Some animators are satisfied with becoming a key animator
or a character designer. Kobun Shizuno was different: from the
beginning of his career, he wanted to become a director. In a short
time by the standards of the anime industry, Shizuno has reached his
goal. "I went into it (animation school) hoping that I could be a
director right away, but that didn't happen," Shizuno said at a New
York panel discussion. But after learning the ropes and showing his
instructors his storyboard ideas, "I became a director a lot quicker
than I expected." His best known work in Japan, and eventually in
the U.S., comes from co-directing the "You are not alone"
feature in the Evangelion universe. "It was very exciting to work on
this," Shizuno said at a New York panel discussion. "It was an
incredible experience - everyone worked 200 percent." For the time
being, the work that has gotten more attention in the U.S. than
anything else Shizuno has worked on was the G.I. Joe Sigma Six series,
something that's likely not seen by anime fans as anime. Shizuno said
that series was important to him because much of the artistic
decisions, such as characters and color schemes, were made by others
who owned the series, but he was still able to put his personal stamp
on the animation ideas - something that is surfacing as he takes more
control of animation projects he directs.
Shizuno's career goes back to the days of the Sin series,
once a hot title for ADV Films in the 1990's, and the decade's Giant
Robo series that took years to produce. Giant Robo was among the last
series animated in Japan to be made on film from cels, and Shizuno
recalled spending days editing and cutting film for that series, an
experience that shaped his directing vision. "Something that was very
personal to me was that I was able to use a lot of quick cuts," he
said. That style was apparent in a trailer shown at the panel for Shizuno's latest project, Cross Climb
(the trailer is online at this link).
It's the story of Ruby Feria, who starts as a man-crazy love-lost woman
who finds her apparent future in a virtual gaming world, but learns
that this world may have more risks than rewards. That trailer showed
the series' use of digital animation for its virtual world CG
sequences, something that many viewers think is the high point of
computer animation. However, in recent years, every animated scene, no
matter how apparently mundane, has been produced on computers. Shizuno
sees that as the major technical animation breakthroughs of the 21st
century, noting that "We can do things that once were impossible to
show on the screen."
Some animators are satisfied with becoming a key animator
or a character designer. Kobun Shizuno was different: from the
beginning of his career, he wanted to become a director. In a short
time by the standards of the anime industry, Shizuno has reached his
goal. "I went into it (animation school) hoping that I could be a
director right away, but that didn't happen," Shizuno said at a New
York panel discussion. But after learning the ropes and showing his
instructors his storyboard ideas, "I became a director a lot quicker
than I expected." His best known work in Japan, and eventually in
the U.S., comes from co-directing the "You are not alone"
feature in the Evangelion universe. "It was very exciting to work on
this," Shizuno said at a New York panel discussion. "It was an
incredible experience - everyone worked 200 percent." For the time
being, the work that has gotten more attention in the U.S. than
anything else Shizuno has worked on was the G.I. Joe Sigma Six series,
something that's likely not seen by anime fans as anime. Shizuno said
that series was important to him because much of the artistic
decisions, such as characters and color schemes, were made by others
who owned the series, but he was still able to put his personal stamp
on the animation ideas - something that is surfacing as he takes more
control of animation projects he directs.
Shizuno's career goes back to the days of the Sin series,
once a hot title for ADV Films in the 1990's, and the decade's Giant
Robo series that took years to produce. Giant Robo was among the last
series animated in Japan to be made on film from cels, and Shizuno
recalled spending days editing and cutting film for that series, an
experience that shaped his directing vision. "Something that was very
personal to me was that I was able to use a lot of quick cuts," he
said. That style was apparent in a trailer shown at the panel for Shizuno's latest project, Cross Climb
(the trailer is online at this link).
It's the story of Ruby Feria, who starts as a man-crazy love-lost woman
who finds her apparent future in a virtual gaming world, but learns
that this world may have more risks than rewards. That trailer showed
the series' use of digital animation for its virtual world CG
sequences, something that many viewers think is the high point of
computer animation. However, in recent years, every animated scene, no
matter how apparently mundane, has been produced on computers. Shizuno
sees that as the major technical animation breakthroughs of the 21st
century, noting that "We can do things that once were impossible to
show on the screen."
