Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

21th April 2006

Number 76 - Days of Being Angry at Me

Although we adopted the ideas I wrote about in the last entry as the basis for picture design, there was almost no time to practically test them out. We had to go straight into actual production.

That was because the Summer opening date was already decided on the schedule. In the end, we went into production in September of last year. In regard to our mode of expression, we had to work on getting it right while pushing on with production at the same time, adding corrections as we went along. With that kind of start, problems with character shadows and background art style stuck with us for a long time after.

I think the reason Mr. Takeshige, the Art Director, gave his agreement to my ideas was that they coincided with a direction he wanted to try. It took quite a long time before we settled on a final style, but the efforts of everyone were worth it, and we were able to produce a world that possessed a certain atmosphere.
Those who watched the trailer will understand, I think. In one word it is a "deep" feeling. It has stronger colours and deeper shadow than any Ghibli film until now.

Because the background style is different to previous Ghibli works, the Colour Designer, Ms. Yasuda, has had a harder time than anyone else. Because of the nature of the background in this work, it made it difficult to use the light colours she was accustomed to using. Actually, this is the reason her name came up so many times before in this blog.

Leaving that aside, the finished pictures (although this is myself the director saying it) are totally beautiful. Not becoming garish but without losing colour either, there is an elegance on the screen. I really want to bow my head to Ms. Yasuda and express my gratitude for her passionate determination, despite being a great veteran, to create high quality pictures, and for her perseverance. As a result she gets angry at Mr. Takeshige and I on a daily basis though....