Anime Herald
patreon
Interview: Shinji Aramaki (AKA "Do Directors Animate Electric Sheep?")
🕑 Added 2022-02-12 21:11:26 +0000 UTCInterviewer: Seth Burn
Interviewee: Shinji Aramaki
Location: Anime NYC 2021
Anime Herald: Thanks to the successful Kickstarter, you're gonna have a chance to do a short segment for MADOX-01, a project that you worked on at the very beginning of your career. What is it like to revisit your very first work from a new perspective?
Shinji Aramaki: First of all, this is, of course, a project I worked on about 30 to 33 years ago. And many thanks to people that contributed to the US Kickstarter. I’m extremely grateful and so excited to be able to revisit that part of my life. It's very good timing. Now I’m involved in CG, and so it gives me an opportunity to take something that was originally analog with no digital and then revise and revisit it with this world of CG and give it a fresh look and a fresh breath of air. I’m very excited about it.
MADOX-01
All Ages of Geek: I believe this is your third collaboration with Kenji [Kamiyama]-san. I just want to know what made you want to work with him a third time.
Shinki Aramaki: When I first worked with Kamiyama-san, it was [on] Ghost in the Shell. Kamiyama-san approached me and said “Hey, let's work on this together. This would be a great thing.”
For [Blade Runner: Black Lotus], actually, it was a producer that reached out to both of them and said, “I want you guys to both do this together and to pair up.” So, that's how that really started. But then of course, we also worked together on Ultraman as well. But as far as working with him, we want to do it in a similar style, the same style how we've done our projects and worked together until now.
Of course, Blade Runner is a very big title that we both love, so that was an extremely big project and we're very excited about it.
As far as the style of the working relationship, instead of “you did this, I'll do that”, we worked together and moved together. Because of that, I feel like Blade Runner is really the first one where we worked 50-50. We both had equal bearing on the project.
Anime Fan: With Appleseed, you were an early adopter of CGI. Now, you’re seen as a pioneer and an expert. Especially now with Blade Runner…
Shinji Aramaki: I feel like, yes, I was one of the first ones to really use CG, like with Appleseed as you mentioned. I do have kind of an advantage of technical knowledge because I've been doing it for a lot longer. But that's really where it stops. As far as being an expert, it's not really about that. It's about what you decide to make. Everyone else is also using CG. It really depends on the project that you're working on and what you decide to make. I take the approach where “I'm just so happy that there are so many people out there that use CG to create their own world and to create their own stories.” And, so I do feel like I was a catalyst for the beginning of that. So I feel like I was a pioneer, but as far as being an expert, I don't really feel like [it]. It’s not what I would call myself?
It doesn’t really matter. Hand drawn or CG, it’s all about the project you make at the end of the day. But there’s this new thing where a lot of people now think “they didn’t work too hard. It’s all CGI, it’s easy.” We need to climb that mountain. Just because it’s CGI doesn’t mean it’s not hard to make something right.
The only way to convince people is to make exciting projects. You can’t just go out there and tell people “Making projects with CGI is really hard!” The only way to do it is to go out and make quality projects and interesting things.
Blade Runner: Black Lotus
Anime Herald: The animation industry originally started on the big screen, with Disney movies and shorts that were shown before movies. It then became very popular on television. Now the dominant medium is streaming. Has that changed how you think about the work and what kind of works you want to create?
Shinji Aramaki: As far as going from the big screen to the small screen to streaming, my style hasn't really changed. There's also the app the factor of not only is [it] streaming, but also how are [audiences] watching it. Someone might see something originally on a smart T and then on a cell phone, and then they watch maybe 30 minutes of it but then they watch the rest on their PC. It's multiple devices to watch just one thing. I haven’t really been able to adapt for that, so not really.
One thing I’m thinking about is that there are a lot of people who watch anime on 1.5x speed or 2.5x speed. They are looking for a faster pace. A lot more intense. Because of that, I’m wondering if we need to condense it more, make it a lot more intense. That might be something people are longing for. I haven’t found the answer for that yet. It’s just something swirling around in my head.
Anime Herald: Guilty as charged.
Shinji Aramaki: 1.5x or 2.5x?
Anime Herald: 1.5x.
Shinji Aramaki: That’s ok. We love you anyway.
All Ages of Geek: Going back to Blade Runner. I know this is supposed to be right after your short film “Blackout.” I want to know what [you did] to help expand that narrative? What did you and the writers discuss about what they can do to expand the lore of the franchise? Have you worked on Black Lotus?
Shinji Aramaki: As far as the short film “Blackout,” that was whatever Shinichirō (Watanabe) decided. We did discuss it together.
When we were coming up with the concepts for the anime a lot of people said “Why don’t you do it like this?” “Why don’t you do it like that?” Of course I did work on “Blackout”, but the anime wasn’t really based on the short film. That was Watanable-san’s project. And, of course, he was involved in the discussions for the anime, but it wasn’t necessarily an inspiration for this.
Ultraman
Anime Fan: Going back to the 1.5x/2.5x, would you attack that more as an animator, or is that something for the director to solve?
Shinji Aramaki: I feel that it’s the director’s responsibility. There are some projects or pieces that you can do this with, and some that you can’t do this with, as far as the pacing or the tempo. I’m guilty of this too when there are parts where I know what’s going to happen. I fast forward ten seconds to get to the next exciting part, so I understand that too.
It’s also about cutting and editing as well. To get rid of some of the lulls that you might see in the pacing. Sometimes you know they’re doing it to just waste time, “Okay, let’s do this for the next ten seconds until we get to our next big thing.” So maybe get rid of that, as a director.
Sometimes you have the ability to catch the audience from the very beginning, so that they're invested. If you do that beginning, then they will continue to stay with you. That's really the responsibility of the director.
People in the movie theater have already paid for their tickets. They have the two hours. You have a captive audience. It is what it is, right? But then, if you think about the same people on the train, who are only on there for maybe a 30-minute ride, and they're like “I need to watch something else.” Because you only have a short attention span with stuff like that. When it comes to that, there's also those kinds of things you’ve got to keep in mind.
It's become the generation where you have to think about that, with hard work.
Netflix, the streaming companies, they’ve done so much research. “Oh, people stop watching at five minutes. Okay, we don’t like that.” We don’t get that information, but they do. This is the world that we’re currently living in.
Bubblegum Crisis
Anime Herald: I'm going to follow up on his question. Back in the day, you're right, you had a captive audience; they're seeing the movie, or they're watching on television. Either way, it moved to the pace the director wanted it to. Nowadays the viewer has control over the tempo and speed and pace, and what they watch. Is that something that you think, and you mentioned that it is a director's responsibility to keep the attention of the viewer. Do you think that directors are gonna have to work harder to maintain their attention for the first five minutes and then afterwards so Netflix doesn't get mad?
Shinji Aramaki: Going to that question, you talk about movies, but even getting to that movie itself, It needs to be a choice of the customer, right? So because there are five different movies there, so they decide which one they go to. And then, once you get there, then they have to engage; but there also needs to be something that appeals to the moviegoer that makes him want to go to that movie. There's all this stuff like promotion and everything that needs to happen as well. There's a lot of people involved in that aspect of it.
Then you also have Netflix. It's a very similar thing, where you have to have someone push the “play” button. And so, there needs to be something catchy like you know, you know, maybe the direct plane, but it needs to be something that catches the eye or catches the attention of the person going through Netflix in order to actually get to that part of the movie. And then, once they get there, then you have to engage with them and make sure that they are interacting with your movie or your short film, whatever it may be.
I guess TV back when was kind of the same, because you need to get the attention of the TV watcher, so there's still some similarities, but there's a lot more options. And also with games, it’s the same thing. You have so many more options available to you. You need to get their attention.
There’s different ways to do that. Of course, you also have Blade Runner; it’s a big brand, a big franchine. That was already catching people’s attention. But there are different ways to do it. You have to get some kind of attention from the people making the choice. Once they do, you have to engage them immediately.
All Ages of Geek: Do you find it challenging directing a TV show after starting with film?
Shinji Aramaki: As you’re saying, I started off with film. And with film, it starts with pre-production. Everyone comes in, we make the film, and then we show it to the world. So, you have this one big hill that you have to climb. TV is like that, except it’s many, many, many times. At first, you have one episode. Then two episodes. At first, it was really hard for me to get used to “Oh my gosh, when is this going to end, when are we going to be finished?!”
Also, what’s really hard to get used to is that you’re working on five different episodes at once. I’m doing storyboards on one, and animation on another. It was really hard to multitask and figure everything out. My brain was totally confused.
Kamiyama-san originally came from TV, so I learned a lot working with him. He helped me understand the pacing and how to handle it.
I like both and find both interesting. But doing 2-3 series at the same time is very hard. Now, it’s a little bit easier since I’m not doing so many.
Appleseed (2004)
Anime Fan: Personally, what series are you an obsessive fan of?
Shinki Aramaki: As far as being a fan, there are a lot of people around me who are really deep fans. In that sense, I’m like “I don’t really know.”
The first edition of Ultraman. I was seven or eight, in elementary school. Every Sunday, at 7 PM. I couldn’t wait for it to start. It was something I was looking forward to all week. I loved it. I was so into it, so passionate about it. I still remember that feeling, watching it during that period of my life.
I didn’t go back to revisit it until I started working on Ultraman [(2019)]. That’s when I was like, “Oh my gosh, I remember all this stuff.” That’s when I realized how much I had loved Ultraman.
Comments
Anime Herald
Aramaki-sensei is such an interesting person - his insights on streaming, especially were genuinely cool; Sam talks about this stuff all the time, so it's interesting to see coming up even at the higher levels of huge productions.
Karel P Kerezman
"That’s ok. We love you anyway." Bwahaha. Great insights, though! A veteran dealing with the age of mixed platforms, streaming, etc as well as CGI snobbery.
