What happens when you let a film nerd make an anime?
Fuuga Yamashiro (山代風我) joined Science Saru in 2017 as an Assistant Production Manager during production of "Night Is Short, Walk on Girl."
He was essentially Studio Co-founder Masaaki Yuasa's secretary, but he worked his way up to assistant director on "Keep Your Hands off Eizouken" and finally got to direct his own first full Anime series, Dandadan.
Having worked so closely with one of the greatest living auteur directors, you might think he would share that overpowering individual creative influence, but as he has pointed out in interviews himself, it's much the opposite.
Instead of relying on his own creative voice, which he doesn't seem confident about in interviews, he literally collects techniques from his favorite movies, breaking them down into storyboards and adding them to his arsenal to re-contextualize later.
And as you may be able to tell from watching Dandadan, his biggest influences aren't anime and manga, but live action film -- something he seems to have studied obsessively.
And when you compare the anime to the original manga (which itself is already filled with references to old movies and TV) subtle adaptation choices make the deft application of techniques borrowed from other storytellers very clear. Every choice is made for a reason and furthers the story being told in some way; nothing is there for no reason.
like the simple, controlled camera pans and tilts that make the serpoian spaceship feel cold and sterile, or the crazywackysilly, un-predictable wide-angle camera movements that intrude on that cold sterile world when turbo granny shows up.
In one interview during the production of "Keep Your Hands off Eizouken" Yamashiro pulls out his notebook where he had collected all these techniques and gives an example:
"There's a technique called 'Dolly Zoom', which is a technique that changes the perspective of the background while keeping the size of the subject." […] "In 'Cult of Chucky,' which I saw recently, there is a scene in which a long passageway is filmed in telephoto, while a wheelchair moves forward. The character is 'getting closer, but the viewer feels farther away'. This is the kind of thing I collect." […] "I'd like to combine these things in various ways and do it in animation."
(I took some liberties with this, the translation was pretty rough)
And sure enough, that exact same type of dolly zoom rears its head in Dandadan as Okarun sprints away from Turbo Granny and the mouth of the tunnel stretches impossibly into the distance.
It may seem counterintuitive to ascribe too much importance to the creative vision of one person who specifically talks about his own lack of strong creative vision, (and to be clear, he's far from the only person playing a major role) but I think it's precisely that encyclopedic knowledge of film techniques and that pragmatic, meticulous attitude that may have acted as a stabilizing force for Yuasa, and that also provides some needed structure to a ball of pure energy like Dandadan, while still preserving its essence and the eclectic influences that it wears on its sleeve.
Also, mad respect for using the seventh installment of the Child's Play franchise as your example of a dolly zoom instead of, like, Vertigo, Jaws, or Goodfellas.
This is just a sliver of what I talk about in this full video! A minuscule piece of the pie! Some tiny little crumbs for the peasants!
So if you consider yourself worthy, go watch the whole video. I think it's good.
Uhh also reblog! I spent way too long on that intro animation, so I need it. Bad.
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