The Way of Manga
The Way of Film?!
The Way of Film?!
In his smash hit Voices of a Distant StarDVD extras, Makoto Shinkai says in an interview that the technology of today has brought animation into the realm of manga whereas one artists can do it and keep control of their story and artistic vision. I wonder if that is the only way the technology has changed the way animation can be made.
I had a thought, considering my recent post of how manga is done in Japan. Because manga is done on a weekly schedule in magazines like JUMP, it makes for a very unique style of storytelling. Stories can actually evolve and grow. That is to say, the manga artists doesn't design, storyboard and layout endless volumes of manga before starting. They work chapter by chapter, allowing the story to grow and change as they do. They may begin with an outline of their entire story planned, but according to Katsuhiro Otomo, in speaking of Akira, his outline changed many times over as the story grew, changed and evolved over the years.
As indie artists, able to create our films however we want to, or whatever way is best for the film, can we learn from and apply any of these methods to tell greater stories? Creating a film is a long process. When you're at a studio, you may spend a year or more perfecting one scene or sequence, not worrying as much on the bigger picture. When, on the other hand, you are writing and directing and animating, is there a way that lets you keep that same focus, over a longer period, covering any number of sequences?
There are things that happen in life that influence what you want to say and, perhaps, how you want to say it. How do you keep your project open to that? Have you ever been deep into a project and, at some point, due to all the things which you have seen and experienced, felt you needed something else? At the same time you dread deviating from your strict boards. Do you sometimes forget that as an indie artist, not bound by any system of creating art and content, you have the freedom to accommodate such change?
Here is what I will do for my next film. As always I will create a detailed "step outline" to plot the whole thing out. I will not, however, board the whole thing before beginning. I will approach it step by step, allowing for some boarding, some modeling, some animating and seeing some final content before moving forward. I will allow the project to be open to growth as I create it. This combined with what I wrote earlier about the boards being done in a Mirage project, at the final resolution, beginning an ever evolving compositing process of getting to the final scene, will make for a project that can obtain the rest of the benefits of filmmaking being brought into the realm of manga.
In other news, the all 3D anime film from Romanov, titled Urda, is apparently out on DVD today in the Japanese market. No word as yet whether it will be brought over here or not.
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