The
last time this site encountered artist Kazuto Nakazawa, he had not yet
taken on two of his most successful career challenges, animation for
the two Kill Bill features from Quentin Tarantino and the Breaking the
Habit music video for Linkin Park. For each project, as Nakazawa tells
it, the directors were pleased with his work and wanted more, although
he learned about their requests in unusual ways. Nakazawa recalled
meeting Tarantino in an unusual fashion, seeing him in a Japanese
coffee shop but not recognizing the director until they were
introduced. Tarantino asked Nakazawa to animate a Kill Bill sequence,
and Nakazawa replied it would be difficult, by which he said he meant
"impossible." Tarantino took Nakazawa's translated reply literally,
hired him and got what we wanted - a scene of a bullet fired from the
top of a skyscraper."I generally don't use computers for my work and I
do it by hand. I told him I could do it by hand, and he said `Fine,
just do it.'" Tarantino saw the rushes of the animated sequence,
Nakazawa said, and "...he thought it was fabulous - and then he wanted
the bullet to travel slower. So we had to do everything over again, and
at that particular time everyone in the production wasn't thinking
particularly highly of Mr. Tarantino." After more animation was
produced for Kill Bill and more changes were requested, "I have a
memory of going around and saying `sorry' to a lot of people."
That
didn't change the high regard that Nakazawa gained among American
filmmakers, because he also was commissioned to make the Linkin Park
video, another project that was subject to change. "The original idea
was that of the three minutes of the video, only 30 seconds would be of
animation - piece of cake," he recalled. But Link Park's
representatives liked his work so much that they wanted all three
minutes to be animated. Nakazawa recalled spending most of his time in
California for the video being locked up in a hotel room with nothing
but work. And all of this doesn't include Samurai Champloo, for which
Nakazawa designed most of the characters. Champloo director Shinichi
Watanabe is noted by Nakazawa as being "...a very talented person, but
it's hard to work for him. A few times I was reduced to crying because
he made it an almost impossible task, but he is a very good person."
The
last time this site encountered artist Kazuto Nakazawa, he had not yet
taken on two of his most successful career challenges, animation for
the two Kill Bill features from Quentin Tarantino and the Breaking the
Habit music video for Linkin Park. For each project, as Nakazawa tells
it, the directors were pleased with his work and wanted more, although
he learned about their requests in unusual ways. Nakazawa recalled
meeting Tarantino in an unusual fashion, seeing him in a Japanese
coffee shop but not recognizing the director until they were
introduced. Tarantino asked Nakazawa to animate a Kill Bill sequence,
and Nakazawa replied it would be difficult, by which he said he meant
"impossible." Tarantino took Nakazawa's translated reply literally,
hired him and got what we wanted - a scene of a bullet fired from the
top of a skyscraper."I generally don't use computers for my work and I
do it by hand. I told him I could do it by hand, and he said `Fine,
just do it.'" Tarantino saw the rushes of the animated sequence,
Nakazawa said, and "...he thought it was fabulous - and then he wanted
the bullet to travel slower. So we had to do everything over again, and
at that particular time everyone in the production wasn't thinking
particularly highly of Mr. Tarantino." After more animation was
produced for Kill Bill and more changes were requested, "I have a
memory of going around and saying `sorry' to a lot of people."
That
didn't change the high regard that Nakazawa gained among American
filmmakers, because he also was commissioned to make the Linkin Park
video, another project that was subject to change. "The original idea
was that of the three minutes of the video, only 30 seconds would be of
animation - piece of cake," he recalled. But Link Park's
representatives liked his work so much that they wanted all three
minutes to be animated. Nakazawa recalled spending most of his time in
California for the video being locked up in a hotel room with nothing
but work. And all of this doesn't include Samurai Champloo, for which
Nakazawa designed most of the characters. Champloo director Shinichi
Watanabe is noted by Nakazawa as being "...a very talented person, but
it's hard to work for him. A few times I was reduced to crying because
he made it an almost impossible task, but he is a very good person."
