Author: hb/anitama Cover Source: Mary and the Witch's Flower
For the name Mirin Hongchang, most readers should be very familiar with it. However, in order to take care of readers who do not know Mirin Hongchang, we must first make a brief introduction to it.
Hiromasa Mibayashi, also known as Maru, entered Ghibli in 1996 and participated as an original painter in masterpieces such as "The Hidden Spirit of Spirited Away" and "Hal's Moving Castle", and was a very important original painter of Miyazaki. As a supervisor, he produced two films in Ghibli, "Arieti the Little Man Who Borrowed Things" and "Marnie in Memory".
Compared to the glorious title of "Ghibli's Animation Supervisor", Maru looks more like a reliable big brother in the next door, and Maru's humble and cautious personality is indeed the personality of a big brother next door that can be relied on, and he is also loved by Ghibli employees.
It is this seemingly honest animator, but has a super ability to resist pressure, and can stably and well complete his debut film "Arieti the Little Man Who Borrows Things" under the gaze of Hayao Miyazaki and Takahata.
Miyazaki raised Maru's hand after the test screening of "The Little Man Who Borrowed Things" Arieti, marking the recognition of Maru by the "God of Animation", which also became the top box office hit in Japan in 2010.
However, unlike Miyazaki's big picture, Maru's films are developed between a small number of characters, and there will always be a tough, brave and loving girl. In Maru's view, animation should take precedence over reality, and he directly reflects the emotions of the characters in the play to the picture through the control of sound and art in the animation, so as to portray the delicate changes in the characters' hearts.
After leaving Ghibli, Maru unexpectedly chose to produce "Mary and the Witch's Flower", which has a lot of action scenes, and although the tone of the movie is very different from "Marnie in Memory", the protagonist is a girl who dares to face up to her own courage to change.
Three months after the release of "Marnie in Memories", Maru firmly expressed to Yoshiaki Nishimura that he still wanted to make a movie. Maru's enthusiasm for making a movie is also reflected in the fact that the film's release date has been decided but what to do has not yet been decided.
Decided to make a movie, so the first thing is to look for the original, since the previous movie "Marnie in Memory" is a very "quiet" work, then this time Maru and Nishimura plan to make a "moving" movie. Moreover, Maru also believes that Ghibli's works in recent years have also been based on "jing", so based on this, he also wants to make a more energetic and lively film.
Originally, Nishimura brought a Witch-themed British novel "The Little Broomstick", but Maru resisted at first, because doing this subject inevitably had to be compared with "Witch House Rush", and the original also described many large scenes of running animals, and very complex scenes were also a great burden on painting.
So Maru proposed to adapt the well-known fairy tale "Blue Bird" by Maurice Maeterlink. After calling the screenwriter Riko Sakaguchi, Nishimura, Maro, and Sakaguchi began to discuss whether "Blue Bird" could be made into a movie, and finally thought that the original work was too famous to be adapted and too difficult, so they went back to the "Little Broom" recommended by Nishimura at the beginning.
In Maru's view, "The Little Broomstick" is a work about mary, an ordinary girl who is not satisfied with the status quo, who travels to the wizarding world with the help of incredible powers, and the description of the university of magic in the book is very interesting, and the most important thing is that the original work finally denies magic and moves in the direction of solving problems without magic. However, Maru felt that the original work was not enough to become the theme of the movie, so its content was not enough to constitute a movie.
Although the original depicts Mrs. Manbchuk and Dr. D transforming animals into animals, Maru's motives for their actions are unclear. It is rare to have such an interesting theme as "transformation", so it should be used well. So Maru used Mary's own transformation as a vertical axis, and Lady Manbchuk and Dr. D used others to do spectacular transfiguration experiments as a horizontal axis, and the two story lines were compiled together to form a three-dimensional story.
After confirming the main line, it was the discussion of the specific plot, and the three people of Nishimura, Maru, and Sakaguchi gathered together to make suggestions. Maru believes that the film must have a good sense of rhythm, otherwise the audience will be bored, so within the first ten minutes of the film, the audience must be quickly introduced to what Mary looks like, and then the key prop "Witch Flower" must quickly appear.
While discussing the script with Sakaguchi, Maru also held a meeting with the art designer imai and art supervisor Yutaka Kubo to enrich the story with the impression draft. While drawing the character impression drawings, Maru is still using a paintbrush to gradually enrich the world of magic and science in the animation. For example, the equipment of the alchemical age, the operation principle of the equipment, the way the artificial man in the container is peristaltic, and so on.
While drawing, Maru was also thinking about what Madame Manbchuk and Dr. D were thinking while doing this experiment. So Maru thought: the two of them were holding a powerful force generated from something similar to a magic crystal, and this force could promote the transformation into magic. Gradually, Maru embodied the magic crystals as the "Flower of the Witch".
From this idea, Maru believes that since the two are educators of the Ndo University of Magic, and Lady Manbchuk, as the rector, also regards the university as her pride, it makes sense to use transformation magic to enable students to use more powerful magic.
The failure of the film's opening experiment to transform into magic is based on the "purpose and failure of Madame Butchuk and Dr. D", and it is much more ornate than the beginning of Maru's previous film. Maru attributed this to his previous experience in making "Marnie in Memories", because the beginning of "Marnie in Memories" was very flat, and it was very difficult to choose an impactful picture when making a promotional film, so nishimura hoped that Maru would make a gorgeous picture that could be used for publicity.
Because I had the idea of making a gorgeous beginning, I specially hired a super original painting Shinji Hashimoto to take charge of this section. In the end, Hashimoto drew the original painting that was even better than Maru had thought, and completed the work perfectly. Looking at the original paintings that were better than they expected, the production team also developed the consciousness of working towards such qualities.
Also a work of magical fantasy, "Witch House Rush" and "Mary and the Witch's Flower" will inevitably be compared. Maru also admitted that this production was made with a sense of differentiation from "Witch House Rush". Kiki in "Witch House Rush" is a witch herself, while Mary is an ordinary person. Kiki suddenly loses her magic and then regains her magic, while Mary suddenly gains her magic and loses her magic. So in the end, this film is not the story of the witch, but the story of Mary as a human.
Not only are the protagonists different, but the black cats, brooms and other props around the two girls are also different. Kiki's broomstick is just a prop, while Mary's broomstick is anthropomorphized, from initial disobedience like a wild horse to finally becoming Mary's companion. Kiki's black cat is more like a spokesperson for Kiki's inner thoughts, while Mary's black cat exists independently as a cat and is not anthropomorphic.
There is also a scene of flying with a broom for the first time, and Mary, as an ordinary girl, will definitely be frightened when she first uses a broom to fly into the sky. But Maru also knew that today's children were accustomed to looking down on the town from the air, which could not surprise the children. Therefore, Maru believes that the opposite choice allows Mary to fly on a broomstick at an altitude of two or three meters high, but it is more exciting for the audience.
Although a conscious distinction is made from "Witch House Rush", the audience will still expect to see Ghibli's shadow. Maru also admits that the film's paintings do inherit Ghibli's "magic" to a large extent. So what is "Ghibli Magic"?
Maru used water painting to explain the uniqueness of Ghibli's paintings. He explained that the water in Ghibli films is more like upside-down hair attached to the character's emotions, or bulging clothes. Employees who are not Ghibli may wonder about this, but Maru is very fond of animation that prioritizes emotion over the laws of physics, so the film continues the way of painting called "Ghibli Magic".
However, Maru also stressed that the film does not fully continue Ghibli's approach, although it does not surpass Ghibli but also strives to add new things. For example, Mary's hair is much more three-dimensional than in Ghibli's animations, and the folds of her clothes are more realistic than in Ghibli's time.
Although the painting team is still a Ghibli department headed by Takeshi Inamura, many non-Ghibli original painters have also been added. These original artists with personalities will also add ideas that are not on the storyboard, which is something that Ghibli Animation has not done in the past, so the original paintings handed in give Maro a lot of surprises. Due to the participation of non-Ghibli original artists, the film has appeared in various styles, which has become the unique charm of this film. Although some people have wild painting styles and some people are not sophisticated enough, everyone paints to produce higher-level works, and Maru sincerely thanks these original painters for their participation.
Although "Mary and the Magic Flower" is a magical theme, Maru is not sloppy in his treatment of the human world, and he also went to the British fieldwork set on the animation stage. Maru believes that the depiction of the natural world is a very important part of the original work, so it must be portrayed with respect, so he asked the art staff to reflect the film after careful observation of the plants, skies, and daily necessities in the building that they saw in Britain. As a result, thanks to the blessing of talented production staff, we have indeed created a beautiful world in the village of The Red Hall.
In addition, the height of foreign building roofs, the size of doors, and the location of electrical boxes must be confirmed in proportion to the role, and these details will not be felt if they do not go to the Uk for fieldwork. Moreover, the vegetation in the Uk is completely different from that in Japan, and from this point of view, it will not be understood without field visits.
In this work, Maru also gives art a very important task, that is, to reflect Mary's mood with color. For example, when Mary first entered the University of Endor Magic, because the appearance of various things was very complicated, Maru had to write out the key points in the form of an article and pass it on to the production staff.
"At first Mary was frightened and went to school with an uneasy mood, so she felt a little uneasy, but as Mary's mood changed, the tone gradually became brighter." Maru believes that as long as mary's mood is captured, then it is natural to connect the mood of the child audience with Mary.
In addition to the very detailed portrayal of the natural world, of course, parts of the wizarding world also need to be well portrayed. Although it is also possible to directly apply the style of Gothic and the like, in order to make the existence of the alternate world very convincing, Maru did not particularly adopt the architectural style of reality, and even the magic text was redesigned.
In addition, Mary's character design is also a difficult point, because the work will have a lot of action scenes, so it needs to be designed as a character that is difficult to break, but it cannot be inferior to the complex characters that the recent animation wants to illustrate, and this difficult task Maru asked Takeshi Inamura. Maru believes that the recent animation is becoming more and more realistic, and it will probably be life-threatening if it falls from the second floor, so for the sake of activity, Mary is deliberately designed as a smaller character, and from this point of view, Mary is a very solid child.
In addition to the characters, there are many creatures in this film who have been transformed into "transformed animals" by transformation magic. At first, Maru had a problem with whether the "transformed animal" should be anthropomorphized or handled according to real animals, but in the end, he believed that anthropomorphizing animals would cause the worldview of the work to collapse, so he also asked the painting to paint the transformed animals according to real animals.
Speaking of her favorite scene in the movie, Maru pushes mary's witch mark on her hand to disappear and lose her magic and is injured, and she also has to stand up and step towards the goal. Maru emphasizes that Mary and the Witch's Flower is not a witch story, but a story of the human girl Mary, whose theme is "Mary can still stand up even if she loses her magic".
In Maru's view, adults are always making mistakes while forgetting the past, while young Mary dares to make changes. Maru also used his own analogy, he believes that what he has been taught by Miyazaki in Ghibli for 20 years is also a huge magic, he has been animating under a huge magic called Ghibli, and now he has built a new studio without the protection of Ghibli, just like Mary lost her magic, and the next road has to go on her own. Maru also hopes that the audience watching this film can feel the courage of young Mary and the courage to take a step forward.
Animege August 2017
《newtype》August 2017
《Mary and the Witch's Flower art book》
Interview with Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Producer Yoshiaki Nishimura of Mary and the Witch's Flower
Interview with Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi of Mary and the Witch's Flower: The resolution to continue making a step forward from Ghibli
Mary and the Witch's Flower Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi's Thoughts on Mary
Ghibli's "magic" will proceed even if it disappears Interview with Yonebayashi in "Mary and the Witch's Flower"
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