing I could think of.

I decided to use poem written paper to make some sachets. Chose a poem, wrote it, photo-copied and cut into square.
Needed to know where the poem to be shown when its folded.

Poem is about the loving couple, feeling sad not be able to see each other that often.

I needed to ask Internet how to fold this sachet.

Used sugar from the kitchen to make it real, and there you have medicine sachets.

According to the script, this happens when the two ladies eating their dinners together. And the designer asked me to choose suitable chopsticks from the stock room. We could not find the suitable pair so we decided to paint the wooden pairs.

I don't know why it was me but they asked me to paint them using the safe paint as the actors may chew during the shoot. I've asked how to to the painter and decided the colour and design and there we had them.

I think the powder medicine gone out of the film but two ladies are still at the dinner table. I remember Witch pointed Mika with her chop sticks at the end tip of her snakey hair... But not sure they are my chop sticks or not.
But seeing these two ladies have been very well and active, I guess those were made safe enough.