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'EVANGELION: 1.0 YOU ARE (NOT) ALONE.' I ...

'EVANGELION: 1.0 YOU ARE (NOT) ALONE.' Interview with Hideaki Anno #4

Oct 18, 2021

We're running on the same track at first, but then halfway through we switch track.

Interviewer

When did you switch to the method named "REBUILD" later on?

Anno

I wrote that (the declaration on the poster) in September, so I think we decided on all-digital shooting by August.

Interviewer

When I visited your office in early August, I saw a pile of original drawings there. I remember agreeing with you that it would be better to recreate them digitally, so they could be processed later.

Anno

Yes. Our studio was established in mid-September, so by the beginning of autumn, we had completely shifted to all-digital shooting.

Interviewer

I heard from the director, Hiroshi Haraguchi, that the search for the original artworks took a long time unexpectedly.

Anno

For a work that is twelve years old, the preservation itself was good. For example, the original images and videos were kept separate, and divided into cut bags (Note 1), so it was fairly well organized. When I made the original art collection, I knew how it was stored, so I knew how to deal with it. However, due to the reorganization we did after that, they got separated and we lost track of them.

Note 1) A bag to hold materials such as layouts, original pictures, videos, and time sheets in units of cuts.

Interviewer

What was the reason why it was difficult to find at first?

Anno

There were simple mistakes such as the cut bag itself being organized incorrectly, the numbers "1" and "7" being switched by mistake, the TV version often used BANK (Note 2), so the original drawing and video went to the episode they were used for and went missing, the cut number was unknown without a time sheet, and the video was not well organized and I didn't even know what episode it was from. The situation was worse than I expected.

So, I managed to find the missing cuts by checking every single bag of all the existing cuts of all the episodes, including the movies, two episodes at a time per day. It was a lot of work, but I'm glad that I was able to find quite a few cuts. The original drawings for character close-ups, etc., that were found by reviewing all of them, were used in the future episodes by changing the storyboard.

For the cuts that still didn't come out, and for which there was nothing left, I printed them out from the DVD and reworked them.

Note 2) A system for reusing the animation or background of a particular scene in a video work, especially in animation and special effects.

Interviewer

Is that a way of printing out the image from the DVD on paper and then tracing over it?

Anno

Yes, that's right. But if I had known in advance that I was going to make that many changes to the drawings, I wouldn't have had to be so stick to the TV anime drawings. It would have been fine to do some new work from the original drawings. It's not like re-editing a film, so I could have changed my plan and changed the storyboard a little. In the middle of the project, I made some changes to the timing of the movements in the original drawings, but I was too focused on brush-ups and making the reproduction rate high. That was a big point of regret for me this time. That's why I decided to stop focusing on reproduction for the second film.

Interviewer

Did you have to decide on the rate of reproduction as you went along?

Anno

That's right. I didn't predict any of those regrets until the first preview. I don't know why I was so obsessed with it at the time of production.

Interviewer

That must mean that using the TV anime version was the first major direction. When I first saw the scenario, there was a section in the text that said, "This part is partially new" and "This part is completely new." I got the impression that you took into consideration how much of the TV anime version you were going to use when creating the scenario.

Anno

That's right. When I was working on the scenario, I wrote things like, "This part uses BANK." I also made a script for the creators with such notes. I also worked on the storyboards accordingly. I still had the feeling of re-editing at the time.

Interviewer

Based on the change in the color of the scenario, it seemed to me that the amount of new work would increase as the latter half of the story progressed.

Anno

Yes. That's in line with the concept Tsurumaki came up with. If we were going to start over as a film, we wanted to start from the same place. At first, we're running on the same tracks as we were ten years ago, but even though we're running in the same direction, halfway through we suddenly switch tracks and start running on different parallel tracks. Eventually, the tracks get farther and farther apart. Where the hell is this track going? That's how I wanted it to be.

That's why we had to start from a place where we thought, "What the heck, it's the same as the TV anime version." Eventually, it became more and more like, "Wow, the scenery is changing."

Interviewer

I see. It's a matter of the view from the window.

Anno

It starts with a familiar view, but gradually that familiar view becomes more and more distant, and then it switches to a new view. At the end, you don't know where you're going at all. I thought that the concept of Tsurumaki was really great.

Interviewer

In fact, that's exactly how the movie turned out.

Anno

Around the time of "Operation Yakushima," we switched to a completely different railroad track. Until then, we were running on the same tracks for the time being. Even so, the tracks have been cleaned and repaired, and because the tracks are maintained, there is less swaying and the ride is more comfortable and smooth. The trains themselves are also new. The interior of the train is the same, but it is cleaned very well.

Interviewer

Is "train" a key word in that, too?

Anno

I'm using it because it's easy for me to talk about as a metaphor (laughs). Also, with a road, the driver can go anywhere he wants, but with a train, you can only go where the rails are already set. That's what I like about it, and it's a good way to describe the atmosphere of this film. That's how I feel. However, looking back now, I feel that I got too caught up in the initial concept.

» #5

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