Starting Point - Hayao Miyazaki - On Creating Animation - Nostalgia for a Lost World. (Book Breakdown and Summary)

Re-reading this book and I want to note down what I feel are significant and useful points that I feel I need help with my storytelling journey. Going through this by chapters.

On Creating Animation - Nostalgia for a Lost World

What Animation is to me

"Whatever I want to create". Something that can't be done with other medium. Build a truly unique imaginary world and creating a complete drama with characters I like.

Wanting one's own world

Young people in many ways are very oppressed. Eg. attracted to opposite sex but have to study hard.
To escape from depressing situation, they often find themselves wishing they could live in a world of their own that is truly theirs. A yearning of a lost world that is free from the constraints and to do all sorts of things.

Nostalgia is something that all of us as we get older increases in breadth/depth. It is one of the fundamental starting points for most people in creating animation.

To be born at a present instant means certain opportunities and possibilities are lost including born in other ages. The yearning for other, lost possibilities is also another major motivator.

Most people fell unfilled by something in their lives. When they attracted to heroes in a tragedy, its a surrogate emotion for something they feel they have lost. Like a surrogate girlfriend when I had none.

I think we can achieve a type of satisfaction by substituting something for this unfulfilled portion of our lives and as we age, the ways we seek it will probably change as is the normal pattern of things. .

If I were to create it...

Depict all characters, even the other characters with nuance. Animated movies won't come to life unless animators pour their heart and soul into their work. Even if we do that, in this industry we never expect commensurate rewards or treatment.

For us the ultimate dream is to create works and have as many people as possible view them.
   
At the Core, there must be a sense of realism...

In modern Society, humans have become slave to machine-so much so that machines currently hold the keys to our collective fate. But in anime by contrast, humans control and operate the machines. Yet, despite the fact that anime has been granted the ability to show things this way, most works don't really take advantage of it.

Everyone is attracted to Power and Strength. I don't like protagonist pilot machine that he couldn't create on his own, battles enemy and boosts about it after. I hate it. He should struggle to build his own machine, fix it when broken down, and have to operate it himself.

People were able to identify with heroes and enjoy imagining themselves as superheroes. But even if only one person operate a specific machine, that machine required multiple designers and mechanics to reach a point of being operational. In a world of fiction, I believe we need to depict this to give it a sense of reality. I despise shows that fail to do so.

Anime may depict fictional World But at its core, it must have a certain realism. The animator must fabricate a lie that seems to real that the audience will believe the world depicted can exist. 

Eg, Depict a world from the viewpoint of a bug cannot be seen from the perspective of a human using a magnifying glass but of a world where grass becomes a tall tree and ground,water has a completely different character that we humans normally thinks of it having.

Gags and laughter. 

Most gags make fun of human stupidity. But that I feel its vicious. Instead it is when someone do their absolute best but lose focus and does something out of character or outside of normal routine.  Eg. a gently, proper princess attempts to rescue her lover from bandits by kicking them. It does not ruin our impression of her. But actually unveils her humanity and makes her come alive.

I really hate gag characters (comic relief). It is when we sense the character's humanity that we begin to  laugh.

Before speaking about the techniques of animation...

The most important thing when creating an animated work is knowing what you want to say with it. In other words, you have to have a theme. People always overlook theme and overemphasize on technique. Many examples of people with a high level of technique but only a fuzzy idea of what they want to say. Viewers are often befuddled after watching these films. Yet when people who know what they want to say make films with a low level of technique, we still greatly appreciate the films because there is really something to them.

When young, nearly all of us want to be taken seriously, as soon as possible. Perhaps because of this we tend to overemphasize on technique.

One of the things about drawing is that, if you put serious effort, you will become good at it, at least to a certain extent. But that's all the more reason to study a variety of things that interest you while you have time, before you enter the professional world, in order to develop and solidify such fundamentals as your own viewpoint and way of thinking.

If you do not do this, your life will be treated as just another disposable product... In the animation biz, most people spend a long time working at the bottom.... But the opportunity to demonstrate what you can do only come once in a while.....To endure something is obviously exhausting and agonizing. But at the same time, you must also continue to hold what you regard as important close to your heart and to nurture it. Should you ever relinquish what you truly hold dear, the only path left to you will be that of a pencil-pusher-type of animator who sense of self-worth is determined by the numerical amount of his earnings, or who cycles between joy and despair over the high and low ratings his work receives.

It is essential to watch as many animation classics as possible. And it is also essential to be interested in subjects that have traditions going back hundreds of years, and to broaden your own knowledge. In exerting yourself towards this end, you will find that you develop something truly all your own.

Now is really the time to study....

To draw a flying boat in flight in a truly original fashion, you will need to have read at least one book on the history of flying and to use your imagination to augment what you have read. Not only what they have previously seen on past TV anime shows. (they do not capture the realism)

Eg.. Igor Sikorsky who is known for having dined on board his 4-engine plane that he invented and flew over Russia. When an engine failed, he grabbed on to the struts of the wing and stood up from the cockpit with wind in his face to personally check on his engine. That is how I personally think Sikorsky symbolizes the way men really fly.

From this image of someone simply yearning to fly, a illustration appears. It does not come from imitating something seen long ago on a TV anime or from a plastic model kit. Not even flying in a modern passenger plane.

Once involved in the business of creating animation, the question invariably arises:"Why am I creating animation? What am I doing this for? Is it just to make a living?" To avoid this trap, Study and read.