Some
directors work in limited genres. Koichi Chigira goes across the lines
- comedy in Full Metal Panic, action in Blue Submarine No. 6, drama in
Tokyo Babylon, fantasy in Last Exile. Maybe Chigira's diversity in
projects comes because he never "trained" to become an anime director.
"When I entered the anime industry, I started as an animator, then I
developed an interest in the directing field," said Chigira through an
interpreter at an Anime Expo interview session. "That's when I switched
from being an animator to becoming a director." If Chigira got an
education in directing, it came from watching films by anime masters
such as Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hayao Miyazaki, and looking at the
storyboards those directors and others used to build their feature
films. "I got my inspiration from that," he said.
The
result was a sense of cinematic pacing, a rhythm that tells a story.
"In the case of Gatekeepers, I limited the cuts to around 200 frames
where they usually would be 300, so I focused on making those cuts
really small. The advantages of having few scenes is that it's easy to
watch - but we'll have up to 400 cuts in one episode, which will make
it more exciting and get the viewer more engrossed in the episode,"
Chigira said. "I make an effort to make the show as comfortable as
possible and make the pacing natural." For Last Exile, "I focused on
the very mellow pace behind it. I concentrated on clouds, slow moving
clouds in that atmosphere...the simple things like design and drawing
fits in with the mellow atmosphere. But the pace changes when the enemy
comes in and they begin to battle. I concentrated on the contrast
between the two atmospheres." Another contrast is between characters,
and Chigira worked on that in Full Metal Panic, where the lead
characters are exact opposites.
Some
directors work in limited genres. Koichi Chigira goes across the lines
- comedy in Full Metal Panic, action in Blue Submarine No. 6, drama in
Tokyo Babylon, fantasy in Last Exile. Maybe Chigira's diversity in
projects comes because he never "trained" to become an anime director.
"When I entered the anime industry, I started as an animator, then I
developed an interest in the directing field," said Chigira through an
interpreter at an Anime Expo interview session. "That's when I switched
from being an animator to becoming a director." If Chigira got an
education in directing, it came from watching films by anime masters
such as Yoshiyuki Tomino and Hayao Miyazaki, and looking at the
storyboards those directors and others used to build their feature
films. "I got my inspiration from that," he said.
The
result was a sense of cinematic pacing, a rhythm that tells a story.
"In the case of Gatekeepers, I limited the cuts to around 200 frames
where they usually would be 300, so I focused on making those cuts
really small. The advantages of having few scenes is that it's easy to
watch - but we'll have up to 400 cuts in one episode, which will make
it more exciting and get the viewer more engrossed in the episode,"
Chigira said. "I make an effort to make the show as comfortable as
possible and make the pacing natural." For Last Exile, "I focused on
the very mellow pace behind it. I concentrated on clouds, slow moving
clouds in that atmosphere...the simple things like design and drawing
fits in with the mellow atmosphere. But the pace changes when the enemy
comes in and they begin to battle. I concentrated on the contrast
between the two atmospheres." Another contrast is between characters,
and Chigira worked on that in Full Metal Panic, where the lead
characters are exact opposites.
