Jun 10, 2019

Studio Ponoc's Yoshiaki Nishimura Discusses New Olympic-Inspired Short Film and the Studio's Goals and Growth - Annecy

The 1988 anime "Akira" depicted a dystopian neo-Tokyo preparing to host the 2020 Olympics amidst the collapse of society. Coincidentally, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are now a reality, and the Games, which will be held next year, have produced a different and entirely optimistic animated work.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) commissioned a short animation commemorating the ideals of "Olympism," summarized as "excellence, respect, and friendship. The film was produced by Studio Ponoc and presented this afternoon at the opening day of the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France.Cartoon Brew spoke exclusively with Yoshiaki Nishimura about the project in English.

Ponoc was formed by former members of Studio Ghibli after the company disbanded its production arm in 2014 (Ghibli has since resumed production). Its ties to its illustrious predecessor ensured that it would launch with a high profile, and its first feature, Mary and the Witch's Flower, was marketed as a children's fantasy adventure that fit the Ghibli mold. But with the second film, the studio took a sharp turn: Unassuming Heroes, an anthology film consisting of three gently experimental shorts, each directed by a veteran animator.

Both films were produced by Nishimura (he also produced Ghibli's last two feature films). It was during the production of Modest Heroes that he was approached by the IOC. The initial brief was to produce a feature-length animation of the Games, but the studio hesitated, as Nishimura explained to Cartoon Brew. As Nishimura explains, "While it was artistically possible to capture the vibrancy of the sport and the athletes and their dynamism in animation, it didn't fit the skill set of our animators, who specialize in hand-drawn expressions." Nevertheless, the committee suggested a short film instead. Ponoc was encouraged by the progress of "Modest Heroes" and accepted.

The film is currently in pre-production. Although this is the studio's first commissioned film, the brief is quite loose. The main requirement is to convey the values of Olympism with which Nishimura is familiar. We are making a film that has value for children," Nishimura said. With this film, we want to present an aspect of the Olympics other than the competition, a new way of thinking that the Olympics can inspire. It is not about the athletes."

Importantly, the request came directly from the IOC, which plans to promote the film online, on television, and in movie theaters, although details have not yet been finalized. In contrast to the live-action official film of the Games directed by Naomi Kawase, this short film does not touch on explicitly Japanese themes.

Following the lead of Hayao Miyazaki, Ponoc artists tend to develop their stories through concept art and storyboards rather than scripts. The pastel-colored Tokyo suburbs of Yoshiyuki Momose's Life Ain't Gonna Lose are a world apart from the CG-driven water world of Hiromasa Yonebayashi's Kanini & Kanino.

The Olympic short will also be hand-drawn, but the team is still developing its visual style; when Cartoon Brew asked if the IOC was sticking to a recognizable "anime" aesthetic, Nishimura rejected the label itself. We consider ourselves creators of "animated films." When the term "anime" first appeared outside of Japan, most of the films associated with it were sexual and violent. We do not want to be misunderstood. We want our films to be seen by a wider audience."

Nishimura often emphasizes in interviews his desire to make films that appeal to all ages, including children, a demographic he believes is underserved by Japanese anime. He continues, "Communication on the Internet has flourished, but children don't have a presence on the Internet." 'If we make films for adults, they will be talked about more. In Japan, the birthrate is declining, and I am very concerned that children will be invisible."

Ponoc's films often feature young protagonists, but they do not pander to preconceived notions of what children want to see; Life Ain't Gonna Lose revolves around a boy with a fatal allergy to eggs. The story has no elements of fantasy and no simple resolution. Akihiko Yamashita's "Invisible," Modest Heroes' third short film, which obliquely tackles the theme of isolation among white-collar workers in Japan, features few children. "Children don't just watch 'children's movies,'" Nishimura explains. With "Invisible," Nishimura explains, "we wanted to make the loneliness of adults understandable to children who have had similar experiences. Many of the marketing people who supported the film's release were concerned that children might not enjoy it, but I was confident that it would become a favorite of theirs."

More unconventional than any of the stories, however, is the format of Modest Heroes itself. The film was released theatrically in Japan and North America, and was also released on home video. But the fact remains that a 54-minute anthology film is not commercial. I asked Nishimura about his business model. He said, "There is no such thing. If there were, everyone would be doing it. Making short films is not economically rational. There are big companies like DreamWorks and Pixar that are prepared to lose money, and small companies like ours that try to make good films even if they don't have the money."

Nishimura sees short films as a petri dish of talent and ideas, a way to test young artists and relatively unproven directors, while simultaneously establishing Ponoc's artistic bona fides. He proposes a common analogy between short films and poetry on the one hand, and feature films and novels on the other. The short films he cites as sources of inspiration are not those of Hollywood studios, but groundbreaking masterpieces by writers such as Yuri Norstein and Frederick Buck. He aims to release about three short films every four years, even if he has to get subsidies from other projects. The studio has not given up on monetization. It is now pursuing "new avenues of content distribution that didn't exist 15 years ago."

The production of "Modest Heroes" has made Nishimura determined to take on future challenges. I used to think that short films were as difficult to produce as feature films," he recalls, "but now I think they are much more difficult. With short films, if a part doesn't work, there's no time to recover. It can't become boring in the middle of the film. From the beginning, you have to show a proper plan, concept, and a strong direction in the visualization."

To add to the stress, the three short films were produced simultaneously. It drove me crazy. Having three directors with different personalities requires a different approach as a producer. They wouldn't admit it, but it was a friendly competition. Furthermore, a fourth episode was initially planned. Directed by Ghibli great Isao Takahata (Nishimura produced his last feature film, "The Tale of the Princess Kaguyahime"), it was to be based on a passage from the great Japanese classic "The Tale of the Heike. Director Takahata died last year before production could begin.

Ponoc inherited from Ghibli a ready-made reputation and talent base: Nishimura estimates that 60-70% of the artists who worked on Modest Heroes gained their experience under Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. In this context, the studio's radical initiative to distribute short films, something Ghibli has never done before, feels like a declaration of independence. By accepting commissions from major international organizations, Ponoc is diverging further from its predecessor. Ponoc has also reached out to non-Japanese animators for possible collaboration.

Nishimura recalls a comparison favored by Takahata, who was an avid art scholar. If the decades of Ghibli's dominance were a renaissance for Japanese animation, the industry is now entering a Mannerist phase, a phase of creative elaboration and experimentation. Animation today is not so different from what it was 20 years ago," Nishimura says. Audiences will not enjoy films unless they are challenged by new expressions, new approaches to animation, new ways of depicting movement, and new themes." Ponok means "midnight" in Croatian. Yesterday was not forgotten; a new day has begun.

Note: Yoshiaki Nishimura's response was translated from Japanese by the author.