| 1. | (12 posts) | Yakkul - Terrible Movement |
| 2. | (2 posts) | Nausicaa Books and Model Kits |
| 3. | (3 posts) | "Making of MH" - Part Two? |
| 4. | (5 posts) | (lack of) History of Studio Ghibli |
We looked at 47 posts by 33 different contributors.
Monday's are turning out to be a terrible write-up day. Looks like February is ending on Wednesday, so I don't expect any delays next month.
Andrew Osmond wrote, "An acquaintance of mine is very critical of Yakkul's movement in Mononoke, describing it as 'wooden,''fake-looking' and 'without a proper understanding of anatomy.'. . . To get a comparison, I rented out Bambi again. Yes, the movement in Bambi is far more complex and aesthetically interesting, but I still can't see what's so _bad_ about Yakkul"
Chi Chung Tse replied, "As an animator, I guess I could offer my two cents on that issue... I personally think Bambi was a bit "over-animated" and Yakkul was a bit "under-animated". Both were not totally realistic for their own different reason... The deer in real world does not move like Bambi cuz' Bambi's moment was "dramatized" so the audienes could read the action clearly. Not to mention the extra cute factor. On the other hand Yukkul's movement was limited by the low frame rate (8 drawings or cels per sec) so a lot of subtle movement were lost. . . I think Yakkul's movement matches the style of the rest of the film."
Elise played the countervailing balance to other comments, "I agree. I was originally blown away by Yakkul's movement on the English trailer when they were showing the names of the voice actors. It looked very smooth and realistic to me. I think where your friend is coming from is it isn't the bounding, leaping stride of other deer or antelope. . . It seems like it was made to look more like the running of a horse rather than a deer."
Sophia Elanor Rogers added, "Yakkul is just fine, as far as I can see. Deer and antelopes are related but not the same- even though he's called an "elk" he'd have to be some kind of antelope or a wild sheep. He looks like he's partly based on an ibex or something. . . Bambi is anthropomorphized, so it makes sense that his movements would be more complex. Yakkul is just an animal."
Tom Wilkes passed along some pages comparing Yakkul to a Thomson's gazelle. After a comment about the Thomson's gazelle being way too small, Tom offered an interesting evolutionary proposal.
Marlon Deason posted, "The Nausicaa Guide book (in Japanese) was a compilation of articles and technical information reprinted from Animage magazine. . . Also, I have seen The Art of Nausicaa (Japanese/English, I think) and The Watercolor Art of Nausicaa books. Are these books redundant or does each have it's own merits. . . I am primarily interested in the technical drawings in the Nausicaa Guide as reference for completing and painting the series of model kits based on the Nausicaa film."
FUKUMOTO Atsushi replied, "For model painting reference, The Art of Nausicaa would be best, especially if you are to reproduce movie version. On the other hand, anime color may not look natural on models, and water color pictures may give more inspiration. Either way, The Art of Nausicaa contains many water-color works that were available at the time of printing, so you should consider obtaining it first. . . Naushika Guide Book will be least useful for such purpose since major portion of it consists of interviewed articles and such. (Unless you are to model something obscure, that is --- such as Kushana's pistol."
The Art of Nausicaa is very neat, and pops up now and then on auction sites. HobbyLinkJapan also sells the book (along with several other Studio Ghibli art books.)
Mark Yates wrote, "I saved the page, printed it off (all 22 pages) and read through it while watching the 1st tape. . . I had watched it once before - but had followed almost nothing of what was going on. So re-watching it last night with the summary was brilliant. . . I was sure I'd seen that the summary of tape 2 had been added the site 2 weeks ago. But when I went to save this one for off-line reading part 2 wasn't there? Did somebody upload a older version of the tape listing page - or was i mistaken?"
Tom Wilkes (one of the people involved in the project) replied, "Nope, not yet. We have a rough draft of Part 2, but it's not ready for upload yet (we're still working on the timings, among other things)."
The summary is a great read even if you don't have the video handy.
Rebecca Ballad asked, "A friend of mine says that when Studio Ghibli was started the creators
didn't know if it would last, so they hired only part-time staff, and that they weren't a "real full-time studio" until Totoro was made and they made lots of money. . . He says that he "read it somewhere", and I should ask the people in the know.. so, here I am. ^_^
How was the creation of Studio Ghibli back then, if more details are available?
Marc Hairston answered, "You need to dig a bit deeper on nausicaa.net. There is an entire section about Studio Ghibli and it's history at "
Chi Chung Tse added, "Studio Ghibli was created to make "Laputa". At that time in order to save the cost, most of the staff were hired on project, means they would be laid off when the film is finished. The crew won't be gathered again until the next project started. That could mean months or even years, nobody knows. This situation went on for years until 1990."
Wayne Unten noted, "You can also find the history by Toshio Suzuki in the back of the English version of the Art and Making of Princess Mononoke book." Referring, of course, to the history of Studio Ghibli.
Mark Yates raved about the "Princess Mononoke" DVD, and passed along some DVD cleaning tips. I posted some sales figures for the PM soundtrack. Derek Webster commented about the brief "Sen" trailer that aired in Japan. Studio Ghibli news from opposite sites of the word: France (via Frederic Goetzinger), and Japan (courtesy of Ryoko Toyama).
The primary cause of lower worker productivity: drempels.