Film and Anime Development
I am developing Memory For Sale as a film and anime project about memory, identity, pressure, and the hidden forces that shape what people remember, repeat, protect, and trade away.
Prepared for MacDowell
Film, anime, jiu-jitsu, and community practice for MacDowell.
I make work about memory under pressure: how people carry fear, discipline, identity, repetition, violence, care, and belonging in the body. My current practice brings together film, Japanese anime development, martial arts community, and the daily discipline needed to finish ambitious creative work.
Selected practice
One practice, three connected bodies of work.
Jiu-Jitsu and Self-Defense
My work comes from years inside jiu-jitsu and self-defense communities. The training room is where people rehearse fear, trust, hesitation, discipline, recovery, and belonging in real time.
Studio Practice and Production
I build a practical studio practice around research, field notes, collaborators, drafts, and production decisions so the work can move from lived experience into a finished public form.
Primary project
Memory For Sale
Memory For Sale is the project spine I am developing now. It is a film and anime world about what happens when memory becomes unstable, valuable, and contested. The story lets me work with questions I keep returning to: identity, violence, loyalty, control, spiritual hunger, and the need to become someone else without losing yourself.
- Film and anime development with Gonzo K.K. and a Japan-facing visual language.
- Research into memory, identity, pressure, and the body.
- A public-facing practice that can become writing, image work, talks, workshops, and finished film.
Movement and community
The training room is a place where people tell the truth with their bodies.
Jiu-jitsu and self-defense rooms are where people meet pressure directly. They show how fear changes posture, how trust is earned, how confidence is built, and how a community can teach someone to become less helpless.
That is why movement is not just subject matter for me. It is a way to listen. It gives the work contact with real people, real stakes, and the discipline of showing up again after discomfort.
Working method
I turn pressure, research, and lived material into finished work.
My process is practical. I gather story material, visual references, conversations, training-room observations, and production notes, then organize them into scenes, images, public writing, and clear next steps.
I care about the result being useful outside my own head. A residency should help the work become more precise, more public, and more honest.
Why this fit
Interdisciplinary film, animation, writing, and movement research.
This page frames the work as an interdisciplinary practice with a clear artistic question: how memory changes when it is carried through the body, through images, through community, and through story.
Materials
Current work areas.
Primary projectMemory For Sale
Film and anime development, visual research, story world, and production packaging.
Community practiceMovement and Self-DefenseJiu-jitsu as embodied research into pressure, safety, confidence, and social trust.
Working methodResearch to Finished WorkA disciplined practice for turning notes, conversations, and lived material into clear creative output.
A fuller CV, reel, project packet, and direct work samples can be provided with the application materials.
Contact
Michael Plaster
Film, anime development, jiu-jitsu, self-defense community, and practical studio practice. Based in the United States and available for international residencies under program conditions.