Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

14th March 2006

Number 53 - Takahata = Logos; Miyazaki = Eros[1]

Finally we start cutting tomorrow.
Cutting is divided into 3 sessions. Tomorrow we plan to carry out about 1/3 of the overall process.

Coming up to the cutting,
these past two weeks,
the pace at the studio has really been cranked up.
In-between animation, ink and paint. and photography, in particular, have all been making amazing efforts.

Cutting in other words means editing, but animation cutting is mainly the process of looking at the connection between cuts.
It's not like live action where you really slash away at the film during editing.
In any case, every cell has been drawn by hand, so too much time and effort has been expended to simply treat the results as raw footage.

Something I learned from Takeshi Seyama (of the Seyama editing group[2] who we are getting to do the editing) the other day that opened my eyes, was that a feeling of smoothness to the eye and logical consistency are different things.

For example: a walking scene.
A side-on view showing the left leg raised is replaced by a front-on view.
Logically speaking, the left leg should be in the air.
Usually, however, we edit this deliberately to start with the left leg already on the ground.
Doing it this way looks instinctively to be moving more smoothly.
Mr Seyama says that this is where the difference between the directors Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki lies.

Miyazaki tends to be trying to extract the absolute maximum of visual excitement, compared with which I would say Takahata gives more weight to logic.
Rather than giving refreshment and throwing the viewer into a world of story, he suppresses that and creates a space for the audience to stop and think.

Miyazaki believes in Eros and Takahata believes in Logos.

Naturally these characteristics are not limited to editing, they also appear in camerawork.
In a Miyazaki film, the camera tends to stick to the protagonist and the audience enters the world together with them.

In contrast, Takahata's camera captures the world from one step removed.

Anyway, cutting looks on first sight like a small job,
but actually it's an important process that breathes logos and eros into the film.

Translator's Notes

[1]: Logos = law/logic; Eros=sex/love. No reference to porn is intended. The director is suggesting that Takahata's animation style is more logical and Miyazaki's more emotional.

[2]: (瀬 山 編 集 室) I don't think this is a part of Ghibli. I think it is a freelance group of editors who work on different films for different companies. I could be wrong.