From Cyber Punk to Steamboy

Jerry Beck ponders Otomo, anime and the state of art since Akira.

By Jerry Beck | Monday, March 21, 2005 at 12:00 am

Posted In | Magazines: AnimationWorld | Columns: Anime

Akira, Otomo’s 1988 cyber-punk epic has become the enduring symbol of the anime genre. Courtesy of Pioneer Entertainment. Produced by Akira Committee Kodansha. © 1987 Akira Committee.

Pokémon, Digimon and Dragonball Z brought anime to Saturday morning TV and into the home of every parent in America. Videogames and the Internet spread the word even further, legitimizing anime in a way never dreamed.

Ahead of the curve in 1988, Otomo simply bided his time in considering his follow-up project. Since the release of Akira, he’s only directed several short anime segments (for the feature length omnibus Memories, 1995), wrote the feature length screenplays for Roujin Z (1991) and Metropolis (2001), participated as a supervisor and consultant for several notable anime projects (including Perfect Blue, 1997, and Spriggan, 1998) — even directed a live-action film (World Apartment Horror, 1991) — but had not conceived an animation project worthy enough to follow-up Akira. None, that is, until Steamboy began to brew.

Otomo’s efforts to bring Steamboy to the screen now seem as heroic as efforts the films protagonist, Ray Steam. Ten years in the making, at a total budget of $22 million — the most expensive Japanese anime production to date — Otomo spent much time conquering technical details to combine traditional drawn animation techniques with computer graphics and digital filmmaking; creating a seamless blend of visuals to serve his vision of epic fantasy.

But instead of futuristic Neo-Tokyo, the setting this time is Industrial Age Victorian England. “I thought we could show the technology to its best effect, not in a futuristic world of science fiction, but by going back in time to the past,” says Otomo. The director and the principal members of his team spent weeks traveling across Britain, scouting locations and soaking up the atmosphere and seeking traces of this lost era.

To make the fantasy believable, Steamboy would have to reflect a world that really was. His team sought out and found many original steam engines, factories and samples of early technology, as well as visiting museums and old neighborhoods in Manchester, to help recreate the feel of living in 19^th century England. Otomo’s creative brain trust soon found out that creating a science fiction film set in the era of Jules Verne was a greater challenge than building a totally imaginary future world that never existed.

Steamboy began in Otomo’s mind in 1994 while on production of Cannon Fodder (a segment of the Memories anthology). The idea of a world of mechanical steam machines captured his imagination. But the ideas he had for it — in creating realistic animated steam, concocting scenes using long takes without cuts, and combining CG with traditional hand-drawn work — were considered revolutionary at the time. Story development continued throughout the 1990s until Bandai Visual selected Steamboy for its Digital Engine Framework project in 1997.

Now Otomo could bring his “steampunk” vision to life, and quickly allied himself with some of the top talent in Japan, including animation supervisor Tatsuya Tomaru (Memories), art director Shinji Kimura (Catnapped!) and composer Steve Jablonsky (Antz, Spirit).

American musician Jablonsky, a protégé of Hans Zimmer, had some Japanese ancestry in his blood, but his affection for animation, and prolific experience in scoring everything from Disney’s The Tigger Movie to TV’s Desperate Housewives, were especially helpful in producing the film’s powerful soundtrack.

Supervising sound editor Keiichi Momose, veteran of Production I.G.’s Blood: The Last Vampire, compiled over 30,000 sounds, using 900 tracks (compared with the 40 or 50 usually used for Japanese films) to build up a great depth of sound.

Shinji Kimura art directed Steamboy in muted colors — beige, brown, tan and gray tones dominate — using a limited color palette to mirror the limited technology of the time.

The end result, a staggering 2:20 epic, which premieres this month across the United States in a limited run from Triumph Releasing, displays Otomo at the peak of his powers. Initial reaction from critics and fans has been positive and enthusiastic.

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Comments

While there may be an overwhelming understanding of, and curiosity for computer/digital artistry I believe that it is fairly clear that writer and director Katsuhiro Otomo knows and comprehends the limits of such technological advances, when they are adapted into another medium of interest. This other medium of interest is namely animation. And just as apparent as the evident artistic value of computer animation, is in fact, the subsequent value (and creative weight) of the story. Director Otomo, I think, clearly recognizes that as fascinating and advantageous mastering the digital arts can be, it means rather little should there not be a solid foundation for the project overall, namely the story. Having worked over the years in part or entirely on projects such as the revolutionary futuristic action film AKIRA, the emotionally poignant yet wonderfully comedic compilation MEMORIES, and as mentioned in the article; the tender and touching yet incredibly somber drama METROPOLIS, the intense psychological thriller PERFECT BLUE, and the fast-paced action film SPRIGGAN; having experience with various styles of filmmaking and having worked with a number of creative minds, I find that director Katsuhiro Otomo has knowledge enough to comprehend and understand the significance of a particular storyline. Evidence of this in the STEAMBOY theatrical release, can be found in the relatively simply yet influential choice by the director to make use of computer animation technology, but only to the effect that it will later round-out and/or supplement animation sequences that were already constructed by hand. This is to simply remark that STEAMBOY would not have been reliable upon computer animation in order to be an effective presentation, but only to further establish the film's visual integrity. In effect, such advances in digital artistry are purely secondary to the adventure of James Ray Steam and his struggle to identify himself with any one particular ideology as represented by family, peers, and politics.

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Aaron Bynum (not verified) | Tue, 03/29/2005 - 01:00 | Permalink

It is quite interesting to see an acclaimed director such as Mr. Otomo himself makes extensive uses of CGI nowadays. With such awesome technology, filmmakers are able to conceive anything they have dreamt of inside their minds: a world where giant flying ships and other outworldly creatures collide, CGI actors now look more real than ever (almost), and massive army of robots flying against the white sky, etc. Which actually, in fact, leads to other problems. Your article mentions much of the benefits of CGI and the surfaces of Steamboy’s universe. Unfortunately, the importance of storytelling and the movie's actual theme are not mentioned elsewhere (that actually is mentioned there: 'filled with compelling characters and startling action set-pieces' But the sole term of ‘compelling’ is not enough). 2D or 3D, the only thing that makes up for an excellent piece of work is the personalities of the characters and the unexpected outcome of the story, not the overwhelming 'big bang' effects (as you may already know). Perhaps many filmmakers nowadays are busy focusing on creating their own dream worlds rather than expressing the characters' feelings out of their mouth. I have always known that Mt. Otomo is a truly great storyteller but sometimes, like all great film directors, despite his technical wizardry, some of us may speculate that he is beginning to lose his magic touch. One good example is George Lucas (I actually admire his dedication to revolutionize the patterns of filmmaking but like everyone else, criticism is a necessity), who often spends much of the time thinking of creating realistic worlds and creatures but forgetting to create characters of credible believability as seen on his original trilogy. As a result, many fans are unimpressed with the prequel trilogy's lack of depth (the characters, not the worlds); some even consider them to be better left out of the supposedly six-part saga. Another example of this matter (this will be personal) is The Incredibles: how many times do you hear people raving about Brad Bird's latest movie? A thousand times, you may answer. People will just go for it and saying that it changes the world as we see right now. For me, I am just slightly disappointed. Disappointed because many of the crews at Pixar have done an exceptional job but despite its more fluid animation and eye-candy environments, the overall story is a bit thin. Emphasizing more on action than what really matters, many studios have reached their concussions that this sort of formula is the only way to make big bucks. But this pattern no longer fools me because there are some underrated movies that can prove to be rare gems such as Bird's previous work, the emotionally powerful 'Iron Giant'. There may be some great reactions from anime fans (of course they will say it no matter how bad an anime can be) and shallow-minded critics but REAL critics who understand the good principles of filmmaking have far more interesting comments. Words such as 'weak characters', 'shallow story', 'depends too much on CGI' are frequently echoed within our ears and minds, especially when you associate them with 'some of the most anticipated movies of the year' thingie. At the end, however, only the audience can really decide whether a particular movie is worth a movie ticket or not.