Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

24th April 2006

Number 77 - Being the Director

Last weekend I received my first proper interview, at a properly scheduled time, as a director. While being interviewed, I found it very difficult experience at times.

That is, the film isn't finished yet. The questions of what I'm doing, and what I'm trying to do, haven't been properly settled yet. In this situation it's difficult for me to talk with any certainty about them. If it was about my previous jobs, because I've got a relevant amount of experience there, I could talk about things in a much more different way. When I couldn't do that, I was reminded afresh that I am a beginner here.

As production enters its final phase, although the completion of the film has come in sight, on the other hand the worries have become more numerous. When I started, although there were a mountain of things that had to be thought about and that had to be done, nevertheless every day was part of a continuing series of discoveries. With the determination to somehow reach my goals, I gave myself up to the momentum. The feeling was like swimming, absorbed in what I was doing, in the middle of the current.

But with the coming of the new year the layout drawing work came to a halt. The requirement for me to draw things myself became less and, together with that, the time spent waiting became longer. At the same time, my level of understanding of specialist and technical things had increased a little, so I had become well aware of the limits of my current abilities.

As the number of completed frames piled up, I became increasingly attacked by doubts about whether I was giving my absolute best, and whether I could succeed in producing a high quality work that met the expectations of so many people.

Writing this is probably discourteous to the staff who really are giving their absolute best, and to all the people who are waiting expectantly for the publication of the film, but this is my unfeigned state of mind at the moment. That is why I am all the more resolved from here on in to make every effort I can [to make it a successful movie that will meet all these expectations etc.].