r/interestingasfuck • u/fvkinglzy • 9h ago
Instead of using computers, Hayao Miyazaki draws thousands of frames by hand for every Studio Ghibli film
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u/Tatakai_ 9h ago
It's such a beautiful result. But the reason it's not the most common approach is that computing is more profitable per workload. Audiences will not be turned off by an absense of this method. But they will be mesmerized when they see it. The fact it's uncommon makes it all the more magical I suppose.
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u/Blindfire2 7h ago
Incase anyone doesnt understand "profitable" (I've seen plenty of people argue that more people would go see hand drawn over annoying CGI, especially for anime), it takes 5 people hand drawing key frames and another 3 to 10 people to draw the animations between those key frames, and if you try to rush it, you get One Punch Man season 2 and 3, and if you take your time, that takes a shit ton of money.
Now use a PC...it takes one person an hour.
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u/eezybl 7h ago
What if we had less content and more curated things though.
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u/copperwatt 7h ago
Yeah, I mean there is already more stuff than I will ever be able watch it mt lifetime. But instead when I have free time in the evenings, I find myself watching old reruns of Mythbusters rather than anything streaming, because so much of it is mediocre, and I have no idea what is actually the good stuff.
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u/Forever_Inspired 6h ago edited 5h ago
"it takes 5 people hand drawing key frames and another 3 to 10 people to draw the animations between those key frames"
And we are still doing this digitally as well, animation is an entire process that involve at least 10-20 animators per production. Despite being more streamlined and faster, 2D Hand-drawn digital animation is still very time consuming, you still have to draw frame by frame in most modern anime production and Western cartoon production.
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u/Blindfire2 5h ago
I was just giving an example of how a simple scene (which in hindsight i should have said) it can take something like getting into fighting poses in Dragon Ball 10+ animators hours upon hours to get 20 seconds of animation meanwhile one guy in a chair (assuming models are already made) an hour with cgi, but of course it's much more complicated and some things take longer
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u/Forever_Inspired 5h ago
Ah ok, when you said "Now use a PC...it takes one person an hour." I thought you were talking about modern 2D animation and not about CGI. But even then a sequence of good CG animation would require several animators working together for a couple of minutes of animation that involve multiple steps like blocking animation, lighting, shading, texturing, rendering. Both CGI and 2D animation are pretty similar where each stage is also responsible by different people in a big animation production.
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u/Forever_Inspired 5h ago
Studio Ghibli has been using digital process combine with traditional animation since Princess Monoke and Spirited Away, like clean up and color were all done digitally and some part of the animation was actually done in CGI.
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u/Dave_Eddie 8h ago
And he lost out on an Oscar to the only art style as time consuming as this, stop motion.
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u/PanicDeus 7h ago
I can draw quite fast, but this will drive me insane. Drawing the same thing slightly different over and over...
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u/yancovigen 8h ago
This might sound strange, cause I knew he wrote and directed nearly every studio ghibli movie, but I thought he would just do storyboards and stuff while his staff would animate the rest, kinda like Disney did. I didn’t realize he still puts in the work, and will put more respect on his name moving forward
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u/Forever_Inspired 5h ago edited 2h ago
This is an excerpt from the behind the scene of The Boy and the Heron, he was actually checking for the key frames from the animators and give them notes or doing some animation correction. It's not like he actually draws thousands of frames at his age, lol.
(Just edited that it's from The Boy and the Heron)
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u/yancovigen 5h ago
This is the context I needed lmao, op out here just saying shit
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u/Forever_Inspired 5h ago edited 5h ago
This is Reddit, most people just take clips they saw on X / Instagram, downloaded it, then post here with clickbait titles for karma, lol.
Yes, Miyazaki started out as animator in his younger days, here's a compilation of his animation works: Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿) Animation. Now he mostly handles storyboard and scripts.
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u/Titanhunter84 3h ago
He actually drew 80 000 of the 160 000 key frames of Princess Mononoke himself but that was 1997 and the last film the studio did with zeloloid.
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u/Sojawuerstel 2h ago
Here we got the truth, thank you! Even in his last film "the boy and the heron" he was still highly involved. Kind of a workaholic. It's seen in the documentary which you can find on Netflix
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u/ZombieButch 52m ago
There's several behind the scenes documentaries where you can see just how much work he's done on a bunch of their movies.
10 Years With Hayao Miyazaki starts with, IIRC, him working on Ponyo and goes up to the early days of working on The Wind Rises; it's a 4 part TV documentary. The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness covers The Wind Rises. Never-Ending Man covers the bit after he announced his retirement and working on the Boro the Caterpillar short. Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron covers The Boy and the Heron (and legitimately made me cry).
There's not a single frame that passes through the studio without his OK, and he edited and corrected lots of frames even if he didn't draw them completely from scratch himself (although he very often did because it was just easier to redraw it correctly). The backgrounds, at least, he didn't have to get in and monkey with!
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u/T4llBoyAl3x 8h ago
And this is why animation used to look infinitely better
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u/Forever_Inspired 5h ago
They are still doing paper animation like this in some Anime production where key animators doing key animation on papers before giving it to inbetweeners and cleanup artist to continue digitally.
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u/DVDN27 1h ago
This is how 2D animation is still done. They see the previous frame of animation and draw the next frame. The only difference is that you can’t accidentally rip the cell and be forced to scrap the entire thing, and all the colours are available to you, and it can be immediately turned into a video, and…
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u/quequotion 4h ago
There is still a lot of hand-drawing going on, but to say "instead of computers" would be inaccurate.
Studio Ghibli began working with 3DCG on "Pom Poko" back in 1994.
Not to say they don't heavily prioritize hand-drawn animation, such as when they closed their CGI department for the production of 2008's "Ponyo".
Most of their films involve some stage of digital production these days.
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u/Forever_Inspired 2h ago
Most people still think hand-drawn animation is somehow dead when in reality it's still alive, just being drawn on screen tablet like Wacom and animation software like Toonboom and TV Paint. Many 2D anime and cartoons are still being done hand-drawn frame by frame to this date.
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u/SunnyTheMasterSwitch 5h ago
Understandable why they would hate AI use, requires no talent compared to the dedication to do this
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u/chrisolucky 3h ago
Well, true and false. Prior to Spirited Away, Ghibli did their films this way. Now, they use a combination of traditional and digital methods. While they still paint the backgrounds with poster paint, only the line art for characters is drawn and everything else (including compositing) is done in a computer. CGI is often used for difficult animations or things like smoke or water.
Additionally, each film comes with a team of hundreds of animators. While Miyazaki may draw thousands of frames (usually for the storyboard), let’s not forget that his team is also drawing and painting thousands of frames as well.
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u/t8oo_ 2h ago
Wat the hell does this title even mean. Instead of using computers for what ? You can do 2D animation on the computer and its going to be by hand ? The process isnt much different from drawing on paper, just better streamlined, and its much easier to fix your mistakes. But you will still very much draw the frames yourself. The title makes it sound like Miyazaki is special for drawing animation frames as if the 2D animation industry in japan and the world isnt doing the same. Even storyboarder in 3D productions draw frames. What a ridiculously misleading title
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u/JappySWAG 9h ago
Ain’t no way! He drew? Animation? By hand? Just like every other animator before him? Truly a legend!
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u/MeNoCanRead 9h ago
I don't think you understand modern animation.....
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u/ForAte151623ForTeaTo 8h ago
Plenty before him didn't, and barely any do now. Your comment is nonsense.
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u/AngBigKid 8h ago
Instead of using a phone, this old man still writes letters. 5 million upvotes now.
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u/Maleficent_Growth912 7h ago
Here have a downvote instead.
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u/AngBigKid 7h ago
Oh no what ever will I do
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u/Helpy-Support 7h ago
you can get the same results with digital art...but if it makes him happy, why not...
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u/Nethervale 9h ago
Insane dedication