| 1. | (7 posts) | How Miyazaki Works |
| 2. | (5 posts) | "Le Voyage de Chihiro" Opens in France |
| 3. | (3 posts) | "Spirited Away" English Cast |
We looked at 44 posts by 76 different contributors.
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Actually asked last week, but answered this week by Ryoko Toyama, the question at hand is "How did Miyazaki work on Sen?", "It seems that he changed his work habit a little bit for "Sen".
Before "Sen, " the flow of work was:
For "Sen," Mr. Ando, the supervising animator did a lot of redrawing and Miyazaki-San just OKed them, even though Mr. Ando suspects that Miyazaki-San might not have been satisfied with them. . . . It is said that Miyazaki-San wanted to let the new blood in to his work this time, and tried to accept the type of animation which was not completely his style.
Mark Yates added, "if you are interested in how he works within his studio you might be interested in aquiring the 3 tape "making of mononoke" set, available in Japan on videotape and now in a 3-disc DVD in Japan.
It shows him:
- writing the story / drawing the genga(sp?) - on special paper due to the arthiritis in his hand
- deciding on colour schemes for different items (even down to the lump of gold ashitaka tries to exchange for rice in the market)
- correcting other animators works himself or sending them away to improve it once he's explained why its not working.
- staying till gone midnight (as do a lot of the staff) - and on one occasion taking his turn to prepare the "midnigt meal" for the large number of staff working that late!
- in the booth supervising the voice acting and talking to the actors.
- acting out bits of some scenes (Ashitaka's attack on the samauri) iirc to explain the correct way something should look
Joe Monson and Martin Kaegi both hawked their used copies of the VHS set.
"Le Voyage de Chihiro" opened in France, and Andrew Osmond sent in this report, "The film came out this week on a HUGE scale, at least in Paris. There were posters by the dozen, ranging from sets of pics on subway entrances to an enormous one I saw by Montparnasse. Press coverage is tremendous. I picked up ten magazines with lengthy Miyazaki articles, up to ten pages each. . . Cinemas here routinely show foreign films in both VF (Version Francais) and VO (Version Originale) forms. Several of the places showing Chihiro
have opted to show VF in the daytime and VO in the evening. . . I caught a 2pm screening in a multiplex in the Forum des Halles shopping
complex, near the Pompidou Centre. (There are _two_ cinemas showing it on the Champs-elysees, to give you an idea of its profile.) The cinema was pretty full, certainly in triple figures - not many kids, but plenty of twenty and thirtysomethings, both sexes. We'll have to wait for the trade papers to see how it does, but I'm sure it will post impressive figures for the first week.
And what did I think? Any judgement can only be provisional, as I could only follow some of the dialogue. I'm aware the film has been accused of confused storytelling on some points, though the key themes came through loud and clear (I think!). But... oh, let's not kid around. I loved it. I was staggered, entranced, moved and awed. I think Chihiro is perhaps the best _animated_ Ghibli character ever, her fear and uncertainty beautifully portrayed. . .
Will it play in America? I honestly don't know. The set-up might grab the vital child audience, especially as the central situation (real-
world child whisked to fantasy world) has a basic parallel with HARRY POTTER. There are many funny and charming scenes, and Chihiro is
instantly sympathetic in a way MONONOKE's Ashitaka wasn't. But the film is extremely frightening in places, perhaps too much for a 'children's cartoon' in the US market. There are moments of terror in Disney films, but not sustained for as long. I'd agree there are some very disturbing (but I think defensible) undertones to one plot-strand, and a gross-out set-piece that shows you don't need sex or violence to push acceptability. And it's a good half-hour longer than US viewers expect cartoon films to be.
But I'm hoping...
Julio Bruna wrote, "I just want to add that there are 200 copies of Chihiro in France in comparison with 85 for Mononoke, for example holywoodian movies get aproximatively 300 copies. So this is really a lot. I am pretty much impressed with that, and of course, they put two big 'posters' (bercy and monpartnasse). And I just come back from Paris, they were a lot of posters in the subway. That really impressed me."
Frederic Faucheux posted first-day results:
Rank Title Weeks Audience Screens
1. Le Boulet 1 37 640 51
2. Parle avec elle 1 17 152 46
3. Le Voyage de Chihiro 1 11 930 34
Zurui Chibi added, "To me, this movie is a demonstration of Miyazaki's capacity to use recurrent elements in his works, whereas those works are very different when compared (the struggle between mankind and nature, in fact, appears in only two of his movies, and it's not treated the same way in each one). Well, of course, it's far more, but at least I can write that (my words don't have the power to qualify Miyazaki's movies)"
I ripped an article from AICN that listed the voice actors for the English dub of "Spirited Away":
Daveigh Chase as the little girl Chihiro,
Jason Marsden as the boy Haku,
David Ogden Stiers as the Boiler Room Man,
Suzanne Pleshette as the Twin Witches,
Lauren Holly as Mom,
Michael Chiklis as Dad,
Susan Egan as Lin,
John Ratzenberger as the Bathhouse Manager.
The list isn't totally confirmed, but Marc Hairston did some reasearch and wrote, "I just looked up Daveigh Chase on IMDB and discovered she's the voice of the little girl Lilo in the upcoming Disney film "Lilo and Stitch". . . For those who were wondering who is Susan Egan (cast as Lin), she is best known as the original Belle in the Broadway version of "Beauty and the Beast" and played the voice (speaking and singing) of Meg in Disney's "Hercules". I found her website and she already has a news item up about playing Lin!"
Alvaro Suarez spots an article about releasing "Sen" in Spain (no release date). Ghibli Museum tickets now available from overseas, if you're in Asia. Hitomi Gehrig picks up a "can't put it down" book. Michael Johnson explains why we never get any scoops from Disney. R. Bernstein transmuted the original "Laputa" English script into a play-script form, it's now hosted on Nausicaa.net.
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