This music video is a collaboration with the American musician BONZIE. We had separate roles in creating the work: I drew the storyboard and created the animation while listening to an demo version of “alone,” and BONZIE was in charge of directing and supervising the production.

At our first meeting (we haven’t met in person yet), we had problems with the distance between Japan and the United States and some worries about language, but we started out by becoming friends, totally making use of Japanese, English, and Google Translate, and then emailed and had many conversations over Skype, and now we are close friends.

From the song’s atmosphere and abstract lyrics, I recalled an animation that appears to associate the female body with mountains, trees, rain, rivers, and other natural features, without boundaries, so I drew a storyboard of the idea. When I sent it to BONZIE, she liked the idea and we fine-tuned the visuals.

The production technique used here is stop-motion animation. I place a light box and glass on a desk in a dark room, paint a picture on the glass, then erase it and draw it again, repeating this process while taking a shot of each individual picture, then connect the shots one by one to create the animation.

Once I entirely erase a picture, I can never get that same picture back again, so I did it almost in one shot, from the beginning to the end of the song.

Through our computer screens, we had many conversations about things other than the work—about each other's country, about the time of “jishuku,” (refraining from going out during the pandemic), about culture. Working with some other artist, creating a work together while deepening our mutual friendship was an experience I’d never had before. I’m glad we were able to create this work, encouraging each other and transcending national boundaries while going through the same Covid-19 pandemic.
(Sato Miyo)