The Future of Life signature pavilion will house a “Future Theater,” which will allow visitors to experience and visualize what life and society will be like in 50 years’ time—in 2075. Tasked with producing scenarios for the experiences, stories, and exhibition environment shown in this Future Theater is CHOCOLATE Inc. (hereinafter “CHOCOLATE”). In this two-part feature, we speak to Chief Contents Officer and Creative Director KURIBAYASHI Kazuaki and Spatial Director and Planner OKAZAKI Ami to find out more about the unseen side of scenario production. In Part One, the two directors discuss scenario production from the perspective of understanding concepts.

Upending our ideas of androids and the future

Producer ISHIGURO Hiroshi and the seven Platinum and Silver Partner companies (hereinafter “co-creation companies”) participated in several co-creation meetings as part of the Future of Life Co-creation Project 2025. At these meetings, the co-creation companies decided to create a Future Theater, which would showcase their distinctive future concepts and product ideas*, and depict visions of the future in which androids and robots coexist. CHOCOLATE was tasked with producing these scenarios for the Future Theater; here, KURIBAYASHI relates how he was greatly motivated by the importance of this task.

*For more information about the co-creation companies’ product ideas, please click here.

KURIBAYASHI:“There can be few projects where companies with such diversity have come together to generate ideas and share their opinions. And, because the representatives of these companies possessed such incredible enthusiasm, it was impossible to prioritize what needs to be said. In other words, we had to brace ourselves as there was so much that had to be said, and there were so many issues that had to be resolved.”

To begin with, the members of the CHOCOLATE project team were unable to fully understand the themes of the pavilion—namely, the “amplification of lives” and “acquiring the ability to design the lives we wish to live.”

KURIBAYASHI:“When we first met Prof. ISHIGURO, we showed him a movie that encapsulated our vision of the future. He rejected it out of hand, denying that our image of the future could ever become reality. At that time, we had still not fully understood Prof. ISHIGURO’s ideas, or what he wished to express through the pavilion. So, we listened to presentations given by Prof. ISHIGURO and the co-creation companies and we engaged in dialogue with them. And as we did so, we came to understand the essence of the pavilion.”

OKAZAKI:“At the meetings with Prof. ISHIGURO and the co-creation companies, it felt as if parts of my brain I never normally use were being constantly stimulated. To paraphrase my colleague KURIBAYASHI, it was like we had been granted access to Japan’s most desirable lectures. My preconceptions were upended at every meeting, and I was overcome with a new desire to learn.”

Through these experiences, CHOCOLATE’s project members learned about the diversity of life and gained a new understanding of androids.

KURIBAYASHI:“One thing that Prof. ISHIGURO said left a particularly lasting impression on me: ‘let us say that a human becomes an android; if other people consider that android to be the same human, then we can say that human lives on even in android form.’ This changed my way of thinking. Now I think that if I had feelings of affection for an android, then I would consider that android to be alive; and I also think it would also be cool to pass on the entirety of the knowledge that I have accumulated in my life to an android, and thereby benefit future societies… He also made me realize that the development of such technologies would make humans even freer.”

OKAZAKI:“Previously, I considered androids to be qualitatively different to humans. So I was extremely surprised to hear that, in the future, humans will have the choice of living on as androids when their bodily existence has ended. But as I listened to everyone talking about this, it began to seem more plausible. In fact, it also changed me personally, too. It became natural to say things like—Mr. KURIBAYASHI, if you become an android, you will be able to help future CHOCOLATE employees out with their work, won’t you?—and to think things like—this is going to become reality when I’m 75 years old.”

Working and reworking scenarios to enable visitors to experience self-transformation

After learning more about the pavilion themes, the CHOCOLATE project members experienced self-transformations. A team of approximately 10 people was formed to produce scenarios about experiences, stories, and the Future Theater space itself, comprising creative directors, overall planners, scenario writers, experience planners, producers, as well as spatial directors from outside the company.

KURIBAYASHI:“We came up with lots of synopses of stories that would form the basis for the Future Theater experience, and whittled these down to a few of the best. Based on these synopses, we came up with countless ideas for how they could be incorporated into the experience. We then tentatively narrowed these ideas down, and considered how we could incorporate androids and the co-creation companies’ product ideas into the Theater experience and the movie. We carefully examined and assessed these ideas from three different perspectives—budget, quality, and how realistic they were—and identified points for improvement. Finally, we repeated this process over and over again to perfect the movie.”

Models created by OKAZAKI at the concept stage

In order to come up with more diverse ideas, the entire CHOCOLATE project team worked together to generate ideas and discuss various matters. Following a process that was at once extensive and precise, the team gave a presentation to Prof. ISHIGURO and his colleagues, who provided feedback. The project team assimilated their feedback, then returned with a revised movie. This process was repeated more than 10 times.

KURIBAYASHI:“Prof. ISHIGURO gave us a great deal of feedback on how we should understand androids and the future. Accordingly, we learned which elements of the movie we should prioritize, with what level of granularity we ought to depict the future, and what we ought to communicate to the visitors themselves.”

Prof. ISHIGURO was adamant that the Future Theater should not show visitors the future. Instead, he wanted to make them think about the future, and outlined some key questions for the CHOCOLATE project team to answer: “How can we elicit an emotional response from the visitors? and how can we encourage them to think more proactively about the future?” OKAZAKI observes that this was fundamental to improving their scenario production.

OKAZAKI:“Instead of proclaiming that ‘this is the future!,’ we wanted the Theater to give visitors space to think about things for themselves. So, we started looking for ways to create ‘negative space’ for the visitors to fill in.”

Embracing the enthusiasm of the co-creation companies

The CHOCOLATE project team created scenario production proposals using feedback from the ISHIGURO team, and presented them to the co-creation companies. They caused a stir.

“The co-creation companies were particularly keen to give us feedback on how to show their products. Two things left a special impression: first, there was an emphasis on how to communicate their ideas to visitors—that is to say, a lot of their feedback came from a visitor perspective; second, one co-creation company would also express opinions about the exhibition areas of other co-creation companies—areas, of course, in which their own products would not be shown. There was a palpable desire in all the co-creation companies to give serious consideration to how the entire pavilion could be improved. And we ourselves felt a responsibility to match their enthusiasm.”

For the CHOCOLATE project members, the scenario production process was a challenging experience. They deepened their understanding of the pavilion’s concepts, incorporated the future visions and product ideas of the co-creation companies into the scenarios, then refined these scenarios through constant dialogue with the ISHIGURO team. In Part Two of this feature, CHOCOLATE’s members discuss what elements they prioritized and how they refined the scenarios.

Interviewed: May 2024

Future of Life signature pavilion: the future in 50 years’ timeScript/Direction team

Creative Director: KURIBAYASHI Kazuaki, CHOCOLATE Inc.
Chief Video Planner: ONODERA Masato, CHOCOLATE Inc.
Chief Display Direction Planner: ISHIKURA Issei, meme
Spatial Director: OKAZAKI Ami, CHOCOLATE Inc.
Story Director & Theater Videos Director: TAKEBAYASHI Ryo, CHOCOLATE Inc.
Story Advisor: NATSUO Saeri, CHOCOLATE Inc.
Producer: NORO Daisuke, CHOCOLATE Inc.
Production Manager: SEKIHARA Takamasa, CHOCOLATE Inc.

「CHOCOLATE Inc.」
https://www.chocolate-inc.com/
CHOCOLATE Inc. is an entertainment company producing a future that moves, excites, and inspires. CHOCOLATE works to increase entertainment in diverse fields, including film, anime, characters, exhibitions, and advertising.