Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

5th January 2006

No. 12 - Even chatting is learning

Greetings for the New Year.

As was recorded in the production diary, I went back to work on the 3rd, but, in order to concentrate on production, I put this weblog on hold.

Until now I have written mostly about my "thoughts".
Reading over them again, maybe because this is the first time for me to write anything like this, Its seems like I put a lot of effort into it. From now, I am going to write about my daily activities just as they happen.

This was my day yesterday
- 9:00: arrived at work
- Following my daily routine, I sat down at the desk and first of all checked what had been done on which cut and how far it had progressed.
-From 11:00: I had two animation meetings with the key animators (We discuss, based on the storyboards, the direction of the overall work and the depiction of the characters for that particular cut, along with the light direction and how to add shadow. We call these 'animeet' for short[1])
- After 12:00: Lunch.
- From about 1:00: 1 animeet.
- Go to see Takeshige of the art division to check backgrounds.
- Check layouts (equates to camerawork in live action films).
- In the evening, chat for around 30 minutes with Ms. Yasuda of the ink and paint division.
- Check layouts until I go home at 9:00

I wrote "chat... ...with Ms. Yasuda", but she has been together with both Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata since the time of the film "Adventures of Horus Prince of the Sun" (68) and the T.V. series "Heidi, Girl of the Alps" (74- ). She doesn't just choose the colours of the characters, she's also judging how the whole finished screen is going to look.

The good or bad points about a characters colouring is not just a question of whether the colours are pretty or ugly, but of matching the background art and creating a complete world.

In other words, Ms. Yasuda's work is to meld the characters the animators create, and the backgrounds the art division create, into the best unified world possible. Then, as the schedule progresses, this becomes the work of Mr. Okui and the imaging department.

Of course, this is only possible because the base animation and artwork is there, but depending on Ms. Yasuda's work, the screen becomes glamorous or restrained.

Without any experience of animation, I still don't completely have the ability to judge the minute balance of the overall colours, so I take the chance to talk to Ms. Yasuda, with her vast experience (my image is of her saying 'Doing it this way will make it better') and get her to teach me.

For me, these very slight chats are an important learning experience.

Translator's Notes

[1]: 'Animeet' is my rendering of 'sakuuchi' (作打ち) which is a contraction of 'sakugauchiawase' (作画打ち合わせ) or 'animation meeting' / 'meeting about animation'.