Back To The Drawing Board

In my last blog, I went over the second pass of my final project. However, it seems that maybe the original idea that I had was lacking some substance. So I decided to dig deeper.

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The Artifact (Again)

My first stop was to go back to the artifact and really figure out what I wanted to convey. Based on information from the museum, it is a Japanese wine vessel that was inspired by Chinese design. I also had to figure out a way to convey that it is wine instead of water. After thinking it over for a while, I was inspired to research the process of Japanese wine and how it is created.

Sake Process

There is quite a bit of information out there about the process of Japanese wine, and from here on out, I will call it sake instead. The process of sake is actually pretty well documented. These two videos gave me a quick crash course on sake, its history, and how it was created. Here in this blog, I will give the quick and dirty version. In winter, the harvested rice from the fall is taken to be polished and fermented. In the process, Koji, a special type of mold, is added to aid in the fermenting process. After it is fermented, the rice gets pressed to form the sake. The sake then goes through a few more filtration processes before it gets bottled and shipped out.

A New Spark

Seeing as how one of the videos I watched documented the sake process of Kubota, a famous sake brand in Japan, I decided to look at their website to find any inspiration. That was when I came across a description of their alcoholic beverage that talked about how you can taste the seasons in each sip.

This imagery was very inspiring, and I think I know the direction I want to take this project.

The Great Revision

I present to you, my new idea:

It starts in an old Japanese house on a summer night. Sake comes out of the wine vessel, and as it travels across the house, we move with it. It eventually goes into a rice field with fireflies, and as we follow the scene changes into autumn, filled with maple trees. We continue to follow the trail of sake as the season changes once again, this time to a snow-filled forest and a frozen river. As we pass over it, the sake exits the frame. Then, in our final shot, the sake enters the frame into a cherry blossom environment, a table set up with the Kubota bottle. The sake swirls around the environment, then flows into the bottle, settling before the scene ends.

I really love this idea; it tells a whole story and has a lot of beautiful imagery. However, there is one BIG problem. Time is running short, and I don't think I will have enough of it to fully flesh out this idea. Nonetheless, I will take this idea up for review and see what kind of feedback I can get with it. Wish me luck!