Starting Point

543 Pages·1·5.168 MB·English

by  Hayao Miyazaki

STARTING POINT: 1979–1996
Shuppatsuten 1979–1996
(Starting Point: 1979–1996)
By Hayao Miyazaki
© 1996 Studio Ghibli
All rights reserved.
© 1996 Studio Ghibli
First published in Japan by Studio Ghibli Inc.
Unedited English translation © 2009 Beth Cary and Frederik L. Schodt
All other materials © 2009 VIZ Media, LLC
No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means without written permission from the copyright holders.
Published by
VIZ Media, LLC
P.O. Box 77010
San Francisco, CA 94107
www.viz.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Miyazaki, Hayao, 1941–
[Shuppatsuten: 1979–1996. English]
Starting Point: 1979–1996 / by Hayao Miyazaki ; translated by Frederik L. Schodt
and Beth Cary.
p. cm.
Originally published: Shuppatsu Ten, 1979–1996. Japan : Tokuma Shoten Co., Ltd.,
1996.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–1-4215–0594–7 (alk. paper)
1. Miyazaki, Hayao, 1941– 2. Animation (Cinematography)—Japan.
I. Title. II. Title: Starting Point: 1979–1996.
PN1998.3.M577M5913 2009
791.4302‘33092—dc22
[B]
2009012560
Printed in Canada
First paperback printing, April 2014
Seventh printing, January 2021
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
The Cat Bus and Pure Cinematic Magic—
by John Lasseter
ON CREATING ANIMATION
Nostalgia for a Lost World
From Idea to Film: 1
From Idea to Film: 2
From Idea to Film, Part II: 1
From Idea to Film, Part II: 2
My Point of Origin
Using a Bucket to Pour Water on a Flood
What the Scenario Means to Me
Thoughts on Japanese Animation
All I Want Is to Maintain a Workplace
to Create Good Movies
On the Need to Create an Easy-to-Use Studio
The World of Anime and the Scenario
ON THE PERIPHERY OF THE WORK
Thoughts on Fleischer
Thoughts on Fantastic Planet
On Animation and Cartoon Movies
Having Seen Machi and Purezento
About Period Dramas
On the Periphery of the Work
A Greeting of Solidarity—Afterword
Having Seen The Man Who Planted Trees
A Nation that Merely Dithers Around
The Type of Film I’d Like to Create
Sometimes We Need Stories About the Old Days
The Tokyo I Love
The Power of the Single Shot
My Theories on the Popularity of Manga
Things That Live in a Tree
On the Banks of the Sea of Decay
There Should Be Commercials Thanking Loyal Customers
PEOPLE
A Woman Finish Inspector
A “Slanderous” Portrait
I Parted Ways with Osamu Tezuka
When I Saw the “Hand of God” in Him
About Futaki-san
My Teacher and I
Descendant of a Giant Sloth
I Left Raising Our Children to My Wife
Pithy Comments
The Sound of the Winds of These Times
My Old Man’s Back
A Requiem for Ryōtarō Shiba-san
About Ryōtarō Shiba-san
A STORY IN COLOR
Dining in Midair
MY FAVORITE THINGS
My Scrapbook No. 1
My Scrapbook No. 2
My Scrapbook No. 3
Citroen 2CV is the descendant of French aircraft of the 1930s!
I Want a Garden Like This
My Car
What Takei Sanseidō Means to Me
“My Random Thoughts Notebook Is My Hobby”
PLANNING NOTES; DIRECTORIAL MEMORANDA
A Proposal to Acquire Film Rights
A Film That Can Be Enjoyed by People Who
Have Never Read the Original Story
Original Proposal for Castle in the Sky
Project Plan for My Neighbor Totoro
My Neighbor Totoro—Directorial Memo: Characters
Kiki—The Spirit and the Hopes of Contemporary Girls
Searching for One’s Own Starting Point:
Proposal for Dai Tokyo Monogatari (A Story of Greater Tokyo)
Bokkō (A Battle of Wits; Mo Gong, Chinese)
Memo: As an Animated Film
The Porco Rosso Memos: Directorial Memoranda
Why Shōjo Manga Now?
Princess Mononoke Planning Memo
WORKS
Lupin Was Truly a Creature of His Era
On Nausicaä
Speaking of Conan
Hayao Miyazaki on His Own Works
“Nature Is Both Generous, and Ferocious”
Personally, I think there is a continuity from Nausicaä
Totoro Was Not Made as a Nostalgia Piece
I Wanted to Show the Various Faces
of One Person in This Film
An Interview Just Prior to the Release of Porco Rosso
On Completing Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Panda in Process
Panda! Go Panda! Creator’s Message
The Pictures Are Already Moving Inside My Head
Earth’s Environment as Metaphor
On Your Mark—I Purposely Distorted the Lyrics for This Film
BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONOLOGY
AFTERWORD
The Fireworks of Eros—
by Isao Takahata
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
▶ FOREWORD
The Cat Bus and Pure Cinematic Magic
John Lasseter talks about Hayao Miyazaki
I first met Hayao Miyazaki-san about twenty years ago in Los
Angeles. He had just completed Lupin III: The Castle of
Cagliostro. I didn’t have the opportunity to see the whole
movie; I just saw a small reel of clips. But from the little I did
see, I was taken with the characters. I was also impressed with
the energy and cleverness of the animation. I still think it
contains one of the best car chases ever seen on film. The
imagination invested in the movie really inspired me. I could
tell someone who knew and loved animation had made it. The
Castle of Cagliostro is so much more than taking a live-action
film and making it animation. It took the medium and really
used it to its fullest potential. That’s what always inspired me
about every Miyazaki-san film I’ve seen. It’s like, “Wow! This
is someone who really loves animation as much as I do.” That
totally excites me.
I remember taking the clips to Walt Disney Studios and
showing them to various people. This was probably back in
the early 1980s. I had some friends on the organizing
committee of the Los Angeles International Film Exposition
and we worked together to get Castle of Cagliostro shown at
Filmex [a predecessor of the American Film Institute’s
International Film Festival in L.A.—Ed.]. I was thrilled to
finally see it on the big screen, with a live audience. People
just loved it.
I next met Miyazaki-san during my first trip to Tokyo in
1987, and I will never forget that experience. I was there to
give a lecture at NICOGRAPH International, a Japanese
computer animation and computer graphics conference. One
of the people I met at the conference used to work with
Miyazaki-san and he arranged a visit for me. After a long train
ride, we finally arrived at Miyazaki-san’s work studio. I was
struck by all the beautiful background paintings hanging on
the walls and had to ask him what movie he was currently
working on. There was an enigmatic smile on his face as he
showed me an animation cel of a cat bus. Of course it was
from My Neighbor Totoro. I was so amazed just by that one
single drawing of the cat bus. It was thrilling to see the
imagination at work.
A year later, we finally got a chance to see the finished
product. It was so incredible. How fortunate for us to have
visited Miyazaki-san’s studio while he was making such a
wonderful film. Now Totoro is an important part of my life. I
brought home a Japanese Laserdisc version of the movie that
my five sons grew up watching. Later it was released in an
English version for the U.S., and of course we watched that
too. My sons actually prefer the Japanese version. The
characters are so alive! The character of Mei, for example, is
just one of our favorites.
I have used scenes from Totoro as teaching tools while
giving lectures to Pixar animators. To me, one of the basic
elements in defining the personality of an animated character
is to show the same action performed by two separate
characters. No one does the same thing in the same way—no
one. By using this technique, the characters really take on a
personality of their own. There’s one scene in Totoro when
Mei and her older sister Satsuki are exploring their new house.
Satsuki is running around and opening random doors. Then
Mei comes in and does the same thing, but she does it like a
young child. This scene tells the audience that Mei is the
younger of the two girls. Nothing else needs to be said. It’s so
clear. These are two different characters, two different ages,
doing the same thing, but in completely different ways. I’ve
always admired that particular scene, both for its simplicity
and for the believability of the characters it portrays.
I could go on and on. I continually find inspiration in
Miyazaki-san’s work. In Laputa [released in the U.S. as Castle
in the Sky—Ed.] there is a scene that gives me chills every
time I watch it. It’s the rescue sequence. Sheeta is saved from
the robot and you see the fort exploding. When Sheeta jumps
and is ultimately rescued, it is amazing. It’s one of the greatest
rescue scenes ever put on film and I love it. I’ve studied that
scene frame by frame.
In A Bug’s Life, the character Flick assembles all the bugs
together in an attempt to save a little ant named Dot. For
reference, we sat down and studied the rescue scene in Castle
in the Sky very carefully. We didn’t copy it, but we tried to
pick the scene apart to identify why it worked so well. I know
what’s going to happen. Of course, she gets rescued. I know
that. But every time I see it, I get the chills. It inspired us.
People tell us how much they enjoyed that particular scene in
A Bug’s Life and it holds a great debt of gratitude toward
Castle in the Sky.
There’s something that Miyazaki-san does better than
anybody else in the animation industry. He’s great at giving
things a sense of scale. It’s a hard thing to do, especially in
animation. With animation, you achieve scale—weight and
size—purely through movement. You get that by seeing how
things move and how things relate to each other. In all of his
films he gives us an incredible sense of scale. Castle in the
Sky, especially, is a masterpiece in this way. Take another look
at those flying ships. There is no question they’re huge. And
you can just tell that they weigh an enormous amount too. I
mean, look at them, you can feel their weight. It’s not just
perspective. It’s movement, it’s size, it’s weight. It really is
amazing.