Yamasong Teaser Trailer (2010)

Teaser trailer for Yamasong.

Events are set in motion when a mysterious Trickster hurls a star through outer space. Nani, a patchwork girl, chases the star to discover a world shes never set foot upon. In her quest she saves the life of Shojun, a tortoise fisherman and warrior. Together they make their way through his surreal world to the alien star on the mountaintop. What awaits them at journeys end? Will they survive their encounter with the fallen star and other dangers thrown in their path?

From turbulent coastal waters to frozen mountains and unknown nether spaces, Yamasong takes the viewer on a fantastic journey filled with stunning live-action Japanese-style puppets in a hybrid world of computer-generated and real objects. Set to the music of On Ensemble, an L.A.-based percussion band, the story is an instrumental and visual metaphor for a journey taken with another across a new cultural landscape, and walking away changed from the experience.

Yamasong is an exciting blend of traditional puppet techniques married with new digital technology. From using green screen to After Effects to the Canon 7D camera, the story aims to create a visual world that is neither purely real or imaginary, but somewhere between and evocative as a place all of its own. This is much like the band’s music, which marries traditional world instruments and overtone singing with modern digital sounds to make a unique, otherworldly sound-scape ideal for the world of the short film.