Masterclass with Shinichirō Watanabe – Cartoons on the Bay 2017

What a great event Cartoons on the Bay was: we got to see a lot of movies, listen to professionals talk about their work and much more, all for free! But I’m not here to talk about the event, because thanks to the people of animeclick.it I managed to get my hands to a video that recorded the full masterclass made by none other than Shin’ichiro Watanabe!

Before starting I want to say some things: I’m not a pro, my English isn’t the best and unfortunately I don’t have an editor that can correct my prose. That said I made sure that the concepts of the text you’re going to read are faithful to the original.

There was also a Q&A Session, but I’m going to translate it in another moment not too far in the future. Now I hope you enjoy this read, a lot of interesting things were said about one of the most important directors in Japanese history, ranging from his first days as a product manager to the inception of his most famous work Cowboy Bebop.

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Buonasera, mi chiamo Watanabe.

 

This is my second time in Italy, the first was around ten years ago as a tourist. This is the first time that I’m invited in Italy for this kind of event, so I’m really glad to be here in Turin thanks to Cartoons on the Bay. I really like Italy, I especially love its cuisine and music, and Italian cinema has been a big influence on my works. I’m talking about old movies of Spaghetti Western of Sergio Leone. I also really love the work of Ennio Morricone, who made the soundtrack for Sergio Leone’s movies. One of my dreams is to one day ask Ennio Morricone to work with me, so if someone here knows him, please introduce me to him (audience laughs). I’ve been told that there are people in here who want to work in the field of animation, so today I want to explain to you how I became a director, and what features I focus on the most for my works. After this there will be a session where you can ask me questions.

As you probably know Japan is full of animation products, so I watched a lot of them on TV, and there was one I really loved named Lupin III. This series has a lot of incarnations, but the one I liked the most was the first one, when Lupin wore a green suit. I don’t really like Lupin when he wears it in different colors (audience laughs). I started working in the industry of animation when I was 19 years old in 1984. This was the time when works such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer came out in theaters. I loved both live-action and animation movies and I was hesitant to choose one over the other. It was when I watched those two movies that I decided to work in animation. At that time I was 19 years old and I already had ideas about the kind of work I wanted to create, the problem was that I didn’t know how to do it. I tried drawing and depict the images I had in my mind, but I wasn’t good at it so the final results were completely different from what I wanted, thus I decided to give up the idea. Mangaka are really skilled in drawing, but this wasn’t my case so I decided to turn to somebody else who could, thus entering the world of animation. Usually to become a director there are two paths, the first is to work as an animator like Hayao Miyazaki did. Since this doesn’t work for people who can’t draw, the second choice is to become a production manager and work for the industry from within. The work of a production manager is to organize the flow of production, putting pressure on animators who aren’t on time with their work, riding the car and run home to them to take their boards when they’re ready. I worked around three years as a production manager, then I started working as an episode director, which basically is in support to the director who can’t work on all episodes. This way I learnt how the process of making a product works in animation. That said, directing episodes is still different from the work of the director, so I didn’t really have much creative liberty. When I was recognized as an episode director, offers to become a director came to me. My first work was with Macross Plus, but I worked in co-direction with Shoji Kawamori, the original creator of the series, so my ideas didn’t matter as much. Also when there are two people who are in control, you can expect a lot of friction between them. After Macross Plus, I had with Cowboy Bebop my first opportunity to express myself in a work that was fully mine. Now I want to talk to you a little about Cowboy Bebop.

Cowboy Bebop was born after being asked by Bandai, a toy maker, to make an animation product. Those days in Japan there had been a revival of the Star Wars franchise, whose movies were once again shown in theaters. Bandai thought that this would be the right time to sell space shuttle merchandising, so they asked me to make a product, and I was free in my creative output as long as it had space-ships. So I took them by word. So I worked, episode 4 of Cowboy Bebop had just come out and it was then that Bandai saw the work I did until then and told me that this was an unsellable as a toy, so they decided to take a step back. Things were really hard. There was this period of time when production looked like it was going to stop, thankfully enough Bandai Visual, a branch of Bandai involved with film production and development, decided to support the product. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here in Italy today so I’m really glad it happened. Now I have the possibility to create my own work with certain degrees of freedom, so I want to talk to you about the things that you need to keep an eye on when you’re doing this kind of work.

When you enter the animation industry inspired by anime, there’s the risk of imitating them instead of doing something original. I think that it’s really important to take elements outside anime, taking notes from different mediums, like paintings and such. Specifically I’m influenced by two fields: cinema and music. This way of thinking allowed me to borrow from traditional movies methods that aren’t usually used in animation, like certain movements of the camera or framings of a scene. Cinema also helped me in portraying my characters. In anime they’re usually very stereotypical, you can guess what their behavior is going to be, so by being influenced by those traditional movies I managed to create characters that are more complex, like actual human beings in real life. I’m also very careful about the music I use, so that it isn’t too predictable. Some kinds of melodies are pretty usual, so I tried for example using hip hop to create unusual situations. The tendency is to use sad music for sad moments, so I’m constantly careful in what I do, but all of this can only be realized through a process of trial and error. Those two are the things that probably differentiate me from average anime. I’ve been a director for 20 years and there’s the danger that my work could somewhat become repetitive for me, so in every new project I try to add something new that I’ve never done before. For example, in the case of Sakamichi no Apollon, I never adapted a work created by someone else and this was a challenge for me. Another thing that I rarely see in animation is scenes where musical instruments are being played in a realistic way. To the audience that is now listening to me, when you work the tendency is to do the things you’re already good at, but it’s when you add new elements that you can really develop as a creative. Another thing I gradually learnt in my career as a director is the importance of your relationship with your staff. When I was young I wasn’t really good at communication, I was the kind of person who worked alone at home hour upon hour. With my first work I still couldn’t relate with the staff and it was hard working with them, and I understood how even if I work my hardest, the result won’t be good if I don’t communicate efficiently with them. For example when I don’t like a sketch made by the character designer, I can’t keep on telling them to change their work because nothing would change. The character designer can’t possibly know the idea I have in my head so they can’t possibly create a character that matches the one I have in my mind. With time I changed my work style, I talked with the staff so that they could express themselves to the best of their capabilities. It’s also very important to talk to them about the simplest things, even if it is unrelated to work because chitchatting can also help them understand the director. You Italians talk a lot so I don’t really need me to suggest you to speak a lot (audience laughs). Working constantly and only producing output makes you miss input, so it’s important to seek inspiration from the outside world. I particularly love traveling because in my trips I stumble upon very interesting people that have different point of views from the Japanese people, so I want to be inspired a lot even here in Italy.