Planes, Trains, Cars and Lions: The strange world of the Japanese Paper Films Live Actions is a Digital Humanities research project that is a part and continuation of the bigger Japanese Paper Films Project. The project’s immediate goal is to find the source films from which the live action paper films were created. Another goal of the project is to analyze the editing in the films, see from which parts of the source films the paper films versions were made, as well as to compare different paper prints and see if there are any differences between them (and, spoiler: there are!)
Another aim of the project is to analyze the patterns, tropes and themes in the live action paper films, since they can tell us what was interesting for people in Japan of the 1930s. Through looking at the number of surviving copies of one paper film title, we can estimate and assume what was of bigger demand. Obviously, a big amount of the Japanese Paper Films did not survive to this day, but even the fact that certain films survived to this day, the signs (such as tears, scratches, etc) can tell us that the film was played more times than another one.
The project’s website contains information about the Japanese Paper Films and the project as a whole, including the section about the history of the Paper Films themselves. There are different sections of the website dedicated to each film that was attributed to a source, providing the proof of the connection between the paper films and the source film, as well as the history of the source film, its survival status, reviews, etc. Currently we do not have the capability of attaching a full paper film to the sections, but 15 second experts are provided.
Planes, Trains, Cars and Lions: The strange world of the Japanese Paper Films Live Actions is the project that truly united the values of the Digital Humanities together with the historical research and art side of the project. The website will continue to populate and grow with new discoveries and their stories.