Ghibli shows off to Beijing, 80-year-old Hayao Miyazaki is still making new animation | Miyazaki-Finance News

Original title: Ghibli show fire to Beijing 80-year-old Hayao Miyazaki is still making new animation

On June 12, the “Hayao Miyazaki and the World of Ghibli-Animation Art Exhibition” opened at Today Art Museum and quickly became one of the hottest exhibitions in Beijing this summer.

For several days, there were long winding lines outside the art gallery. Although it takes more than an hour to line up, it still can’t stop the enthusiasm of movie fans. As soon as you step into the gate of “Hayao Miyazaki and World of Ghibli”, there are people who check in and take pictures everywhere. If you want to get on the cat bus or take a photo with the “My Neighbor Totoro” under the bushes, you need to line up.

This was originally the largest exhibition in the history of Studio Ghibli. In the original plan, the nine most representative animations will create an immersive real-life reproduction, and Hayao Miyazaki’s studio will be moved to the exhibition site as it is.

However, the spread of the epidemic has not only delayed the exhibition that was originally scheduled to be held last year, but also had to reduce the scale of the exhibition by half due to the inability of Japanese staff to be present.

“According to Ghibli’s usual standards, this exhibition will have at least fifty or sixty Japanese staff members to set up the exhibition.” Liu Yanjun, the person in charge of the curating and set up of the exhibition, told China Business News that this is a Ghibli exhibition. Li Studio completely dominates the exhibition. Although the exhibition partner Tianyu Culture has 18 years of experience in serving museums and has done large-scale important exhibitions such as the National Museum and the Forbidden City, this time, Ghibli still tried to complete every detail through remote supervision through video to complete the exhibition. Liu Yanjun said that compared to the rich and immersive animation art presented by Ghibli at the Mitaka Museum of Art in Japan, this exhibition focuses more on the use of plane narration.

In this four-month exhibition, nearly 300 copies of drawings, copy designs, and original celluloid films of 21 studio Ghibli classic films, including “My Neighbor Totoro” and “Spirited Away”, are covered. The history of Buli Studio, and the story behind the scenes.

　　Miyazaki’s Chinese Fate

“Maybe in the future we will see Hayao Miyazaki who speaks Chinese.” Toshio Suzuki, chairman and producer of Studio Ghibli, said that this sentence is not a polite, but Miyazaki’s love for China.

At the age of 17, Hayao Miyazaki watched “The Legend of the White Snake” produced by Toei and fell in love with anime, and became curious about China. He studied Chinese as an elective at the School of Political Economy at Gakushuin University in Tokyo. After graduating from university, he chose to join Toei as an animator.

As soon as you walk through the Progress Hall, you can see the Ghibli Triangle-Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, and Takahata. Takahata Hoon passed away in 2018, and this photo has become a precious scene.

For the first time, many people saw photos of Hayao Miyazaki and Takahata’s visit to China in the exhibition. In 1984, due to the success of “Nausicaa”, Hayao Miyazaki and Takahata were rewarded to travel to China from Beijing all the way to Shanghai. They also brought a film copy of “Nausicaa” to the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio. , The factory’s animation “Little Tadpoles Finding Mother” is a work that moved the two animation masters deeply.

Also because of the success of “Nausicaa”, they decided to establish Studio Ghibli. The so-called “Ghibli” means “hot wind blowing in the Sahara Desert”, which implies Miyazaki’s desire to “set off a whirlwind in the Japanese animation industry”.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Japanese animation industry set off a battle between feature-length animation and TV animation. The former is represented by Toei, which produces animations with film-like sophisticated standards and high costs; the latter reduces the original 24 frames per second to 12 frames per second, which is cheaper, faster, and more shoddy.

The establishment of Ghibli in 1985 is like a declaration. During the prosperous period of television, they have to change the audience who have no habit of watching movies, and they have to fight the trend of the times. Whether it can succeed or not, no one knows.

In 1986, they used the first animated film “Castle in the Sky” as a bet, and it succeeded. Ghibli survived, and has always adhered to the founder’s promise to only make theatrical full-length animations.

As a studio of original works, no matter in Japan or the world, this kind of obsession is a very special existence. The length of time required to produce an animation and the high risks to bear have caused the industry to focus on TV animation series that can generate sustainable income. Ghibli has taken this difficult road and has also produced realistic and high-quality animations that meet their ideals.

　　Ghibli with high investment, high risk and high return

“Every work has done its best to create works that pay attention to every detail and without compromise” is the goal set by Ghibli since its inception. In the beginning, Ghibli did not hire employees, but used a model of convening 70 staff members when creating a work, and disbanding the team when the work was completed.

“High investment, high risk, high return” is the evaluation of the world-renowned animation studio by Mr. Toru Hara, the head of Ghibli.

Ghibli is a miracle. Every cartoon is invested heavily in production. “Hold huge anxiety, and then accumulate huge wealth. Even if you receive a high income, you will immediately invest all of it in the production of the next work. There is almost nothing left on hand.”

In 1989, when the Japanese animation industry was declining, Hayao Miyazaki’s “Kiki’s Delivery Service” was the biggest success in Ghibli’s history, with 2.64 million viewers, making it the most popular movie in Japan that year. Miyazaki also decided at this time that Ghibli should have a fixed team of animators, give them a fixed salary, and build a new studio for them.

In the photos of the exhibition, the audience can see the crampedness of the early Studio Ghibli. Within 300 square meters, nearly 90 staff members huddled together at their desks to paint.

Attentive audiences will find that Studio Ghibli has produced 25 animated films, but 44 posters appeared on the exhibition site. This is because Ghibli often starts making posters before the film is completed, usually two posters. This is precisely the tradition of Ghibli’s excellence.

What fascinates movie fans more is the hundreds of drawings and designs presented by Studio Ghibli. For example, in “Goldfish on the Cliff”, a 12-second shot of a jellyfish emerging from the water requires 1613 paintings. 70 employees participated in the entire animated film and required 170,000 original drawings. Another example is “The Story of Kaguya Ji”. It took 8 years from planning to completion. A total of 337 staff participated in it. In 33 months, 23,800 original paintings were drawn, with 1,430 backgrounds. Studio Ghibli was responsible for this. The film set up a special team, not hesitating manpower, material resources and financial resources.

Throughout Miyazaki’s animations, there is harmony between man and nature, Japanese Shinto culture, anti-war themes, and quite a few female perspectives. If it is not a long-form animation, it is difficult to reflect the life that Miyazaki wants to convey with rich expressiveness. Joys and sorrows.

In 2001, “Spirited Away” was released and set a box office record for Japanese movies for 19 years with a box office of 30.4 billion yen. The blessings of the Berlin Golden Bear and the Academy Awards have enabled Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki to go to the world. Interestingly, the one that represents Hayao Miyazaki in the hearts of movie fans is “My Neighbor Totoro”, which was released in 1988 and was unsuccessful at the box office at the time.

Why is My Neighbor Totoro becoming the most famous label of Ghibli? The person in charge of Studio Ghibli said that two years after the release of “My Neighbor Totoro”, a doll manufacturer decided that “this is the character that should be made into a doll”, so he approached Ghibli and waited for the Totoro doll to be launched. Surprisingly popular. This unexpected peripheral product is selling well, and it partially fills up Ghibli animation production funds. Since then, Ghibli’s trademark has been designed with Chinchilla.

Hayao Miyazaki, who has proposed to retire six times but announced his comeback, is currently drawing his latest animation “What kind of life do you want to live”. According to Toshio Suzuki, the animation has been drawn for three years, half of which has just been completed, and it will take another three years.

On the other hand, the 3DCG theater animation film “Aya and the Witch”, produced by Hayao Miyazaki and directed by Goro Nagamizaki, will be released in Japan on August 27.

The 80-year-old Hayao Miyazaki still insists on moving forward in the most simple and ultimate way. But when the CG technology has become so realistic that it can’t be added, whether Ghibli can stick to its original intention is still a question and challenge.

Editor in charge: Wang Shanshan