Movie 4 Production Diary

[Chafa-kun]

dunno, if this keeps going on like this, its gonna be a really rushed movie...

[Patches]

panoramacon said:

This thing is supposed to come out in December and they are still working on the storyboards and designing the villian!? Chop chop people!

P

Well, it's not like they have to get the whole storyboard done at once. That's why it's divided into those parts that he keeps talking about. They get one part done, and it goes off to be animated while they work on another part.

[panoramacon]

Yeah, I know. I have worked in animation--at least in the US. And usually it seems like the animatic or coninuity as they may call it, is done about mid way through produciton. And the character designs are as well. With only about 3 months to go, they aught to be further along. Remember, they not only need to animated it, they need to ink and color each cell, add effects, paint the background, not to menion the computer graphics they need to produce and render out, and then they need to edit it. Editing wouldn't be that big of a deal if it was just a matter of splicing scenes together. But invariably, once you see the final stages, changes always need to be made. Oh, and did I mention that everything has to be aproved by the director and/or art direct at every stage through the pipeline? That takes gobs of more time because the director has meetings and PR engagments, and has to deal with hundreds of other things so getting his/her attention to aprove your work takes time. Yes, there is always something else you can be doing whille you are waiting, but it still is very time consuming. All I can say is that this poor produciton crew is in for a lot of sleepless nights for the next 8 weeks or so. Good luck, LOL!

P

[Patches]

Sorry about the late update. I was up in Lansing for my cousin's first birthday.

Multi-taskers

Usually while I'm doing deskwork I'm listening to music on headphones.
In this line of work, I'd say more than 90% of the people working use headphones in some way, shape, or form.

In the past they were radio-casette players, CD Walkmen were the main thing for people to listen to, and there were even people who worked while watching portable televisions. That was about ten years ago.
Nowadays, with the rapid spread of personal computers, there are a lot of people who work while running DVDs.
Here in Studio 5, the desktop spread is about 50%.
They don't watch them, they just listen to the sound float around.

Since I'm not the kind of person who can work with people's voices mingling around, I do music-only, which is a lot of classical, jazz, fusion, and ambient.

For the last part, I finished the rough sketch of the part of the continuity that I got from S-san.
All that's left is to make a clean copy.
At this rate, due to the more-than-expected number of cuts, I have to get going on this without flaking off.

2004/09/19

I'm actually not sure what the Japanese title of today's entry meant, but I took a guess that sounded reasonable, given the content. It was "Nagara-zoku" which literally means "The 'nagara' people". "Nagara" is a verb suffix that means "while", and is used to indicate that two actions are being performed at once (walking while chewing gum or whatnot). So... yeah, that's where my guess at the title comes from.

[Patches]

Art and color meeting

I was in the studio at 3:00 in the afternoon.
I had gotten the excerpts from the continuity to be used in the trailers.
Even though it has to be about 40 seconds long, it's 59 cuts?!
If I tell this to I-pro, who'd taken the day off, first of all I'll need to pull together the needed images so we can work them out at the day after tomorrow's PR meeting.

At 5:30 there was a meeting over the last half of C-part's art board.
This is mostly comprised of two locations, and since it makes a lot of use of CG, board materials are scarce.

Moving along, the art and color meeting went through 6:00.
In this meeting, we tested and scrutinized the processing and coloring methods of all the cuts on the art board, and it usually takes a long time.
In attendance were the director, assistant supervisor, the color supervisor's various color designers, color choosers, and animators.
Naturally, I was there as well, but since the continuity took top priority, I decided to leave the details to the directors.

The color chooser position decides on the colors for each and every cut.
The fundamental colors of all the characters are decided by the color designers, but they give directions for the choice of colors for guest characters, accessories, effects, and other such small items.
Naturally, it requires a lot of sense.
As for the others, no doubt they check practically each and every thing that takes coloring.
Easily taking the shift in schedule, lately a lot of the women (most of the color choosers are women) have been pulling all-nighters, making it an increasinly demanding position.

At 10:00 was a counter-measure meeting for everyone involved in E-part.
With the remaining anticipated cuts as the topic, the director, supervisor, and an increasing number of personnel discussed the current situation and points of difficulty.

I left the studio at 11:30, but I'll need to come back later to work on the continuity again.

2004/09/20

[Patches]

Hey, sorry I'm late again, but I've got a part-time job now, so updates are going to be quite a bit more sporadic from here on out. But, I'll do my best to keep this updated daily.

The studio before noon

I was in the studio at 11:30.
As usual, the director, N-kun, was down in the conference room.
As usual, the animator, S-san, was grappling with the continuity.
As usual, the secretary, M-chan, was working.
Afterwords, usually the producer, I-san, and the PR manager, T-san, are in the room.

I-pro is my senior staff in this business.
He's several years ahead of me in doing this work, even though I've known him for nearly 20 years.
He seems to have the most in-depth position in the company, but he's so quiet it's like he's not even there.
He tends to leave things to H at the desk and goes out (on business) quite frequently.
Strangely (?), there are a lot of people I miss, and I wonder if he would have been able to get this far if he wasn't a producer.
During the final stages of the first film, I remember him staying in the studio for two weeks straight.

Before noon, there are hardly any people here and it's very quiet. It's the perfect environment to do work.
Using this time effectively, secretary M-chan is diligently cleaning the room.
A few days ago, she got rid of all the eraser shavings, neatly ordered all the pencils, and made all the staff happy by going over the finer details.

Today, I worked on continuity all day.
In the evening, the animator, I-san, visited the company. He had a meeting with H-kun at the desk.
He is a professional theater writer who wanders from job to job.
It's reassuring that he will be participating with the main staff in the final part of Inuyasha.

2004/09/21

[B-chan]

Continuity, continuity, continuity...

I wouldn't be suprised if this guy dreamed in pencil sketches.

[Chafa-kun]

aaaaaah I want a Job >___<
whatever


Man, I sure hope they're actually drawing the sketches of the movie's ENDING... if they're not... man we're gonna have Guren no Horai-jima like Advent Children...

"Summer 2004" - "Fall 2004" - "Sometime before 2005" - "We actually... don't really know..."

[Patches]

Insert song meeting

I was in the studio at 11:30.
I-pro brought up the idea of letting the artist for the ending song have a seiyuu role in the movie as a promotion.
How well the person can act (it's not usually the professional way to do it, since there are a lot of people who would give a flat reading), and the quality of voice given to the character are the two top points.

I worked on continuity until 2:00, then went to Toho.
There was an eight-person meeting over the trailers.
Since it had already been decided what sorts of things we wanted in it, the discussion was more about the specific cuts to use.
The one who makes the trailers is H-san of G-company. Since he's always the one to make the Inuyasha trailers, he knows the importance of teamwork.
It's interesting that the trailer has so many cuts, so hopefully he can do it, and because there are a lot of risks with having the trailer run on a different schedule, so I just want it to work out.
After all, we're the ones who put together the final cuts.

Before 4:00, we left Toho and went to avex.
We had a meeting over this film's theme song (insert song).
Since the trailer meeting ran over, we were running 20 minutes late.
When we got in, the composer W-san smiled and said, "I've been reading your blog."
Eeeh~ I don't know what to say to that, but it's surprising.
I think if I ever mention W-san in that thing, I should make sure I don't say something stupid (;^^A

Anyway, the insert song.
In this film, we made a scene where the hanyou children sing.
It will be fun to see what that will bring about in the story, but since it's such an important song, I came today to impart my image in person.
After various explanations, I let W-san listen to the music in my iPod.
It was the music of a Greek musician Eleni Karaindrou, who wrote the music for the movie "Eternity and a Day" by Theo Angelopoulos.
The music gives the feel of pain, sorrow, and loneliness, which is exactly like this film's concept.
Althogh, it's not like I'm asking him to do exactly the same thing as this music, I just wanted to point out my thoughts.
Therefore, it will be interesting to see how W-san interprets this and what he comes back with.
(to all of you reading this, I think you all know how wonderful W-san's music is)

After that, going by the schedule, we concluded the meeting.
I returned to the studio at 7:30, where I worked on continuity again.
I'm almost done with what I've got. Will this week finally see the completion?

2004/09/22

Yay, song sung by hanyou kids. Or kid. Japanese has no plural, so it's just "hanyou no kodomo".
If you wanna listen to what he was listening to for inspiration, this site has samples from the "Eternity and a Day" soundtrack. Looks like we're going to be getting Angst!Yasha.

[Chafa-kun]

1.- the guy has an iPod and not a cell phone!? Man I don't EVEN THOUGHT of getting an iPod because of the prices >__< makes me hate him eve more...

2.- Wada's music is AWESOME, so I'm really looking forward to the movie's music.

3.- Blah blah blah continuity yadda yadda yadda blah blah continuity... damn continuity workholic!!!!! >__<

4.- I'm still not sure about this insert song thing... I actually keep imagining a bunch of hanyou kinds singing "Matsuri Uta" or even that song from Nausicaä...

"La..lalala... lalalalalalalala"


ugh, gives me the creeps...

[Patches]

Nooo, the worst one is the childrens' song from the Sailor Moon SS movie. Dear god, that song was catchy. Although, admittedly, the Nausicaa one is close. As for "Matsuri Uta" from Blue Seed... eh, they didn't repeat that one incessantly enough.

Eh? Today's a holiday?

As usual, I was in the studio at 11:30.
I'd thought there were a lot of people on the Western line that I came on. So today was a holiday, huh? I kind of didn't know.

In the studio, S-san, who had been working on the continuity, and the director N-kun were sprawled out on their desks asleep.
Yesterday, N-kun, so that he would be comfortable when spending nights at the studio, bought and inflatable air mattress, so why was he on the desk?

Anyway, the rest of the world might be on holiday, but at this point we don't have the time to rest. People are swelling with the passage of time as an ever-unchanging spectacle.

I worked for a long stretch on the last part of the continuity.
Around 5:30 in the evening, S-san completed his part.
Good job! ... and then we shared a delightful hug (?).
With a messed-up beaming smile, he went home at 6:00.
In any case, since he came in the studio between 9 and 10:00 in the morning, he was still working all day and going home late.
As far as I'm concerned, since this is something that's been going on for over two months, today felt very liberating.

As for myself, I finished my part at 6:30.
Since I was in a good mood, I wrote up to the epilogue as well and finished at 9:00.
All that's left is S-san's continuity check and the end credits.
Since the ending song isn't done yet, I can't work on that part yet, so that's for another day.
Since S-san made quite fine distinctions in the last part, it will be necessary to make some adjustments to bridge the pieces, but this is something that can be held until tomorrow, when we'll be selecting the cuts for the trailer.

Taking into consideration the progress on all the parts, while looking at balance, so that the cuts don't focus on one person but all characters equally, and without spoilers, the appearance of the cuts... etcetera etcetera, we're condensing 60 cuts into a half a minute.
This trailer will be playing during "Howl", which starts at the end of November.

2004/09/23

Dude, they got a trailer spot on Howl's Moving Castle? Talk about a way to get noticed.

[Chafa-kun]

Patches said:

Nooo, the worst one is the childrens' song from the Sailor Moon SS movie. Dear god, that song was catchy. Although, admittedly, the Nausicaa one is close. As for "Matsuri Uta" from Blue Seed... eh, they didn't repeat that one incessantly enough.

Ohhhh yessss >__< the paaaaaain THE PAAAAAAAIN IN MY EAAAAAAAAARS!!!!!!!


About the entry... geez, they ARE gonna get audience for that trailer
Although I noticed something strange this post... the guy said continuity only once ._. and he finished... ._. I'm gonna miss continuity-ism ^^"

[Patches]

Sorry about the lack of update yesterday. I had to work, and then had a dinner party for the rest of the night. It also doesn't look like he had anything to say for today (with the continuity done, he must suddenly have nothing to do XD), but here's the one from yesterday:

Continuity completion

I was in the studio at 2:00pm.
I was having a conversation with H-kun at the desk about the end of the last part of the continuity.
After that was the continuity check.
In any case since the length and number of cuts were over what we expected, it took a lot of fine-tuning.
At 8:30pm, aside from the ending credits, we had the continuity finished.
The number of cuts was around 1300, and the pages numbered about 550, which was more than expected.
This is understandable because of the amount of action scenes.
Because of the amount of resources it took to complete the continuity, the rest of the work we need to do is now much clearer.

When everything was increasing beyond the original expectations, I-pro immediately contacted two other producers (S-san and U-san).
Furthermore, we'll see whether or not the results of this compilation will work for the next film.

At 10:00 there was a meeting concerning the image with S-san, who was in charge of the last part of the continuity.
S-san is a busy person, meaning that he drew a lot of special cuts into the film.

I went home with S-san on the last train.
We still have mounds of work to do from tomorrow on, but for now, I didn't have any work today.

2004/09/24

[Chafa-kun]

What's the guy gonna do without continuity? I'm sure he's already melancholic about it xDDDD

[B-chan]

What's the guy gonna do without continuity? I'm sure he's already melancholic about it xDDDD

Maybe he'll go through post-continuity syndrome?