``A Town of People'' Director Shinji Araki The first thing I told Tomoya Nakamura was ``Eros.'' [Director's Interview Vol.75]

Town design from the perspective of business owners

Q: So it's important to have a connection with reality, and not to make it too fictional.

Araki: That's right. What I told the art staff was, ``If you were to run this town, what would you do?''

``We don't make uniforms because they cost a lot of money.Let's buy a bunch of hoodies at a second-hand clothing store and let everyone wear them to somehow make them feel like they belong to this town,'' or ``If we were to hold an information session... , it just takes more people. Just leave the guidebook in your room.'' If you think about it from a manager's perspective, you want to cut corners and make things easier.

We talked a lot about that kind of reality.

Q: I see, so when I watch it I get the feeling that something creepy has invaded my daily life. It feels like a calculated omission.

Araki: For me, it's completely realistic, and the scenes where Aoyama and his friends post on the internet have an image similar to that of a normal diner. Then the art department suggested, ``We'd like to add some more elements like this,'' and we created it.

It's a bit like Nouvelle Vague, but the point was how much we could make it without changing the main body (location) while still maintaining its reality.

I think it's very difficult to imagine this story when you read it in text. As we worked together with the cast and staff to create the movie, it gradually turned into 3D, and I was excited to watch it become a reality while filming.

I had a hard time deciding between Tomoya Nakamura and Ryan Gosling.