is familiar to all readers of Supervision Xin Haicheng. Anitama's previous articles have also introduced Xin Haicheng's own background and past works, readers who have missed it may wish to refer to it.
However, in order to introduce "Your Name. "The creative background of ", we still need to follow Xinhai to make a brief review of his previous works.
Makoto Xin Haicheng, who became famous by relying on independent animation production, has no experience of learning in an animation production company. Since his debut, he has always created a series of works based on his own feelings. However, this technique reached its limit in "Five Centimeters Per Second". In order to find another way, Director Xinhai learned the technique of story creation and added elements of adventure drama to "Children Chasing the Stars". However, although Supervisor Xinhai feels good about himself, the responses received by "Children Chasing Lost Voices" are mostly negative.
After experiencing setbacks, Superintendent Xinhai paid more attention to the plot and carefully produced "The Garden of Words", which was condensed to 46 minutes. Thanks to the novel version of this work and the animation advertisements he produced for companies such as Z Club and Dacheng Construction, Director Xinhai finally had the confidence to create a story, and established a plan in July 2014, which is today a big success. The successful film "Your Name." ".
Director Shinkai, who wanted to create a story about adolescence, thought of many elements such as Comet. Another influence brought to him by "The Garden of Words" is that he is more inclined to refer to classical masterpieces. So Superintendent Xinhai sought inspiration from the Japanese songs, and he found a Japanese song by Ono Komachi:
"Long-term thinking will end in a deep sleep, and thoughts will fall into dreams. If you know it is a dream, don’t be a waking person." (Translated by Yang Lie )
Although the script has been revised several times, the plot has not changed much from the first draft. Especially the ending of the story has been decided as early as the beginning. Supervisor Xinhai said that apart from this ending, he didn't do what he wanted at all.
Supervisor Xinhai commented on "Your Name." "Is positioned as a purely entertaining movie. Although the communication problem between adolescent girls and those who are unforgettable at the time is always the theme of Director Xinhai, he will not let this theme go any further; but as long as he does not harm this theme, he can fully pursue the creation of a movie that will make the audience happy. Among them, the impeccable work, a work that made the audience feel bored without a minute in the 107-minute screening time, and maximized the spirit of service.
Although many people think that Superintendent Xinhai has always only known that he is creating the animation he wants to make, the actual situation is not the case. Director Xinhai certainly has the mentality to satisfy his own creative desires, but since the first theater work "Voice of the Stars", he has always had the motivation to pass it on to others. Every time he makes a new work, he tries to simulate the audience's perception in his head and on paper: Will the audience feel dull? Can you still be interested to continue watching even if you can't understand what's happening in front of you? After each work was released, he would reflect on his shortcomings in this regard.
For example, after "Five Centimeters Per Second" was released, although some people felt relieved after watching it, some people also said that they had been hit hard and would not watch it again. This animation is also known as the "depression film". It is certainly a good thing that the work can bring such a strong touch to people, but Supervisor Xinhai still wants to convey a more upward message to the audience.
In the past 14 years, Xinhai Supervision has been constantly trial and error. During the production of "Children Chasing Lost Voices" and "The Garden of Words", he would ask the opinions of people around him on scripts every week. And "Your Name. "Because of the participation of Genki Kawamura, a very independent producer, we have done more thoroughly in this regard. Supervisor Xinhai and the production team spent half a year in a meeting to discuss and revise the script. This made Superintendent Xinhai feel that although his nature has not changed, he has finally reached a goal that he had never achieved before.
"your name. "Is a film for the general public. From the very beginning, Superintendent Xinhai consciously created it for audiences who had never heard of him. So he did not consider whether his technique was used in the previous work, in "Your Name." "Introduce all of my masterpieces.
At the same time, the animation also uses a performance technique that Supervisor Xinhai has never tried. For example, one of them is the opening of a pose where the characters appear one after the other. Director Xinhai believes that in the eyes of hardcore movie lovers, this work is too strong in both the music and the plot rhythm. The theme song is a popular band like RADWIMPS to sing rock and roll, and it may not receive high praise. However, he does not hesitate to give up these core fans, but also wants to win a wider audience. So, in "Your Name. In ", Xinhai Supervision strives to provide the freshness, excess and sprinting that the public loves. In this sense, this title can be regarded as Supervisor Xinhai showing his determination.
In terms of controlling the rhythm of the story, Superintendent Xinhai also showed his unprecedented energy. Although "The Other Side of the Cloud, the Promised Place" and "Children Chasing Lost Stars" are both incapable of creating feature-length movies, but through several short and medium works, as well as writing novels and producing animated commercials, the director of Xinhai Accumulated experience in creating stories. Through the use of these experiences, Superintendent Xinhai wrote in "Your Name." "For the first time, I have the confidence that I can manage the length of a feature-length movie. Today, he can use a higher perspective than before to overlook the overall story of the story. For example, when the story is approaching the climax, Xinhai makes the audience laugh by describing a certain action that seems out of place by Taki, and relieves the tension. This is one of his methods of consciously controlling the progress of the story.
Limited by the space of 107 points, "Your Name." "The story cannot be exhaustive. Some of the deleted content was written by the novelist Shinta Ghana in the official collection of short stories "Your Name." In Another Side: Earthbound. Although there is no lack of important plots in these deleted content, Superintendent Xinhai believes that these deletions are made to make the work more exciting in the limited space, and he does not feel sorry for this.
For example, when the animation climaxes, it does not describe why Mitsuba's father listened to Mitsuba's request. Although some viewers feel that this weakens the rationality of the work and appears to be "all-communist", Supervisor Xinhai believes that spending time here to describe how Sanye persuaded his father will not make the animation better.
"your name. "Describes the emotions of Mitsuba and Taki. Therefore, the timeline of the story must also closely follow this theme, not too far from the topic. Although Supervisor Shinkai hesitated when creating, he thought that Taki wanted to save not only Mitsuba, but also everyone in the town, so it was necessary to transfer the theme of the story to saving the town at a certain point in time, but In the end, this practice was still abandoned. Anyway, as long as everyone is saved in the end, it will be fine. Of course Taki will also consider people other than Mitsuba, but the core of the work is always the love of young girls, desperately reaching out to get to know each other, but when they are finally touched, the other party disappears...other than that. Motivation should not be mixed into the work.
Xin Haicheng uses the "Storyboard Pro" software to make a video storyboard.
After completing the script, Superintendent Xinhai, as in "The Garden of Words", produced a video storytelling for other departments to produce the full film. The lines of all characters in the video storyboard are dubbed by Xinhai himself, and the sound effects such as footsteps are also added by him. Supervisor Xinhai worked 15 hours a day and worked hard for half a year before completing the video storytelling. Although his physical strength was devastated, his heart was always very excited, and he felt that he had made a great work. In an interview in the future, Supervisor Xinhai said with a smile that if he didn't consciously keep himself excited like this, he might not be able to survive this level.
The reason why so much effort has been devoted to the video storyboard is that after entering the stage of painting, it is collective labor. Thanks to "Your Name. "Using many old brands headed by Masaji Ando, Superintendent Xinhai has no say in many fields. So he put his dignity as a performer into the video storyboard.
It took a lot of twists and turns for the animation to invite Masaji Ando. Director Shinkai originally wanted to ask Tanaka to be your name. "As a painting supervisor. He and Tanaka once cooperated in the animated advertisement "Crossroads" of the correspondence education company "Z Club", and they felt close to Tanaka, so he contacted Tanaka and said, "I will be a long story this time, why can you come together? "Although Tanaka readily agreed and acted as a persona for the animation, he did not have time to take over the painting supervision of the entire work. Supervisor Xinhai had to find another candidate.
Just when he said, "The ideal thing is to invite someone like Mr. Ando", the senior animation from Ghibli immediately answered, "If you want Mr. Ando, I will be able to contact him," Xinhai was shocked. Jump-Masaji Ando, who is so admired, is just a junior who can be called "Kun" for these animations.
After hearing his explanation, Ando hesitated again and again, and it took three or four months before he finally gave an affirmative answer. After that, Ando went all out to paint.
At work, Supervisor Xinhai and Ando rarely talk directly, and even if they talk, they are all topics of work and painting. Although he invited Ando to drink with him several times, he was rejected five times in a row, and Superintendent Shinkai, who was greatly frustrated, had to give up. This is not because Ando has opinions on Xinhai, but because he devotes himself to work and is not willing to waste a minute and a second on unnecessary things.
The animation was officially produced for only one year until it was released. Considering the scale of the work, the painting time was very short. Ando saw this at the beginning, so he tried his best and worked hard from the beginning. Only in this way can an excellent work be made. His painting skills are as superb as him, and he still spends more time than anyone else, drawing the drafts one after another. It seems that the painting is very smooth, but the wastebasket is already full in the end of the day. Even if the drawings are already quite exquisite in the eyes of others, he will throw them into the wastebasket without hesitation.
Looking at the back of Ando's work, Supervisor Xinhai's impact can no longer be described as an understatement of "getting something". He didn't know before, it turned out that animation production must be treated with this attitude from the beginning. Although Ando's calm personality makes Xinhai feel like an unfathomable and terrifying teacher, it seems that as long as others are in the studio, the whole atmosphere will become tense.
In this way, the final picture of the painting group led by Ando surpassed Mr. Xin Hai’s expectations.
What impresses Director Shinkai most is the scene where Mitsuba and Taki are running to find each other in the climax of the story. The two characters are able to express such strong emotions just by running on the screen, which makes Director Xinhai amazed. As for the two characters who exchanged their souls to run with the body of the opposite sex, Supervisor Xinhai had never specifically imagined it, so he was also amazed by the performance of the screen.
In the analysis of "Your Name. When the success of "", Makoto Shinkai recalled that the lead actor Ryunosuke Kamiki once mentioned that Kamiki himself became interested in animation because of the 2006 "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya", which made him realize that Japan’s approach to animation has been changed. Animation is no longer something that only core fans can accept, and it is no longer a privilege exclusively for men.
The changes in the audience group of Xin Haicheng's own works also reflect this. Until the release of "Five Centimeters Per Second" in 2007, his audience was basically all men. By the time of "Children Chasing Lost Voices" in 2011, female audiences began to increase. To the "Your Name. ", male and female audiences can half open. Although he thinks that his works may indeed have elements that can please female audiences, more of them have kept up with the changes of the times.
In "Your Name. "After the show, Supervisor Xinhai used to be a guest on a TV show. At that time, a high school girl asked him "Why do you, a forty-year-old uncle, understand our girl's mood so much?". In fact, Superintendent Xinhai did not find young people to collect materials, and even at the beginning, he did not intend to describe the truth and reality. He even asked: Is there really such a thing as the reality of teenagers? How different is the reality of young people from the reality of their forty-year-old uncle? Supervisor Xinhai's distress in his teens, although the concentration has faded, it still makes him sad; the things that he was obsessed with in his teens, if not obtained now, will still feel glorious. Young people do not become adults overnight, but gradually become adults. Compared with the so-called age difference or gender difference, the difference between individuals is greater. Therefore, he believes that deliberately thinking about differences in ages and genders is meaningless.
When analyzing himself, Superintendent Xinhai also mentioned one point, that is, he believes that there is no patriarchy in his works. His father is a man who values authority very much, and he often puts things like "men have to be like this" and "life has to be like this". Although Superintendent Xinhai was deeply influenced by such a father, he has always had a rebellious mentality towards his father and did not like to be preached. So he is always annoyed when critics point out that "movies should be like this".
Some movies were created based on strong propositions. Supervisor Xinhai also believes that such works are necessary, but he himself does not want to make such works, and does not want to preach "young girls should be cultivated in this way" or "something like this" in the animation. The environment is good for mankind" Yunyun values.
Although "Your name. 》It was a great success, but Supervisor Xinhai was not dazzled by the joy of victory. He thinks, "Your name. The success of ”comes from the miracle lineup composed of top creators such as RADWIMPS and Masaji Ando. Supervisor Xinhai consciously couldn't make a second such work.
Speaking of the future development direction, Xinhai Supervisor hopes to make one or two more works that implement the spirit of service. "your name. "At present, it has attracted tens of millions of viewers to watch, which is more than a hundred times more than the previous work "The Garden of Words". Supervisor Xin Hai knows that most viewers recognize him as "the Xin Haicheng from "Your Name."". So if most viewers are looking forward to him making a story about a young girl, then he also feels obligated to respond to everyone's expectations.
But at the same time, Xinhai, as a creator, is also reflecting on whether he can only write works that young girls pass by. In the novel version of "The Garden of Words" written by him before, some chapters were written from the perspective of his mother, which gave him the first degree of self-confidence, thinking that there is something other than love between men and women in his heart. The themes can be tapped. Now he is also thinking about it.
Reference materials:
"Febri" October 2016 issue
"MdN" October 2016 issue of
Makoto Shinkai Supervisor "君の名は." No stage in を語った... "會画通に不親でも、大きな層を開いたかった"
＜君の名は. ＞Xinhai Supervisor "価値観観える映画、作りたくない"
Quanての人たちに楽しんでもらいたい、そう思ったまれこは名の君の名。』――Inspector Shinkai Makoto にインタビュー
------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------
attached :"your name. "Summary of excerpts and translations from interviews with relevant persons
. 1. Producer Genki Kawamura talks about "Your Name." 》Planning: From a small scale to a big stage
The latest feature-length animation film "Your Name" supervised by Makoto Shinkai. "Now it is an epoch-making piece in the gilded "Toho Summer Movie" that has created many popular Ghibli works and Hosoda Mamoru's works. Makoto Shinkai’s films have also jumped from a small scale like "Voice of the Stars" in 2002 to a large stage in 300 theaters in Japan. In addition to the high quality of the movie itself, the STAFF behind the scenes also contributed to this unprecedented grand occasion. Among the many STAFFs, Toho's producer Genki Kawamura can be regarded as one of the most intimate contacts with Makoto Shinkai.
First, let's briefly introduce the young producer Kawamura Genki. Born in 1979, he joined Dongbao in 2001 after graduating from university. In 2005, when he was only 26 years old, he acted as the planner and producer of the movie "Denche Man". 10 years of "Confessions" and "The Evilman" made him famous. In 11 years, he was awarded to the Japanese film system. The filmmaker's highest award, the "Fujimoto Award", is also the youngest among the winners of the award. In 12 years, Kawamura began to write the novel "If there are no more cats in the world" to make his debut as a writer. This novel was so popular that it was reproduced into a movie by Toho this year. Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House also introduced it to friends who are interested. Why don't you find it? In 13 years, he co-authored the picture book "Tinny Balloon Dog's Tale" with the highly controversial character Kenjiro Sano, which was adapted into an animation by NHK the following year and broadcast on the education channel. In 2014, his second novel "Billion Boy" began to be serialized, and his second picture book "Moom" was published (co-authored: Mashiko Yuki). This year "Moom" has been adapted into an animated short film, and "Billion Boy" has also been selected by Huace Film and Television, and is expected to be released in 2017.
"your name. "Genki Kawamura, one of the behind-the-scenes of ", is such a character.
Kawamura Genki and Shinkai Makoto met 14 years ago, when "Voice of the Stars" was just released, Kawamura, who was touched by "Voice of the Stars", met CoMix Wave Films president Noritaka Kawaguchi and reached an verbal agreement, hoping that one day Cooperate with Xinhai. However, after that, Kawamura began to develop the line of real-life movies, and it was difficult to have the opportunity to meet Shinkai, but after acting as the associate producer of "Wolf's Child Rain and Snow" under the supervision of Hosoda Mamoru, Kawamura took this opportunity as a turning point. The animation works have also started to increase. Subsequently, he took over the supervision of Hosoda Mamoru's "Children of Monsters" and the popular TV animation "Blood Blockade Battlefront", which gave him a firm foothold in the animation. As for Shinkai Makoto, since his last work "The Garden of Words", he has been in close contact with the Toho Video Division, and Kawamura felt the "inevitability" at this time.
With Hayao Miyazaki's announcement of her retirement from the feature-length animation film, the burden of "Toho Summer Movies" is also the turn of "Your Name." ". Some people may ask, "Toho Summer Movies" are all magnificent works, which is too incompatible with Xin Haicheng's authorship. Kawamura doesn't think so. He believes that Xinhai's "early trilogy": "Voice of the Stars", "The Promised Land Beyond the Cloud" and "3 Centimeters Per Second" are just right for the "masterpiece sense".
There have always been a lot of interchangeable themes in both Japan and overseas, and it can also be said to be one of the royal themes of entertainment movies. Kawamura also likes "Transfer Students" supervised by Obayashi Nobuhiko very much. How to transform from a "farce" into a youthful movie has become the biggest challenge for Director Xin Hai.
"A young girl who has left his hometown and has never covered his face but met because of fate."-"Your name." "Part of the conception of the story comes from the CM "Cross Road" produced by Xinhai Supervisor for Z Club.
What troubles Kawamura is how to turn the original plan conceived by Xinhai into a complete movie, that is, the three-act composition of the movie: setting → opposition → resolution. Kawamura believes that the producer's job is to make the creators more perfect cooperation, as far as possible not to "intervene" into the creation, and only a few comments on the script, such as how to connect between the scenes to achieve the effect of the movie In order to make "animation" a "movie", Kawamura also asked Xinhai to refer to Hosoda Mamoru's approach.
After Kawamura read the script that Supervisor Xinhai spent half a year running in, Kawamura sighed, "It is a masterpiece of the three early works of Supervisor Xinhai! It is feasible and will be popular!"
During the same period, the work of animation characters began to unfold. Earlier, Kawamura believed that the character design of animation was equivalent to the casting of a movie, and it was also the first impression of the audience when they chose to watch the movie. Kawamura felt that when talking about Ghibli, the first thing everyone thought of was Hayao Miyazaki’s painting style. When talking about Anno Hideaki and Hosoda Mamoru, they thought of Sadamoto Yoshiyuki’s personal design. On the contrary, when it comes to Shinkai Makoto, there is no fixed one. The style of painting is very troublesome. Kawamura has two candidates, one is Akio Watanabe, who has participated in many SHAFT works, and the other is Masaka Tanaka, who was used by Makoto Shinkai in the CM "Crossroads" of the Z Club. Kawamura thinks that Tanaka's design is perfectly matched with Xinkai's style. However, Tanaka refuses because he can't spare time. Kawamura refuses to give up. After that, Xinhai found Tanaka, and finally Tanaka compromised and took over the job of rensha. Later, Masaji Ando, known for his works by Ghibli, was invited to the "Super Painting Supervisor". Kawamura is sure that the modern character design of Masaka Ari Tanaka, combined with Ghibli's delicate paintings, will be able to give full play to Shinkai's talents.
Similarly, Kawamura believes that music also accounts for a large proportion of Makoto Shinkai’s works. The theme songs of "5 Centimeters Per Second" and "The Garden of Words" are from the request of Supervisor Shinkai himself, and this time is no exception, except In addition to the theme song, RADWIMPS even arranged the entire drama companion.
Kawamura is planning "Confession", "Peach Blossom Period" and "Boom Man." "I also tried to file a case with music as the center, but I never knew where to start. When Kawamura asked Xinhai, "What kind of music do you like?" The name of RADWIMPS emerged from Xinhaikou, and Kawamura immediately realized it. This is exactly "Your Name." 》The music you need. And even more coincidentally, RAD’s Yojiro Noda and Kawamura are often in contact. Kawamura sent an e-mail to Noda on the spot, and Noda immediately replied, “I’m a diehard of Director Shinkai!” That’s how music matters. It was done in two seconds.
At this time, Kawamura's remaining consideration is how to make Shinkai Makoto, a small-scale independent filmmaker, step onto the big stage of 300 theaters in Japan. The rest of the work in the later period is given to these powerful creators with full power and confidence.
In the next few years, we will wait and see what kind of sparks there will be between the producer of Kawamura and the director of Xinhai.
2. Character Design Tanaka Shoka and Ando Masaji talk about "Your Name." 》Painting: Characters that only these two people can design
With "Your Name. "The popularity of the movie, Masaji Ando and Masaka Tanaka, the two character design and painting supervisors are also known to everyone. In fact, when the film’s production staff first released it, I thought that this was the strongest painting team since Shinkai Makoto’s animation. The final feature film The quality of his paintings also surpassed all previous works of Makoto Shinkai. Coincides with "Your Name. "On the occasion of the release, you may wish to use this article to get to know these two industry giants in more depth.
Tanaka Masaka, born in 1976, is an animation original artist and illustrator. Served as the character design and painting supervision of works such as "Tutor Reborn!", "Dragon and Tiger", "Apocalypse", "Unheard of Flower Names", and theatrical animation "Heart Call". It is well-known for its characteristic drawing handle.
Masaji Ando, born in 1969, is an animation original artist. Born in Ghibli, at the age of 28, he took up the role of supervising the painting of Ghibli theatrical animation "Princess Mononoke". It is not easy to work in the master Ghibli studio. Apart from the work of Ghibli, he often participates in Jin Min Supervising the works, he has served as the painting supervisor of "The Godfather of Tokyo" and "Red Pepper", and his level is undoubtedly the top in Japan.
From encounter to cooperate
fact, Tanaka and Xinhai first recognize that asked a blessing Nagai Laroche, in the "Garden of Words" and "Movie unheard nickname" open time Tatsuyuki Nagai and Makoto Shinkai had a Talking about Tanaka, Nagai recommended Xinhai to meet Tanaka, so afterwards, with the help of the seiyuu Yuye Freedom (Yuye just happened to be the protagonist of the two films at the same time), the four people mentioned above eat After a meal, it was at this time that Xinhai talked about making the Z meeting advertisement "Crossroads", so he invited Tanaka to participate in the production. Tanaka just happened to be free, so he agreed, so Tanaka will have the first time with Xin Haicheng. After a cooperation, the response was very good. Xinhai also liked Tanaka's style very much, so he promised to make a full-length animation next time he has the opportunity.
To the "Your Name. "When the plan was finalized, Xin Hai invited Tanaka from time to time to participate in scripting meetings, and wanted to ask Tanaka to be a character set again. It happened that Tanaka was working on the theater version of "Heart Call", and he couldn’t get out of it, so he refused at first. Tanaka doesn't really want to be a person alone, and be responsible for other people as a supervisor. However, under Xinhai's repeated requests (character design alone is enough, according to Xinhai, the script was made on the premise of Tanaka's character), and finally accepted.
Xinhai commented that Tanaka's style has the charm of hand-drawn animation. Characters with a sense of focus do not need too strict three-dimensional integration. Appropriate flaws are also one of the charms of hand-drawn animation.
And Masaji Ando is a person whom Makoto Shinkai has always admired. At the age of 28, Masaji Ando served as the painting supervisor of Ghibli's "Princess Mononoke", and later as the painting supervisor of "Spirited Away", these two works are in Japan The box office is a big success, there is no doubt that the top level original artist. Makoto Shinkai admires Ando's performance in the works "Tokyo Godfather" and "Red Pepper" supervised by Konto. The relatively real people can show some exaggerated facial expressions that are almost broken, such as spitting speech. At that time, CoMix Wave Films (a company of Shinkai Makoto) happened to have a member who had worked at Ghibli, so he used him to contact Masaji Ando. At that time, Tanaka had already completed part of the character design, so he took it together.
Masaji Ando happened to be working on "Hundred Days Red" when he accepted the invitation, and he didn't immediately agree. He felt that the works he was responsible for were more "rustic", and he deliberately pursued the beauty of the characters. There are not many jobs and no confidence. Restore the beautiful part of the character design by Tanaka Shogun. However, later I met Honda on the set of the "Japan Animator Expo". Honda's strength can take into account the beauty of the characters and ensure the sense of reality. He can balance it very well. After seeing Honda, Ando felt that he should also go. After pursuing it, he took "Your Name." "work.
The two are in charge of character design together
because Xinhai and Tanaka have a good relationship and trust each other. Basically, as long as Xinhai puts forward the request, Tanaka will be able to complete it smoothly without much modification. For example, the heroine Sanye, the more important thing is "Group button" and "hairstyle", these two points can be regarded as an important clue to the plot. These requirements alone Tanaka successfully completed the heroine's character design. In one pass, how the heroine's hairstyle changes, "Group button" side It was Tanaka's idea.
The "group button" appearing in the promo will be an important clue to the film and also the headline of the heroine Sanye.
After cutting the hair short, tie it to the side.
However, it took a little time to design the male protagonist, because the male protagonist Taki is a child who grew up in the city. How to behave like a city person? He started to spend a little thought on the hairstyle, but it always feels wrong. Yes, I finally became an ordinary high school student who seems to have little characteristics now.
Tanaka was very surprised when he learned that Masaji Ando was also involved in this work, because he thought he would not be able to invite such a big name, and he was worried that his own person would not be worthy of such a big-name painting supervisor. At this time, the character design has also been carried out for more than half, and Tanaka also began to carefully clear the line to decide the final version, but considering that Ando will also spend time studying Tanaka’s persona, it is better to give Ando a little power. Of course, this is also for Ando’s strength. Trust, so Masaji Ando is responsible for the final formulation of the detailed setting table and the arrangement of how to express the changes in the character's performance after the body swap. For this reason, both of them were included in the character design (キャラクターデザイン) in the STAFF table in the last movie.
Part of the setting table made by Masaji Ando.
In addition to admiration or admiration for Ando’s excellent performance, Xinhai Supervisors didn’t talk much at work. When Ando handed over the final setting table to Xinhai, many of the contents exceeded Xinhai’s imagination, and Xinhai did not need to propose anything special. need. Moreover, Masaji Ando is even more powerful by relying on his contacts to invite a vote of first-class original paintings to participate in this work, such as Kase Kazuya and Okinura Keiyuki, who were the three great gods of IG at the time.
The storytelling that Shinkai drew originally took into account the original artist he can hire, so there are no very difficult shots in the control. Tanaka's character set and Ando's acting skills are enough. However, Xinhai didn't expect this to be enough for Ando, and will always do better. This is probably the difference in strength, that is, the difference between those who can do it and those who can't. After seeing the feature film, Tanaka also said that he moved very well. Ando definitely spent time studying it and said that he learned about Ando's strengths.
In the eyes of the two people, Xin Hai Supervisor
Tanaka thinks Xin Hai Makoto is a very authoritative person. Relatively speaking, Nagai Long Xue always has all kinds of materials on hand, and he spends time on how to organize these things, and Xin Hai Makoto is from scratch. I started to do it myself, writing my own scripts and drawing the storyboards, all by myself. This aspect is also one of the differences between the supervision of TV series animation and the supervision of animated films. In addition, Makoto Xin Hai is still a very humble person, because he has never been in touch with traditional TV animation, so he respects traditional animators very much.
Ando feels that Makoto Shinkai made his debut as a personal animation. Relatively speaking, personal animation is difficult to sell, but personal animation has some good points in personal animation. This time, "Your Name." "It can be regarded as the work of Xin Haicheng slowly shifting from a personal animator to a traditional collective animation. It does not mean that the taste of personal animation has faded in this work, but the advantages of the two have been combined to make a better work. .
3. Takumi Tanji, Ryoko Majima, and Cheng Watanabe talk about "Your Name." 》Art: a new level of background and character integration
When we talk about Xin Haicheng and his works, "art" is absolutely impossible to bypass. In Xinhai's works, the amount of information and emotions expressed by the background art are often even more important than the characters. The painters in Xinhai's works are often changed with the works, but the art team is basically composed of familiar people. This time "Your Name. In "There are three art supervisors: Tanji Takumi, Majima Ryoko, and Watanabe Cheng. They will introduce us to "Your Name." "Artistic related content in ".
Danji briefly introduced the definition of fine art in animation. Generally, art is also called BG (Background), which is the work of making the background behind the character. The animator will draw a composition layout for each lens' space, perspective, and character position. Then the art staff draw the background based on the composition. In addition, in film production, the "impressionboard" sketches used to construct the world view of the work are also the work of art. Watanabe joined his personal thoughts. He believes that the art in animation is simply to arrange an indispensable stage for the acting of the character. According to the consideration of supervision and performance, it is the job of the artist to create a stage suitable for the role to perform.
On the basis of explaining the definition of fine art, Tanji expressed that they hope to create a more beautiful impression of the rural town "Shimori" where the heroine Sanye lives in the work than the actual Japanese countryside. So I deliberately controlled the dark feeling and added many popular elements such as Western architectural style, Japanese architecture, and then the landscape including the lake. These are the characteristics of the department, slightly inclined to fantasy settings. They think that the slightly unrealistic part will be more interesting for animation.
For the home where the heroine Mitsuba lives, Hiroshi Takiguchi, the art supervisor of "The Garden of Words", first drew the sketches of the room layout and other art settings, and then the background drawing was based on this and slightly changed. The difference between this and the usual animation process is that the general animation will first make the art settings, and then consider how to act in the background, but Xin Haicheng's approach is to first consider what to play, and in turn requires the art to set the room. For example, he had requirements for the scene of Sanye looking in the mirror, so he changed the position of the mirror in the original sketch. For Xinhai, the stage is not fixed and can be changed according to the composition.
Similarly, the final house setting was modified with reference to the fact that there are no males in the hostess’s home. For example, there will be no male-use items, and there are not enough staff so the courtyard is relatively rough and so on. Coupled with the long history of the hostess's family, there are unused rooms while the house is old. Combined with these Xin Haicheng decided to set the house of the hostess's house as a hotel style. Then, after the art supervisors understand the supervision requirements, they will send the details of the interior settings to the art staff. In order to get a sense of reality, they deliberately gave the young people’s room to the young staff to set up. In fact, Mitsuba’s room was set by young women, while the male lead Taki’s room was set by Watanabe and Tanji. .
Compared to the more departmental guards of natural scenery, Watanabe is responsible for most of the art in Tokyo. Although not as good as Mitsuba’s yearning for Tokyo, Watanabe’s impression of Tokyo is also gorgeous and shiny, and the drawing and setting are very smooth. Tokyo is very beautiful in Watanabe's eyes, whether it is the shape of buildings, etc., or the shape of shadows and the reflection of the sky clearly outlined by the overall linear style. Watanabe confidently stated that he had successfully encapsulated the characteristics he had accumulated in his cooperation with Shinkai into his feelings about Tokyo. Although he does not know whether he is close to Xinhai's ideals, he hopes that his love for Tokyo can be successfully communicated.
Ma Dao said that because Tokyo is described too shiny, it may cause the department to look gloomy and dim. The colors of the Japanese countryside and natural landscapes are too dark and heavy, and it is difficult to express the bright yellow-green temperature. Danji further proposed that the current fine arts use digital techniques to draw. Although digital technology is good at expressing hard things, but for soft things, such as landscapes, it is easier to express with brush paints like Ghibli. Because Tokyo is more inorganic, it is very suitable for the use of digital technology.
After clarifying the different styles of the two stages, Majima said that the contrast between the rural and urban landscapes was further exaggerated. This is because when she first observed the city with Taki’s eyes after exchanging her bodies, the view of Tokyo in her eyes was definitely better than the actual one. Tokyo is even brighter. Therefore, when the two exchange bodies, the art will also modify the color distribution, so that the bright impression of Tokyo and the rich green of the countryside can shock them even more. This is also the requirement of Superintendent Xinhai, hoping to make the mood of the character affect the impression of the scenery. Of course, this doesn't mean something as simple as a dark mood and a dark background, but sometimes a very beautiful scenery is deliberately used.
Just like Xinhai’s request, "Your Name." The background of "is neither purely to set off the character, nor is it too strong to overwhelm the character. The fusion of the background and the character has reached a fairly high level. Tanji said that although he did not have much knowledge about character painting, he believed that there was also the power of painting supervisor Masaji Ando. Ando's paintings are very clear about the arrangement of people and objects in the space, so they fit the background quite well. So although the art party dare not say that they do not want the background to lose to the character, but at least hope that the background drawing will not drag the character.
Danji went on to say that the background of the past works of Xinhai is indeed stronger, and "Your Name." "Does not bring the background to the forefront, but the action of the character is the most eye-catching and leads the entire movie. Therefore, there is no character in the first shot of the falling comet fragments in this work, and the card that relies purely on the power of the background is the feeling of the past Shinkai Makoto. Danji himself liked that card very much. He felt that perhaps because the leading role of the background was weakened this time, this background-based card made him particularly happy.
In the actual process of drawing the background, Danji said that he would avoid the common gradual effects drawn solely with software tools, and Watanabe also said that they would not adopt the common method of expressing all shadows in grayscale in ordinary animation. This is because the simply drawn gradients appear to be very dirty, and the shadows are more affected by the ambient light in the sky, so they actually use cyan (here you can also refer to another Miki Yoko's article on color design). In this work, the artists will first think about the position of the light source in the landscape, instead of simply being satisfied with the tool operation of mechanized work. For each scene, they will consider the incident direction of the sun, the condition of shadow generation, the brightness in the shadow, and other comprehensive factors, and draw them one by one. This is also because Xin Haicheng's work gives a long working time and does not need to draw hundreds of pictures a month, so there is almost no mechanized brainless work in the entire production team.
And "Your Name. "None of the three art supervisors came from the traditional animation industry. For example, Watanabe originally thought that participating in Xinhai's works could learn the practices of the animation industry. As a result, after taking on other works later, he discovered that Xinhai is the outlier in the animation industry. Although art supervisors are uneasy about their uniqueness, which is different from ordinary animation art, it may be because of their unique identities that they can absorb and learn from the traditional animation art supervisor Hiroshi Takiguchi. It can also bring a slightly different feature from ordinary animation to this work. This may be "Your Name." "The reason why the art style is so excellent.
4. Xin Haicheng and RADWIMPS talk about "Your Name." "Music: The crystallization of lovesickness and love is
talking about "Your Name." "At the time, what can’t be ignored is the music performed by the rock band RADWIMPS. RADWIMPS composed 26 songs for the film, including four vocal songs. Every key scene in the film, there will be the singing of the orchestra's lead singer and guitarist Yojiro Noda, hitting the audience's tear ducts. Some comments even think that this work might not have achieved such a great success without RADWIMPS.
RADWIMPS was founded in 2001 and its name comes from English slang. "RAD" means "cool" and "handsome"; "WIMPS" means "wasteful". The combination of two words with incompatible meanings shows the duality of human nature. As the name suggests, RADWIMPS’s music style is deeply influenced by Western rock music, the lyrics are full of philosophical colors, and the superb performance of the members has won them praise from Japanese music lovers. Supervisor Shinkai Makoto himself is one of the many fans who was taken away by the music of RADWIMPS.
Before meeting RADWIMPS, Xinhai always felt that they were great people in the distant world. Even if you can hear their singing, you can't imagine the other party and yourself living in the same world. Even after meeting with RADWIMPS and even after working closely with them, Xinhai’s impression of them has not changed. They still feel that they live in another space, on another planet, and are able to communicate with each other. The well-known secrets of the universe-For Xin Hai, whose fanci mentality is deeply rooted in his bones, it takes a lot of courage to imagine that he can cooperate with them.
On the RADWIMPS side, although bassist Yusuke Takeda was in high school, he had watched Shinkai’s "Voice of the Stars" and was amazed by Shinkai’s ability to produce such high-quality animations; but no matter where in the orchestra A member never thought that he would play music for an animation.
Xin Haicheng took a group photo with RADWIMPS.
Shinkai Makoto and RADWIMPS, who seem to have no intersection, are able to achieve cooperation, thanks to Toho's producer Kawamura Genki. When Shinkai and Kawamura talked about the topic of music, Kawamura asked which musician Shinkai likes. Without thinking, Shinkai blurted out the name of RADWIMPS. Kawamura just met Yojiro Noda, so he picked up his mobile phone on the spot and contacted Noda on LINE.
In this way, Xinhai took the first version of the script and met with Noda in the reception area of the hotel for the first time. Noda originally knew Xin Hai’s work. After seeing the script, he immediately realized that this work is different from any of Xin Haicheng’s past works. It incorporates a variety of elements, is more complex than ever, and has a first reading. The incomprehensible depth at the time contained a wider world than in the past.
The two parties hit it off and confirmed their cooperation on the spot. After receiving the original manuscript in the fall of 2014, RADWIMPS spent more than a year and devoted all he could to "Your Name." 》Music tailored.
Noda thinks, "Your name. "Is a work that Xinhai has only created since his growth. It depicts a world free from shackles, contains the power to push people forward, and at the same time retains Xinhai's consistent love theme. Therefore, he also decided to make full use of the experience of reading scripts to write love songs that he has grown up to be able to sing. Noda compared this creative experience to the script and image he received from Xinhai after brewing in his heart, and then returning it to the other party in the form of music.
Three or four months after the start of construction, RADWIMPS distributed three demos of the music to Xinhai, including the theme songs "Movie ver." and "Supperkuru (movie ver.)". Xinhai, who had just started to draw the storyboard at the time, received the demo and was overjoyed, unable to sit and listen honestly, so he ran out the door wearing headphones. It happened to be raining outside at that time, Xin Hai ran in the rain while listening to the unfinished music, she was so excited that she shed tears.
What I wanted to express in a whole movie was summed up in such a simple and clear form in the first batch of music submitted by RADWIMPS. This is an unprecedented experience for Xinhai. For example, the lyric "I will struggle beautifully" in the song "Subekru" made Xinhai realize once again that what he wanted to do this time was such a movie.
To match the music of RADWIMPS, Xinhai also made drastic changes to the script. Since the time when I told Kawamura that I liked RADWIMPS, in Shinkai’s heart, their music has become "Your Name." "A key word in ". He began to consciously listen to the music of RADWIMPS, and how to use these music, combined with animation.
For example, the female protagonist Mitsuba and the male protagonist Taki swap bodies and face each other for a period of time. The finished animation uses "movie ver." as the background music. However, Xinhai added this paragraph to the script before he heard "Before, Before, and Before". He listened to RADWIMPS' "Jun and Sheep and Green", and rewritten this part of the script with the sense of walking and momentum of this song. In this scene, the two communicated by writing "Don't be Narcissistic" on their hands and "Stupid" on their faces. There was no initial script. It was all because Xinhai was listening to "Jun and Yang Toqing". ", will be added.
In order to match the worldview and scene of the work, RADWIMPS consciously got rid of its label of "band", boldly challenged the instruments that he would not normally use, and created a rich variety of music. So when Makoto Shinkai looked at the completed animation later, he began to wonder how many members RADWIMPS actually had.
According to the analysis of musician Hiriya Takano, in "Your Name." "In ", RADWIMPS has produced four different types of music:
a soundtrack centered on strings and piano and other timbres, with strong western music elements; a soundtrack
with a band playing but no clear melody atmosphere;
a guitar as the In the center, it emphasizes the soundtrack played by the
band ; the vocal song sung by the band that can be used as the soundtrack.
①The type of music is relatively rare in the past works of RADWIMPS, but it is the king of movie soundtracks, so RADWIMPS is "Your Name." "I have created a large number of ① types of music; on the contrary, I have always been good at ③ types of music, in "Your Name." Only 3 songs appeared in ". But at the same time, the relatively rare ④ genre song in the film soundtrack is in "Your Name. ”Is also a big hit. This makes "Your Name." "The music of ”has a strong sense of freshness whether viewed as a film score or as a RADWIMPS music composition.
In order to meet the diverse needs for music in different scenes of the movie, in addition to the drummer Tomohiro Yamaguchi who was recuperating due to illness, the three members of RADWIMPS participated in the creation of music, and were responsible for different types of music according to their personalities and talents. .
Among them, the band's bassist Takeda Yusuke participated in composing and composing for the first time. Takeda played the type ② music. He had to start with finding a synthesizer sound source suitable for the atmosphere of the scene, which took a lot of work.
And the more difficult thing is still behind. In the past, RADWIMPS’s music was the orchestra’s own works, as long as Yojiro Noda himself felt OK. However, the music created this time is part of Xin Haicheng's film work, and Xin Hai must nod his head. Several times, the members smugly handed in the music, but they were beaten back by Xinhai to rewrite it, which made them complain. Xinhai himself admits that sometimes, his demands on RADWIMPS can be described as difficult. Fortunately, Supervisor Xinhai himself also has musical literacy, and communicates with orchestra members smoothly. Even if they are required to rewrite, they can also give specific instructions, which reduces a certain burden on them.
At the same time, RADWIMPS was deeply touched by Xinhai's passion and dedication to his works. Several times, Xinhai has given OK instructions to the music received, but Noda offered to write better, which made Xinhai also confused.
Recalling this experience, Noda said, from the perspective of budget and revenue, it was like "Your Name." "The relationship between movies and music like this is simply self-defeating, and most people shouldn't do it. From the perspective of RADWIMPS, if in "Your Name." "After nearly a year's investment, the band may be abolished. But they took care of activities other than animation, and it took a year and a half to finally complete "Your Name." "Music.
Sometimes, RADWIMPS handed in the music, and as a result, the scene with the music was extended by another 10 seconds. Although Noda is also worried about how many more pictures the production staff have to draw for these 10 seconds, it is very hard, but now that they have made a decision, these 10 seconds are also very precious to them, and they also hope to be able to use it. The extra 10 seconds add more brilliance to the animation music.
"your name. "The finalized music was well received by the audience, and Yojiro Noda also believed that he had benefited a lot from this collaboration, thus creating a special work.
Noda said, it was because RADWIMPS failed to put "Your Name." "To produce such an excellent work completely as one's own work." If they want to make a work like this and move towards the goal they set in order to satisfy themselves, they will never reach this goal. However, in this cooperation, they felt the gravitation from outside, and they had to move towards the goal whether they wanted it or not, which gave them the motivation to use their potential that they had never discovered. He wanted to use his abilities for someone other than himself, and he could do so much, which made Noda very happy.
In the view of music writer Chai Nadian, although Xin Haicheng and RADWIMPS are in different fields, their works are highly overlapping in depth. Whether it's Xinhai's animation or RADWIMPS's music, they are committed to extracting the most pure emotions through carefully crafted performance and delicate pictures. Both focus on the irreplaceable, one-to-one relationship between "you and me", intercepting the breathtaking brilliance it reflects under the spotlight, and transforming it into their own works.
Although Xin Haicheng would not use so many beautiful words to brag, he also realized the similarities between himself and RADWIMPS. The reason why he is fascinated by the music of RADWIMPS is precisely because of the heart-pounding tingling in their songs, as well as the impact of connecting small personal feelings with large-scale phenomena. In fact, the charm of Xin Haicheng's own works lies here.
With a deep understanding of each other and close cooperation, Xin Haicheng and RADWIMPS are "Your Name." "The splendid music world polished out can be said to be the crystallization of the love made by heaven.
RADWIMPS "Your name. "The original soundtrack album cover
V. Miki Yoko talks "Your Name." 》Color design: Free and complex color expression
is a major element of Xin Haicheng's style of work is the portrayal of light and shadow, and the most important thing in the portrayal of light and shadow is the "color design" of the character, as well as the additional light effect depth of field after the character and background are synthesized. "Photographic engineering" with special effects. "your name. "The head of color design, Yoko Miki, has been involved in the color design of Xinhai's work since "Children Chasing the Stars". In this work, she is in charge of color design alone and also participated in photography. She will introduce us to the peculiarities of the color design and photography process in Xinhai's works.
Since Xin Haicheng was born in independent animation production, the production process of Xin Hai's works is different from ordinary animation, especially in the early and late stages. Therefore, Miki himself has only experienced repeated trial and error in various works with Xin Haicheng, and is not clear about the work content of the color design of ordinary animation. But in Miki's understanding, color design is mainly to build the role of color. Then this position must combine the worldview and art background to comprehensively consider the color. Therefore, in the early stage of production, she will work with the supervisor and the art supervisor to investigate the color display methods of the scenes in the film one by one.
In the past works of Xin Hai, Cheng Xin Hai made the color drafts himself, and Miki assisted in the refinement. This time, "Your Name." "The draft was directly produced by Miki at the beginning. Although Miki has had the experience of designing colors from scratch in short stories and advertisements in the past, this is the first time for a long story. In addition, with many characters, it took a long time. For "Your Name. ", Xin Haicheng’s color design requirement is to hope that the characters have a variety of colors with high chroma as much as possible. This is different from the past Xinhai works such as "The Garden of Words", "Yes" pays more attention to the expression of reflected light. your name. The technique in "is closer to ordinary animation.
Xinhai's color requirements are first based on the audience of the film, which is adolescent girls. Therefore, the color tone of the work is set to be bright, trying to make the characters have a modern sense. Therefore, the color of the heroine Sanye's pajamas is unexpectedly bright, and the stationery is also colorful. What's interesting is the design of the waistcoat color in Mitsuba's uniform. Originally, in order to select the final color, Miki proposed several color versions. However, under the suggestion of Makoto Shinkai and Masaji Ando, they decided to use them all. The end result is that the colors of the vests of the characters are different, and the same characters have different colors on different occasions. For example, the vests worn by the heroine of the male and female exchanges are different colors. This is because Xinhai believes that too monotonous colors are likely to produce a uniform "urban feeling", while the images of Sanye and the country should be more free and require richer changes. In addition, ordinary animations also need to give different color changes in various environments such as daytime sunshine, evening, night field, night outdoor lighting, and the keyword "dusk" in this work. The color model of the character can be said to be extremely complex and diverse.
The character color design is already so complicated, but Xin Haicheng's works will occupy a more important position than ordinary animation works. So specific to the role in each scene, the color at that time must also match the environment in the scene. Among them, it is naturally white that has a particularly strong reflection on ambient light. For example, white will naturally turn yellow in the sun. Xinhai also specifically instructed Miki to be more careful with white. The more interesting contrast is the contrast between urban and rural white. For example, the shade of the male protagonist Taki’s shirt is closer to blue because he is in the city, while the shade of the three-leaf shirt in the country is due to the green. The environment and the sky tend to be cyan. According to Miki, this way of designing colors according to the scene is Xin Haicheng's thinking since "The Garden of Words", and it is also a method that I am afraid not to adopt in other animation productions.
However, even with such a complicated color setting, Miki further stated that the setting is only a basis, a draft. Since Xinhai's work itself is very attentive in photography, including depth-of-field focus, Xinhai is very aware of the real camera lens, and will give instructions on the picture according to the actual shooting effect every time. The color design is no exception, and the color-finished picture will be further adjusted during the photography stage. And it is different from the overall color modification done in the photography process of ordinary animation, but the color of each part is modified separately.
In the ordinary animation process, the color parameters determined by the supervisor, the art supervisor and the color design after consultation are not adjusted during the photography stage. This is because from a historical point of view, color design belongs to the preliminary process before painting, while photography is in the later process, and the two themselves are far apart. In addition, the celluloid animation before entering digital production is impossible to change the color individually after coloring, which leads to the culture of "change color" does not exist in the traditional animation process.
In Xinhai's work, the color parameters are adjusted individually during the photography stage, and this color adjustment is applied to almost all shots. Including details such as pupil highlights and chroma, the final effect after the adjustment of the details is very different from that before the adjustment. Miki said that due to the final adjustment of the photography stage, the color design she handed over was only a basis, a draft, and the person in charge of photography for each scene would grade according to their own judgments. But this originally did not belong to the scope of photography work, making photographers quite confused.
On the left is the usual color design with special effects such as backlighting and depth of field, and on the right is the film version with fine-tuned color and additional photographic effects. After adjusting the color of the skin and pupils, the light color becomes blue, showing the light feeling of the morning.
The confusion of photographers is not unreasonable, because there are no clear rules, it is quite difficult to adjust the color based on their sensibility. In order to solve this problem, Xinhai will personally make a final photographic effect as a reference for scenes that are difficult to color. In fact, he picked a major shot in almost all scenes to make a color reference. Of the 1,650 cards in the entire film, I am afraid that more than 300 cards were produced by Xinhai himself. Miki said that this actually caused a considerable burden on the production schedule, and there have been many discussions on the revision of the plan because the schedule was not in time. Fortunately, it finally passed safely.
Miki pays tribute to Xin Haicheng's persistence and the "greed" that tries to cover his own sensibility in the whole work without omission. Xinhai did all the parts that he would not compromise on by himself, and many freelancers and outsiders were used in the photography process this time. They all said that they can understand that only such persistence can produce such a powerful picture, but this is also based on having sufficient time. How to integrate this practice into the process without compromising quality will be a very difficult subject. But Miki further stated that even the current finished product may only be qualified for Xinhai, and he still compromised in some places. Of course, Xin Haicheng's strict requirements do not mean that he is just talking. In actual work, he happily reviewed and adopted the opinions of other producers, which allowed Miki to put forward more risky opinions and suggestions. This makes Miki have the pleasure of co-production, and it is also the reason why she loves this animation production company.
6. Tachibana Taki seiyuu Takanosuke Kamiki talks about works: from fan to starring
■Character introductio
View more about Your Name. reviews
