Miyazaki Hayao’s latest animated film Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) will start its domestic run in Japan from the 20th of July and publicity for the film has been in full swing for a while. I’ve collected a few clips in this post for your enjoyment, beginning with the trailer right below :
(above) Next up is a clip from the sound recording studio with Hideaki Anno (yes, the director of Evangelion) up as the voice of the lead character Jiro Horikoshi. Voice recording sessions are called “Ah-fu-re-ko” in Japan.
Part of the conversation between Anno-san and Miyazaki-san :
Anno-san : “I’ll do my best. (for the voice recordings) I can’t promise anything more !”
Miyazaki-san : “That’s fine. Suzuki-san (famous Ghibli producer) will take over you if can’t manage.” (Suzuki-san laughs in the background)
In their conversation, Miyazaki-san addresses Hideaki Anno as just “Anno”, without the honorific “-san”. If there’s anyone with the authority to do that, it’d be Miyazaki-san. 😛
(above) In this next clip, Ghibli producer Suzuki-san makes an appearance on a Japanese variety program to promote the film and gives some background information regarding the story & characters.
The hiragana characters splashed acrossed the poster is handwritten by Suzuki-san, and is the tagline for the film “Ikineba” (loosely translating as “live on”).
The lead character Jiro Horikoshi is actually a combination of 2 historical characters that Miyazaki-san highly respect – the novelist Hiro Tatsuo & and the chief engineering of the WWII Japanese “Zero” fighter plane.
Suzuki-san also goes on the explain that all the sound effects (engines of the plane, etc) in the film are synthesized by voice actors. This is actually not new to Ghibli films as it has been done before on the Ghibli Museum short “House Searching”.
(above) Suzuki-san talks to actress Miori Takimoto, who voices the female lead Naoko Satomi, and also some behind the scenes in the voice recording studio. Apparently Miori-san was recommended for the role by Miyazaki-san’s mentor Takahata-san.
The storyboard book (drawn by Miyazaki-san) for Kaze Tachinu is now up for pre-orders on Amazon Japan, going on sale later in July. I believe the last storyboard book that Miyazaki-san drew was for Ponyo, and that was just spectacular.
I hope to get a copy of Kaze Tachinu soon to do a review.
Kaze Tachinu will take a while to reach screens outside of Japan, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it.
Sidenote : Otomo Katsuhiro’s animated film Short Peace is also starting it’s run on 20th of July. While the target audience/demographic is not exactly the same, its definitely going to face stiff competition from a Ghibli film.
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Kaze Tachinu – Hayao Miyazaki’s New Film
The Art Of The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu) Book Review
Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises) Storyboard Book Review
Kingdom of Dreams & Madness – Ghibli Studio Documentary
The Wind Rises – Miyazaki Hayao Manga Review
June 27th, 2013 at 8:04 pm
I’m so excited. I’m so excited. I’m SO excited.
Wahhhhh!
Fingers crossed we’ll get it at the London Film Festival in October. Not sure how likely that is, the festival has done a few anime premieres (Hoshi o Ou Kodomo, Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki), but not for any Ghibli film in the few years I’ve been in London for – those all premiered at other, smaller, region-specific film festivals. All of which however are in the spring, so I really wouldn’t know where else it could pop up. Of course, it might just be that we’ll have to wait forever till we get to see it here.
June 28th, 2013 at 2:48 am
“Suzuki-san also goes on the explain that all the sound effects (engines of the plane, etc) in the film are synthesized by voice actors.”
That’s actually kind of bizarre.
Does he give any explanation why they made that choice?
June 28th, 2013 at 2:11 pm
alua – Best of luck ! We’ll all be super envious if you folks get to see it so early !
scott – Unlike live-action films where audio comes with the shot footage, for animated films all the sound effects have to be post created, often reproduced using real life objects as portrayed in the film.
Suzuki-san : “How much meaning is there in creating sound effects (using real life objects) ? It’s perhaps less important that the sound effect created are 100% accurate, but more important that the sound effects created give a good impression of what a certain action sounds like.”
July 1st, 2013 at 10:13 am
I would argue that even for live-action films very little sound is actually recorded on set. Sounds are synthesized and layered from pre existing sound libraries or field recordings, and even dialog gets “dubbed” (ADR) by actors in sound booths months after the footage is shot.
Consider the Star Wars prequels, shot mostly on green backgrounds. Not much usable on-set audio there. All sounds are created by mixing real life objects as facsimiles for non-existing technology.
What intrigues me about the artistic choices in Kaze Tachinu is that instead of using a field recording made of an actual plane somewhere (i.e. real life objects) and using that sound, they’re having some guy go “whooosh” into a microphone.
(I’m simplifying of course, they’re obviously putting more love and attention into it than that, but you get my point)
So it isn’t really an animation vs live-action thing… it’s just… well like i said, it’s a bizarre choice. i like it. But it’s weird.
July 1st, 2013 at 11:28 pm
Scott – You make many a valid point. Perhaps some nuanced meaning in the original Japanese text that would better explain their decisions eluded me in my translations, I hope not.
In the Ghibli Museum film Yadosagashi, the voice synthesized sound fx were one of the highlights of the film, but the film was whimsical in nature and thus worked well.
Kaze Tachinu is a much more serious film, so I am not sure how that would work out – we’ll have to watch to know I guess. :]