I am often asked what the catalyst was for me to create "Shadowplay". I first learned of the “shadow” images left from the atomic blast back in high school. Being part of a generation that is desensitized to violence, the photos of victims’ charred bodies, grotesque deformities, or other complications from radiation exposure did not strike as much of an emotional chord with me as the “shadows” of Hiroshima did.

With a blinding flash, huge slabs of concrete worked like emulsion paper, creating silhouetted photographs of that split-second of power. Shadows were left of people going about their everyday lives: a man washing a window, one casually entering a bank, another about to whip his horse. No other word more aptly describes these ghosted images in Hiroshima other than “haunting”.

These are the reflex images I think of when there is talk of nuclear threats or weapons of mass destruction. Like chalk outlines at a crime scene, the faceless poses make me realize, “This could have been anyone, anywhere.” For someone who never lived through World War II or the Atomic Age, the shadows are a timeless, unforgettable portrayal of life stopping.

As I began my career in animation, I tried to explore the medium and its boundaries in dramatic storytelling. I have been fascinated by how an audience can be moved by something so “inanimate” as animation, and wanted to see how far I could push this boundary. The shadows of Hiroshima seemed obvious subject matter to me. I knew the difficulty in trying to have an audience relate to a character with no face and no eyes, or for that matter, ones that don’t even move. But, as I learned during the basics of animation, poses are the most important aspect of character animation. No poses are more expressive and have more subtext than the shadow-people of Hiroshima.

I hope you find this film to be a touching, respectful, and heartfelt film about the horrors of war. For an American making a film about a Japanese tragedy, it seems that my film could only be aimed at a global audience, for all sides of conflicts worldwide. But I also hope than you can see the power animation can have as a means for dramatic storytelling, and that the medium still has uncharted territories to explore. I hope the images in “Shadowplay” move you the way they moved me. Thank you.