Talk:Makoto Shinkai

MAKOTO Shinkai Interview Notes

Here are my notes from watching the interview with Makoto on ADV's Voices disc. — Chris

Influences?

Inspired by the manga, anime, and novels he read as a kid in middle school, including Dracula movies, Laputa, and the like. He decided that he wanted "to make something like that himself, definitely."

Began designing Hoshi no Koe while employed at a game company. Realized that digital hardware and software tools are now within the reach of individuals. This was around the time of DVDs and the PS2. His friends were beginning to feel excited that "maybe from now on individual production images could happen."

He thought, "there isn't a reason not to make something, right?" And around then he boldly quit the company and began to create Voices.

From about when did you start?

In 2000 he received the grand prize for Kanoujou to Kanoujou no Neko in the "DoGA CG Animation Contest." In 2000 cell phone mail was getting prevalent; around June 2000 he decided to play with that and create a story. He drew one image, the one of a girl with her cell phone in a cockpit.

He created homepage in about a year and presented it to the public little by little. The plot wouldn't progress so...

... he created KtKnN. 5min in monochrome. But Voices is 25 minutes and color, so he thought "this won't end!" He was contacted by Mangazoo and the like and they said, "Let's work together with the goal of selling it." then in May 2001 he quit.

Hoshi no Koe production was about seven months of real work.

What did you pay attention to?

Not much of a career or experience in narratives. He hadn't done a 25-minute work, so "in respect to necessity, it becomes a low-level reply, but first, anyhow, is to compete it." "This, no matter how many good cuts are in it, unless you finish the work itself, nothing will come out of it -- so that is of number one importance, and I pushed that."

He had to cut the "parts that one wants to be particular about" so the anime was actually finished.

"The operation of software, is something apart from things like that, so I think that unless the work is completed, that kind of skill cannot be obtained. There were times when I was working that I was experiencing that kind of thing. First of all, I made its competion important."

Working alone, your personality comes out 100%. It's often said that the animation industry has hard labor at its core. Manga however has more of a private feel to it. Like a novel, like a manga, like music. Those "have become a large aspect that broadens the market." Maybe Voices has significance in the history of that, because the production of anime with just a few people, or even by an individual, is now possible.

What about the future?

He'd like to create something that will remain in peoples' hearts for as long as possible. There are difficulties though... something like that will connect with me, a novelistic, well, if I go too far in that direction, it's a bit, it'll become a free for all with everything, so it'll become that any kind of work would be okay.

He'd like to concentrate as much as possible, on something that will pay him money, and not necessarily anime. It could be manga, or music, or a novel. He really admires those kind of things, say if it were music, that one could listen to in an electric train. Or manga or a novel that could be secretively read during class. Something "really intertwined with daily life." Something that even if it's only five minutes will still remain in your soul. You can "lightheartedly embrace it" and it'll remain "close to you all the time."

PS2 and DVD

" around the time of PlayStation 2 and the introduction of DVDs"

Why is this relevant? It helps to put things in context, but did he work on the PS2 or DVDs at the time? Some other reason? GunnarRene 00:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Not that I know of. _dk 01:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Unlisted Music Video

He also is credited with the animation of a music video by Hiromi Iwasaki: "Egao (The Smile)" CFLeon (talk) 20:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Interview

From http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2011-08-16/interview-makoto-shinkai

ANN: Hoshi o Ou Kodomo features a cat-like creature named Mimi, and your first work (1999's She and Her Cat) also predominantly featured a cat. Would you call yourself a "cat person"? Do you own any cats?
MS: (chuckling) Ever since I was a child I always had cats with me. I'm from the Nagano prefecture, and while living there I had cats, and after I came to Tokyo I also picked up some strays and started raising them. So I definitely always had cats with me. If you ask whether I'm a dog-type person or a cat-type person, I never really thought about it...but I'd say I'm more of a cat-type person.
...ANN: Has your creative process changed at all since you first started developing your own works?
MS: When I first debuted, I basically self-produced my works, so compared to that my current work style is totally different. It has changed a lot!
ANN: Where do you stand on the balance between traditional hand-drawn animation (even fed into a computer) and computer-generated animation?
MS: I definitely think that the world is definitely heading towards 3D [computer-generated] animation, whether made by Pixar or Dreamworks... maybe Disney will keep making 2D productions. But definitely, the world is going to 3D, and even in Japan there are fewer and fewer people drawing by hand. It might be unavoidable, and there might be nothing we can do about that trend, but personally I still prefer hand-drawn works. So even if the day comes that Japan doesn't make that much 2D animation, I would still like to keep doing it.
...What are your literary and film influences?
MS: First of all, as in anime, I get a lot of inspiration from Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki's works. If I had to pick one specifically it would be Laputa: Castle in the Sky. For literary influences, I get a lot of inspiration from [novelist] Haruki Murakami.
...Unlike a lot of other animators today you started animating on computers rather than hand-drawn animation. What do you think of computer animation as opposed to hand-drawn animation?
MS: It's been frequently said that I started working with computer animation, but in reality when I started out I drew my characters with pencil and pen and scanned them into the computer. So my method is actually the same as traditional 2D animation. But as you say, it's totally different from what companies like Pixar and Dreamworks are doing, and it's true that those are more of a trend today. I feel that if that's the direction that we're generally going, and even if traditional 2D disappears, that may be unavoidable. Personally I love the 2D style; it's what I'm more familiar with, having grown up watching it, and it's what I want to keep on drawing myself.
You studied literature in college in Japan, and there is a very literary quality to your work— such as voice-over narration. Are there particular authors or film directors who inspired you? And would you ever like to work in live-action?
MS: I go to see live-action films and enjoy them, but I go just as as an audience member, just to enjoy it. I'll go see movies like Batman or whatnot. But if you ask me if I'm ever inspired by a particular director, it would be Shunji Iwai. His way of using light and shadow is very inspiring.
...Your movies tend to have ambiguous endings. Is this intentional? What feeling do you want audiences to get at the end of your films?
MS: Yes, as you say my past works had endings were purposely left questionable as to whether they were happy or sad endings. But that's because I wanted to have the audience think about the ending themselves. In Japan that isn't the major style of how films end, and for my films I wanted to make something unique. On the other hand, Hoshi o Ou Kodomo's ending is a little more clear compared to my past works.
...Your work typically centers around a theme of communication between humans. What draws you to this particular theme? Is there any particular aspect of humanity or society that you get inspiration from?

MS: Simply put, in most of the world today people are interested in communication. They don't watch TV or play games that much; communication is becoming more of an entertainment form in itself. So when the society in which I live has this tendency that communication is so important, it has naturally become a central point of interest for my works.

--Gwern (contribs) 03:22 17 August 2011 (GMT)