From Music Videos to Feature Film: An Interview with A Few Moments of Cheers Director POPREQ

Recently at the Tokyo International Film Festival, I sat down with POPREQ, the director of the recent film A Few Moments of Cheers. Throughout our conversation, we talked about the film's production and how much of its story comes from his own life.

POPREQ didn't always want to be a director—far from it, in fact. “Up until my junior year of high school, I planned to be a public official. But it was not an occupation that I really wanted. I just passively thought that it was a job that would give me stability,” POPREQ began. “I liked visual arts like painting and so forth. But I thought that art college is for people that have a lot of talent—and I thought that I didn't have that.”

However, as the time to decide his path drew near, he had a change of heart. “I thought that being a public worker might not be so much fun,” he chuckled. “So I thought okay, why don't I try [the art path] just once and see what I can do? And, if in the end, I find out that I don't have any talent, I will just give up. That's how I got started.”

Since then, POPREQ has made a name for himself creating animated music videos with his two partners, Ohajiki and Magotsuki, at Hurray!, their three-man studio. In fact, their unique style of animation is what created interest in what would become A Few Moments of Cheers.

The film began its production a bit differently from most anime films. “When I first began working on this project, it wasn't like somebody came up to me and said 'Director please make this film,'” POPREQ told me. “It was more like, 'We like the work that you're doing so can you make that into a movie?'”

A Few Moments of Cheers is the story of amateur music video maker Kanata, his high school teacher/ musician, Yu, and his classical artist friend Daisuke. All three are struggling with their art—though in different ways. Two of these characters, Kanata and Yu, are drawn from POPREQ's own life. Simply put “Kanata is depicting the child side of me, while Yu is more the adult side of me.”

“When I was in my college years and I created all kinds of pictures, I felt so much pride in completing them,” POPREQ said, explaining the feelings that gave birth to Kanata's own. “I felt like, 'Oh my life is gonna have so many possibilities!' I had a lot more anticipation and expectations back then.”

Kanata's main conflict in the film is him trying to make his first commissioned art piece rather than art made for himself, by himself. “In the film, Kanta's not able to create what Yu wanted—and actually I've had the same kind of experience,” POPREQ told me. “[When making commissioned art,] it's important to try and understand about the request for what you need to make—but I feel like even if you were able to see inside this other person's head—and you were able to create something directly from that person's head—it wouldn't turn into something great.”

So how does POPREQ deal with these situations? “I listen to what the client is asking for and then I would think that over. Then I come up with my own proposal and say, 'Okay, this is my proposal based on what you said to me. Now, would you agree to work with me on this project?'”

As for Yu, while on the same artistic path as Kanata (though in a different medium), she is much further along—especially when it comes to her troubles. “Yu, she's at a point of devastation. She can't keep doing her art as she has been because she's realized that there are so many musicians out there greater than she is. She had thought she would be in control of her life but she's reached the point of 'this is the reality. I have accepted it and I must keep going on.'” Although far from any point of despair, POPREQ remembers the blow to his self-confidence that came with growing up. “So many things have happened in my life and I've met so many other greater people with greater talents. So I feel like I'm a much smaller presence.” It's this feeling that is key to understanding Yu as a character and where she is in her life.

Of course, just as Kanata and Yu struggle with their art in the film, POPREQ faces struggles himself to make it. After all, on the production side, even a 68-minute film is far different from a short music video. With a larger amount of work came the need for more hands-on deck, so the team at Hurray! looked into outsourcing what they could.

This proved problematic for several reasons, the first being the actual style of the animation. “Our animation is not normal 2D animation but it also doesn't have the usual raw movements of CGI. We were looking to do something in between—that was a hybrid between the two,” POPREQ explained. “And it was kind of hard for people [outside of our company] to understand that.”

Then came the unique look of the film. “At Hurray!, the creation of all the images is done by another staff member, Magotsuki for all of our animations. Magotsuki comes up with all these images and we know [instinctively] how to put them into animation because we've worked together for so many years. [...] We kind of know what each other is looking for and we get that instantly. But then if a new person joins the project, it's really hard to tell that person what we're looking for,” POPREQ lamented. “And even if we can, it's hard for that person to truly understand.”

However, that wasn't the biggest hurdle the team faced. “I think the biggest problem was that [we were asking any potential workers] to be able to do everything.” POPREQ continued, “For example, in my case, I work on the art and background. I do the 3D, I do all the layout, and I do everything that a 2D animated artist would do. [But when outsourcing,] on the other end, there's, say, an art person. When you ask the art person to do 3D, he will not be able to do it. And the 3D person is not going to be able to do the art part or composition part.”

So how did POPREQ overcome these personnel issues? “We tried to outsource the drawing to other people but the result wasn't really something we wanted. So in the end we just said, okay, the people at Hurray!, the three of us, we must create all the drawings ourselves.” This left the small team with a mountain of work.

“Sometimes, the only solution is to do the best that you can do,” POPREQ said. “There's no smart or clever way to get around that kind of issue. It was more like, we're gonna work hard or we may not have time to finish all this—but we have to get it done.” And get it done they did.

A Few Moments of Cheers was released in Japanese theaters on June 14, 2024. It has not announced a Western release.