Pete Docter
Docter in 2009
Born	Peter Hans Docter[1] (1968-10-09) October 9, 1968 (age 43) Bloomington, Minnesota, U.S.
Occupation	Film director, animator, screenwriter, producer, voice actor
Years active	1990 – present
Spouse	Amanda Docter (2 Children)

Peter Hans "Pete" Docter (born October 9, 1968) is an American film director, animator, screenwriter, producer and voice actor from Bloomington, Minnesota.^[2] He is best known for directing the films Monsters, Inc. and Up, and as a key figure and collaborator in Pixar Animation Studios. The A. V. Club has called him "almost universally successful".^[3] He has been nominated for six Oscars (one win thus far for Up -- Best Animated Feature), three Annie Awards (winning two), a BAFTA Children's Film Award (which he won), and a Hochi Film Award (which he won).^[4] He has described himself as a "geeky kid from Minnesota who likes to draw cartoons."^[2]

He is currently directing an upcoming animated feature, set for release on June 19, 2015, and described as "...an inventive new film that explores a world that everyone knows, but no one has seen: inside the human mind."^[5]

Early life[link]

Docter was born in Bloomington, Minnesota, growing up introverted and socially isolated, preferring to work alone and having to remind himself to connect with others. He often played in the creek beside his house, pretending to be Indiana Jones and acting out scenes.^[6] A junior-high classmate later described him as "this kid who was really tall, but who was kind of awkward, maybe getting picked on by the school bullies because his voice change at puberty was very rough".^[2]

The front gate to Pixar Studios

Both his parents worked in education: his mother, Rita, taught music and his father, Dave, was a choral director at Normandale Community College. He attended Nine Mile Elementary School, Oak Grove Junior High, and John F. Kennedy High School in Bloomington. Unlike his two sisters, Kirsten Docter, who is now the violist of the Cavani String Quartet,and Kari Docter, a cellist with the Metropolitan Opera, Docter was not particularly interested in music. Nevertheless, he can be seen playing on Michael Giacchino's score on the Up Blu-ray extra features. He taught himself cartooning, making flip books and homemade animated shorts with a family movie camera.^[2] He later described his interest in animation as a way to "play God", making up nearly living characters. Cartoon director Chuck Jones and producer Walt Disney and cartoonist Jack Davis were major inspirations.^[7]

He spent about a year at the University of Minnesota^[2] studying both philosophy and making art^[7] before transferring to the California Institute of the Arts, where he won a Student Academy Award for his production "Next Door" and graduated in 1990. Although Docter had planned to work for the Disney Corporation, his best offers came from Pixar and from the producers of The Simpsons.^[2] He did not think much of Pixar at that time,^[7] and later considered his choice to work there a strange and unusual one.^[3]

Career[link]

Pete Docter in 2009 promoting the movie Up.

Before joining Pixar, Docter had created three non-computer animations, "Next Door", "Palm Springs", and "Winter".^[8] He was a fan of the company's early short films, but he knew nothing about them otherwise. He commented in an October 2009 interview, "Looking back, I kind of go, what was I thinking?"^[9]

He started at Pixar at the age of 21,^[6] and began work the day after his college graduation,^[3] the tenth employee the company hired,^[7] and its third animator.^[10] He first met owner Steve Jobs when Jobs came to lay off some older workers. Docter instantly felt at home in the tight-knit atmosphere of the company. He has said, "Growing up... a lot of us felt we were the only person in the world who had this weird obsession with animation. Coming to Pixar you feel like, 'Oh! There are others!'"^[2]

Docter had been brought in with limited responsibilities, but John Lasseter quickly assigned him larger and larger roles in writing, animation, sound recording, and orchestra scoring.^[9] He was one of the three key screenwriters behind the concept of Toy Story, and partially based the character of Buzz Lightyear on himself.^[7] He had a mirror on his desk and made faces with it as he conceptualized the character.^[9]

Docter's fascination with character development was further influenced by a viewing of Paper Moon, he told journalist Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life.^[11]

I like the more character-driven stuff, and Paper Moon brought that home to me in a way that I had not seen in live action, really focusing on the whole story just about characters. It was almost theatrical in the same way you might see a stage show because you’re locked in a room. It’s got to be about characters, and yet it was so cinematic, a film that couldn’t be done in any other medium. It just kind of blew my socks off.^[12]

Docter has been an integral part of some of Pixar's most seminal works, including Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug's Life and Monsters, Inc., all of which received critical acclaim and honors. He contributed to these animated films as a co-author to the scripts, and worked with CGI stalwarts such as John Lasseter, Ronnie Del Carmen, Bob Peterson, Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, and Joe Ranft. Docter has referred to his colleagues at Pixar as a bunch of "wild stallions".^[3]

In 2004, he was asked by John Lasseter to direct the English translation of Howl's Moving Castle.^[13] Docter made his directorial debut with Monsters, Inc., which occurred right after the birth of his first child, Nick. Docter has said that the abrupt move from a complete, single-minded devotion to his career to parenting drove him "upside down" and formed the inspiration for the storyline.^[14] Docter then directed the 2009 film Up, released on May 29, 2009. He based the protagonist of Up partially on himself, based on his frequent feelings of social awkwardness and his desire to get away from crowds to contemplate.^[6]

Docter appeared at Comic-Con 2008 and the 2009 WonderCon.^[15]

In May 2009, Docter remarked retrospectively to Christianity Today that he had lived "a blessed life" so far.^[6] The A. V. Club has called him "almost universally successful".^[3] He has been nominated for four Oscars (winning one for Up), three Annie Awards (winning two), a British Academy Children's Award (which he won), and a Hochi Film Award (which he won).^[4] He also won a Bafta for best animation for UP. Accepting his Academy Award for Best Animated Feature he said, "Never did I dream that making a flip book out of my third-grade math book would lead to this."^[16]

Personal life[link]

He is married to Amanda Docter and has two children, Nick and Ellie.^[6] Ellie has a speaking part in Up as "Young Ellie".^[17]

Docter is a fan of anime, particularly the work of Hayao Miyazaki. Docter has said that Miyazaki's animation has "beautifully observed little moments of truth that you just recognize and respond to".^[13] He is also a fan of the work done by his competitors at DreamWorks as well. He has said, "I think it’s a much healthier environment when there is more diversity".^[3] Docter is also a devout Christian. Though he incorporates his personal morality into his work, he has said that he does not intend to ever make a movie with an explicitly religious message.^[7]

About the relationship between his faith and his filmmaking, Docter has said:

I don't think people in any way, shape, or form like to be lectured to. When people go to a movie, they want to see some sort of experience of themselves on the screen. They don't come to be taught. So in that sense, and in terms of any sort of beliefs, I don't want to feel as though I'm ever lecturing or putting an agenda forth.^[6]

Pixar filmography[link]

• Toy Story (1995) - Story / Head Animator
• Geri's Game (1997)- Animator
• A Bug's Life (1998)- Additional Storyboard Artist
• Toy Story 2 (1999) - Story
• Monsters, Inc. (2001) - Director / Story
• Mike's New Car (2002) - Director / Story
• Boundin' (2003)- Special Thanks
• Howl's Moving Castle (2004) - Director / Executive Producer (U.S. production)
• WALL-E (2008) - Story
• Partly Cloudy (2009) - Special Thanks
• Up (2009) - Director, Story, Writer/ Voice of Kevin and Campmaster Strauch
• Dug's Special Mission (2009) - Executive Producer
• The Untitled Pixar Movie That Takes You Inside the Mind (2015) - Director^[18]

See also[link]

• List of Pixar staff

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pete Docter

• Pete Docter at the Internet Movie Database
• Pixar Animation Studios website
• "Pete Docter" at the Pixar Wiki

John Lasseter
Lasseter at the Austin Film Festival on October 22, 2011. Photograph taken by Vanessa Lua.
Born	John Alan Lasseter (1957-01-12) January 12, 1957 (age 55) Hollywood, California
Occupation	Animator, film director, Chief Creative Officer, Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Principal Creative Advisor, Walt Disney Imagineering
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Nancy Lasseter (1979–present)

John Alan Lasseter (born January 12, 1957) is an American animator, film director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering.^[1]

Lasseter's first job was with The Walt Disney Company, where he became an animator. Next, he joined Lucasfilm, where he worked on the then-groundbreaking use of CGI animation. After the Graphics Group of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm was sold to Steve Jobs and became Pixar in 1986, Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer and he directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, and Cars 2. Lasseter is also the creator of Cars.

He has won two Academy Awards, for Animated Short Film (for Tin Toy), as well as a Special Achievement Award (for Toy Story).^[2]

Early years[link]

Lasseter was born in Hollywood, California. His mother, Jewell Mae (née Risley), was an art teacher at Bell Gardens High School, and his father, Paul Eual Lasseter, was a parts manager at a Chevrolet dealership.^[3][4][5] Lasseter grew up in Whittier, California. His mother's profession contributed to his growing preoccupation with animation. He often drew cartoons during church services at the Church of Christ his family attended. As a child, Lasseter would race home from school to watch Chuck Jones cartoons on television. While in high school, he read The Art of Animation by Bob Thomas. The book covered the history of Disney animation and the making of a book about Sleeping Beauty, which made Lasseter realize he wanted to do animation himself. When he saw Disney's 1963 film The Sword in the Stone, he finally made the decision that he should become an animator.^[6]

His education began at Pepperdine University. It was the alma mater of both his parents and his siblings. However, he heard of a new program at California Institute of the Arts and decided to leave Pepperdine to follow his dream of becoming an animator. His mother further encouraged him to take up a career in animation, and in 1975 he enrolled as the second student in a new animation course at the California Institute of the Arts. Lasseter was taught by three members of Disney's "Nine Old Men" team of veteran animators – Eric Larson, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston – his classmates included Brad Bird, John Musker, Henry Selick and Tim Burton.^[7] During his time there, he produced two animated shorts; Lady and the Lamp (1979) and Nitemare (1980), which both won the student Academy Award for Animation.^[8]

Disney (first time)[link]

On graduation, Lasseter joined The Walt Disney Company, and was promoted quickly up the ranks to a Jungle Cruise skipper at Disneyland in Anaheim.^[9] Lasseter later obtained a job as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation, but felt something was missing; after 101 Dalmatians, which in his opinion was the film where Disney had reached its highest plateau, the studio had lost momentum and was criticized for often repeating itself without adding any new ideas or innovations.^[10][11]

In 1980 or 1981, he coincidentally came across some video tapes from one of the then new computer-graphics conferences, who showed some of the very beginnings of computer animation, primarily floating spheres and such, which he experienced as a revelation.^[12] But it wasn't until shortly after, when he was invited by his friends Jerry Rees and Bill Kroyer, while working on Mickey's Christmas Carol, to come and see the first lightcycle sequences for an upcoming film entitled Tron, featuring (then) state-of-the-art computer generated imagery, that he really saw the huge potential of this new technology in animation. Up to that time, the studio had used a multiplane camera to add depth to its animation. Lasseter realized that computers could be used to make films with three dimensional backgrounds where traditionally animated characters could interact to add a new, visually stunning depth that had not been conceived before.

Later, he and Glen Keane talked about how great it would be to make an animated feature where the background was computer animated, and then showed Keane the book The Brave Little Toaster by Thomas Disch, which he thought would be a good candidate for the film. Keane agreed, but first they decided to do a short test film to see how it worked out, and chose Where the Wild Things Are, a decision based on the fact that Disney had considered producing a feature based on the works of Maurice Sendak. Satisfied with the result, Lasseter, Keane and Thomas L. Wilhite went on with the project, especially Lasseter who dedicated himself to it, while Keane eventually went on to work with The Great Mouse Detective.^[13]

Lasseter and his colleagues unknowingly stepped on some of their direct superiors' toes by circumventing them in their enthusiasm to get the project into motion. During a pitch meeting for the film to two of them, animation administrator Ed Hansen, and head of Disney studios, Ron W. Miller, the project was cancelled, due to lack of perceived cost benefits for the mix of traditional and computer animation.^[14] A few minutes after the meeting, Lasseter was summoned by Hansen to his office, where John was told that his employment in the Walt Disney Studios had been terminated. The Brave Little Toaster would later become a 2D animated feature film directed by one of John's friends, Jerry Rees, and some of the staff of Pixar would be involved in the film alongside Lasseter.

Lucasfilm/Pixar[link]

John Lasseter with George Lucas in 2009.

While putting together a crew for the planned feature, he had made some contacts in the computer industry, among them Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull at Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Group. After being fired, Lasseter visited a computer graphics conference at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, where he met and talked to Catmull again. Before the day was over, Lasseter had made a deal to work with Catmull and his colleagues on a project that resulted in their first computer animated short: The Adventures of André and Wally B. Because Catmull was not allowed to hire animators, he was given the title "Interface Designer";^[15] "Nobody knew what that was but they didn’t question it in budget meetings".^[16] The short turned out to be more revolutionary than Lasseter first had visualized before he joined Lucasfilm. His original idea had been to create only the backgrounds on computers, but in the final short everything was computer animated, including the characters. After this short CGI film, things would continue to grow until it became Toy Story, the first ever computer-animated feature film.

Due to George Lucas's financially crippling divorce, he was forced to sell off Lucasfilm Computer Graphics. It was acquired by Steve Jobs in 1986, and became Pixar. Lasseter oversaw all of Pixar's films and associated projects as executive producer. He also personally directed Toy Story, A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Cars, and Cars 2.

He has won two Academy Awards, for Animated Short Film (Tin Toy), as well as a Special Achievement Award (Toy Story).^[2] Lasseter has been nominated on four other occasions – in the category of Animated Feature, for both Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Cars (2006), in the Original Screenplay category for Toy Story (1995) and in the Animated Short category for Luxo, Jr. (1986), while the short Knick Knack (1989) was selected by Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time.^[17]

Lasseter received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California on November 1, 2011.^[18]

Back at Disney[link]

Disney purchased Pixar in April 2006, and Lasseter was named chief creative officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He was also named principal creative advisor at Walt Disney Imagineering, where he helps design attractions for Disney's theme parks. He reports directly to Disney President and CEO Robert Iger, bypassing Disney's studio and theme park executives. He also received green-light power on films with Roy E. Disney's consent.

In December 2006, he announced that Disney will start producing animated shorts that will be released theatrically once more. Lasseter said he sees this medium as an excellent way to train and discover new talent in the company as well as a testing ground for new techniques and ideas. The shorts will be in 2D, CGI or a combination of both.^[19]

Lasseter is a close friend and admirer of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, and has been executive producer on several of Miyazaki's films for their release in the United States, also overseeing the dubbing of the films for their English language soundtrack. The gentle forest spirit Totoro from Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro makes an appearance as a plush toy in Toy Story 3.

Other work[link]

Lasseter drew the most widely known versions of the BSD Daemon, a cartoon mascot for the BSD Unix operating system.^[20]

He owns the "Marie E." steam locomotive, which is an H.K. Porter engine. The "Marie E." was once owned by Ollie Johnston, who was one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men". In May 2007 and again in June 2010, the locomotive visited, and was run by Lasseter at the Pacific Coast Railroad in Santa Margarita, CA alongside the original Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad "Retlaw 1" coaches.^[21]

Personal life[link]

John Lasseter with his wife Nancy Lasseter at the 2006 Annie Awards red carpet at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, California.

Lasseter lives in Glen Ellen, California with his wife Nancy, a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, whom he met at a computer graphics conference. He has five sons, their ages ranging from 14 to 33. The family has a Dachshund named Frank and a cat named Moocher.^[22]

The Lasseters own Lasseter Family Winery, located in Glen Ellen, CA.^[23]

John is an avid NASCAR fan and loves to attend the races at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California.^[7]

On May 2, 2009, Lasseter received an Honorary Doctorate degree from Pepperdine University.^[24] He gave a commencement address where he encouraged the graduating class of more than 500 students never to let anyone tarnish their dreams.

Filmography[link]

Feature films[link]

Short films[link]

See also[link]

• List of Pixar films
• List of Pixar shorts

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Lasseter

• John Lasseter at the Internet Movie Database
• Richard Verrier and Dawn C. Chmielewski, Fabled Film Company May Get a Reanimator, Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2006
• Fortune Magazine interview with John Lasseter – includes biographic information
• KCRW's The Treatment: John Lasseter and Andrew Stanton (02/04)
• KCRW's The Treatment: John Lasseter (06/06)

Hayao Miyazaki
Born	(1941-01-05) January 5, 1941 (age 71) Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Anime Director Animator Screenwriter Manga Artist Storyboard Artist Author Illustrator
Years active	1963–2012
Known for	Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Castle in the Sky My Neighbor Totoro Kiki's Delivery Service Porco Rosso Princess Mononoke Spirited Away Howl's Moving Castle Ponyo The Secret World of Arrietty
Spouse	Akemi Ōta

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Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿, Miyazaki Hayao^?, born January 5, 1941) is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli, an animation studio and production company. The success of Miyazaki's films has invited comparisons with American animator Walt Disney, British animator Nick Park and Robert Zemeckis; he has also been named one of the most influential people by Time magazine.^[1][2]

Born in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Miyazaki began his animation career in 1961, when he joined Toei Animation. From there, Miyazaki worked as an in-between artist for Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon where he pitched his own ideas that eventually became the movie's ending. He continued to work in various roles in the animation industry over the decade until he was able to direct his first feature film Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro which was released in 1979. After the success of his next film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, he co-founded Studio Ghibli where he continued to produce many feature films until his temporary retirement in 1997 following Princess Mononoke.

While Miyazaki's films have long enjoyed both commercial and critical success in Japan, he remained largely unknown to the West until Miramax Films released Princess Mononoke. Princess Mononoke was the highest-grossing film in Japan—until it was eclipsed by another 1997 film, Titanic—and the first animated film to win Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards. Miyazaki returned to animation with Spirited Away. The film topped Titanic's sales at the Japanese box office, also won Picture of the Year at the Japanese Academy Awards and was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award.

Miyazaki's films often incorporate recurrent themes like humanity's relationship with nature and technology, and the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic. The protagonists of his films are often strong, independent girls or young women. While two of his films, The Castle of Cagliostro and Castle in the Sky, involve traditional villains, his other films like Nausicaä and Princess Mononoke present morally ambiguous antagonists with redeeming qualities. He recently co-wrote the film The Secret World of Arrietty, which was released in July 2010 in Japan and February 2012 in the United States.

Early life and education[link]

Miyazaki, the second of four sons, was born in the town of Akebono-cho, part of Tokyo's Bunkyō. During World War II, Miyazaki's father, Katsuji, was director of Miyazaki Airplane, owned by his brother (Hayao Miyazaki's uncle), which made rudders for A6M Zero fighter planes. During this time, Miyazaki drew airplanes and developed a lifelong fascination with aviation, a penchant that later manifested as a recurring theme in his films.^[3]

Miyazaki's mother was a voracious reader who often questioned socially accepted norms. From 1947 until 1955 his mother underwent treatment for Pott disease. She spent the first few years mostly in the hospital, but was eventually able to be nursed from home.^[3]

During his childhood, Miyazaki was forced to switch schools several times. These would all impact elements of his films. First, when he was three, Miyazaki's family was forced to evacuate Bunkyō. He began school as an evacuee in 1947. At age nine his family returned home, but the following year he switched to another American-influenced elementary school.^[3] Miyazaki attended Toyotama High School. In his third year there, he saw the film Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent), which has been described as "the first-ever Japanese feature length color anime."^[4] After high school, Miyazaki attended Gakushuin University, from which he would graduate in 1963 with degrees in political science and economics. He was a member of the "Children's Literature research club," the "closest thing to a comics club in those days."^[4]

Manga and anime interest[link]

Like many children in postwar Japan, Miyazaki decided he wanted to become a manga artist during high school. However, his talents were limited to things like planes, tanks and battleships; he had an especially hard time drawing people. Famous manga artists like Osamu Tezuka, Tetsuji Fukushima and Sanpei Shirato influenced his early works. In order to distance himself from the criticism he expected from following Tezuka's form, he consciously developed his own style, but was unable to fully shake Tezuka's influence off until he began studying animation.^[5]

His interest in animation began during high school after watching Japan's first full-length feature animation The Tale of the White Serpent by Taiji Yabushita. Miyazaki "fell in love" with the movie's heroine and it left a strong impression on him. It was after this Miyazaki decided to stop his pursuit of being a manga artist and pursue animation.^[6] However, in order to become an animator, he had to learn to draw the human figure, since his prior work had been limited to airplanes and battleships.^[4]

Animation career[link]

Toei Animation[link]

In April 1963, Miyazaki got a job at Toei Animation, working as an in-between artist on the anime Watchdog Bow Wow (Wanwan Chushingura) Also known as Ken the wolf boy. He was a leader in a labor dispute soon after his arrival, becoming chief secretary of Toei's labor union in 1964.^{[7][page needed]} He first gained recognition while working as an in-between artist on the Toei production Gulliver's Travels Beyond the Moon (Garibā no Uchuu Ryokō) in 1965. He found the original ending to the script unsatisfactory and pitched his own idea, which became the ending used in the final film. In October 1965, he married fellow animator Akemi Ota, who later left work to raise their two sons, Gorō and Keisuke.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968 Miyazaki played an important role as chief animator, concept artist, and scene designer on Hols: Prince of the Sun, a landmark animated film directed by Isao Takahata, with whom he continued to collaborate for the next three decades. In Kimio Yabuki's Puss in Boots (1969), Miyazaki again provided key animation as well as designs, storyboards and story ideas for key scenes in the film, including the climactic chase scene. Shortly thereafter, Miyazaki proposed scenes in the screenplay for Flying Phantom Ship, in which military tanks would roll into downtown Tokyo and cause mass hysteria, and was hired to storyboard and animate those scenes. In 1971, Miyazaki played a decisive role in developing structure, characters and designs for Animal Treasure Island and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (アリババと40匹の盗賊, Aribaba to Yonjūbiki no Tozuku^?). He also helped in the storyboarding and key animating of pivotal scenes in both films.

Works for other studios[link]

Miyazaki left Toei in 1971 for Mushi Production, A Pro, Nippon Animation, and TMS Entertainment where he co-directed six episodes of the first Lupin III series with Isao Takahata. He and Takahata then began pre-production on a Pippi Longstocking series and drew extensive story boards for it. However, after traveling to Sweden to conduct research for the film and meet the original author, Astrid Lindgren, they were denied permission to complete the project, and it was canceled.^{[7][page needed]}

Instead of Pippi Longstocking, Miyazaki conceived, wrote, designed and animated two Panda! Go, Panda! shorts which were directed by Takahata. Miyazaki then left Nippon Animation in 1979 in the middle of the production of Anne of Green Gables to direct his first feature anime The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), a Lupin III adventure film.

Miyazaki's next film, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Naushika, 1984), was an adventure film that introduced many of the themes which recur in later films: a concern with ecology and the human impact on the environment; a fascination with aircraft and flight; pacifism, including an anti-military streak; feminism; and morally ambiguous characterizations, especially among villains. This was the first film both written and directed by Miyazaki. He adapted it from his manga series of the same title, which he began writing and illustrating two years earlier, but which remained incomplete until after the film's release.

Studio Ghibli[link]

Studio Ghibli was originally established in 1985, as a subsidiary of Tokuma Shoten. In 2005, Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki and Isao Takahata established a new Studio Ghibli in Koganei, Japan and acquired all the copyrights of Miyazaki's works and business rights from Tokuma Shoten.^[8][9]

Works[link]

Following the success of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Miyazaki co-founded the animation production company Studio Ghibli with Takahata in 1985, and has produced nearly all of his subsequent work through it. Miyazaki continued to gain recognition with his next three films. Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) recounts the adventure of two orphans seeking a magical castle-island that floats in the sky; My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro, 1988) tells of the adventure of two girls and their interaction with forest spirits; and Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), adapted from a novel by Eiko Kadono, tells the story of a small-town girl who leaves home to begin life as a witch in a big city. Miyazaki's fascination with flight is evident throughout these films, ranging from the ornithopters flown by pirates in Castle in the Sky, to the Totoro and the Cat Bus soaring through the air, and Kiki flying her broom.

Porco Rosso (1992) was a notable departure for Miyazaki, in that the main character was an adult male, an anti-fascist aviator transformed into an anthropomorphic pig. The film is set in 1920s Italy and the title character is a bounty hunter who fights air pirates and an American soldier of fortune. The film explores the tension between selfishness and duty. The film can also be viewed as an abstract self-portrait of the director; its subtext can be read as a fictionalized autobiography. Like many of his movies, it is richly allusive and generates a lot of its humour and charm out of its references to American film of the 1930s and 1940s. Porco Rosso, for instance, owes much to the various screen personae of Humphrey Bogart.

1997's Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-Hime) returns to the ecological and political themes of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The plot centers on the struggle between the animal spirits who inhabit the forest and the humans who exploit the forest for industry. Both movies implicitly criticize the adverse impact of humans on nature, and portray the military in a negative light. Princess Mononoke is also noted as one of his most violent pictures. The film was a huge commercial success in Japan, where it became the highest grossing film of all time, until the later success of Titanic, and it ultimately won Best Picture at the Japanese Academy Awards. Miyazaki went into what would prove to be temporary retirement after directing Princess Mononoke.

During this period of semi-retirement, Miyazaki spent time with the daughters of a friend, one of whom became his inspiration for Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, 2001). Spirited Away is the story of a girl, forced to survive in a bizarre spirit world, who works in a bathhouse for spirits after her parents are turned into pigs by the sorceress who owns it. Released in Japan in July 2001, the film broke attendance and box office records with ¥30.4 billion (approximately $300 million) in total gross earnings from more than 23 million viewings. It has received many awards, including Best Picture at the 2001 Japanese Academy Awards, Golden Bear (First Prize) at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, and the 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In July 2004, Miyazaki completed production on Howl's Moving Castle, a film adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones' fantasy novel. Miyazaki came out of retirement following the sudden departure of original director Mamoru Hosoda.^[10] The film premiered at the 2004 Venice International Film Festival and won the Golden Osella award for animation technology. On November 20, 2004, Howl's Moving Castle opened to general audiences in Japan where it earned ¥1.4 billion in its first two days. An English language version was later released in the U.S. by Walt Disney.

In 2005, Miyazaki received a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film Festival. Later that year, Chinese media reported that Miyazaki's final film project would be I Lost My Little Boy, based on a Chinese children's book.^[11] This later proved to be faked news.^[12]

In 2006, Miyazaki's son Gorō Miyazaki completed his first film, Tales from Earthsea, based on several stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. Hayao Miyazaki had long aspired to make an anime of this work and had repeatedly asked for permission from the author, Ursula K. Le Guin. However, he had been refused every time. Instead, Miyazaki produced Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Shuna no tabi, (The Journey of Shuna) as substitutes (some of the ideas from Shuna no tabi were diverted to this movie). When Le Guin finally requested that Miyazaki produce an anime adaptation of her work, he refused, because he had lost the desire to do so. The author, Ursula K. Le Guin, remembers this differently: "In August 2005, Mr Toshio Suzuki of Studio Ghibli came with Mr Hayao Miyazaki to talk with me and my son (who controls the trust which owns the Earthsea copyrights). We had a pleasant visit in my house. It was explained to us that Mr Hayao wished to retire from film making, and that the family and the studio wanted Mr Hayao's son Goro, who had never made a film at all, to make this one. We were very disappointed, and also anxious, but we were given the impression, indeed assured, that the project would be always subject to Mr Hayao's approval. With this understanding, we made the agreement." Among fans of the nearly forty year old books, this film was mostly disappointing.

Throughout the film's production, Gorō and his father were not speaking to each other, due to a dispute over whether or not Gorō was ready to direct.^[13] This movie was originally to be produced by Hayao Miyazaki, but he declined as he was already in the middle of producing Howl's Moving Castle. Ghibli decided to make Gorō, who had yet to head any animated films, the producer instead.

In 2006, Nausicaa.net reported Hayao Miyazaki's plans to direct another film, rumored to be set in Kobe. Among areas Miyazaki's team visited during pre-production were an old café run by an elderly couple, and the view of a city from high in the mountains. The exact location of these places was censored from Studio Ghibli's production diaries. The studio also announced that Miyazaki had begun creating storyboards for the film and that they were being produced in watercolor because the film would have an "unusual visual style." Studio Ghibli said the production time would be about 20 months, with release slated for Summer 2008.

In 2007, the film's title was publicly announced as Gake no ue no Ponyo, literally "Ponyo on a Cliff."^[14] The story revolves around a five-year old boy, Sousuke, and the Princess goldfish, Ponyo, who wants to become human. Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki noted that "70 to 80% of the film takes place at sea. It will be a director's challenge on how they will express the sea and its waves with freehand drawing." The film does not contain any computer generated imagery (CGI) in contrast to Miyazaki's other recent work.^{[citation needed]} Ponyo was released in July 2008 in Japan, then in North America and the UK in 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Hayao Miyazaki has recently worked on a new film, titled Kokurikozaka kara (From up on Poppy Hill). The film is based on the 1980 two-volume manga of the same name written by Tetsurō Sayama and drawn by Chizuru Takahashi. The film is a collaboration between Hayao Miyazaki, who wrote the screenplay, and his son Gorō, who directed the film. The story takes place in Yokohama and revolves around Umi Komatsuzaki, a high school student who is forced to fend for herself when her sailor father goes missing from the seaside town.

Television[link]

Miyazaki's work in television is less known than his films. In the 1970s he worked as an animator on the World Masterpiece Theater television animation series under Isao Takahata. His first directorial credit is for the television version of Lupin III in 1971; he was co-director (with Takahata) of the second half of the first television series, and director of two episodes of the second series.

Miyazaki's most famous television work was his direction of Future Boy Conan (1978), an adaptation of the children's novel The Incredible Tide by Alexander Key. The main antagonist is the leader of the city-state of Industria who attempts to revive lost technology. The series also elaborates on the characters and events in the book, and is an early example of characterizations which recur throughout Miyazaki's later work: a girl who is in touch with nature, a warrior woman who appears menacing but is not an antagonist, and a boy who seems destined for the girl. The series also featured imaginative aircraft designs.

Miyazaki also directed six episodes of Sherlock Hound, an Italian-Japanese co-production which retold Sherlock Holmes tales using anthropomorphic animals. These episodes were first broadcast in 1984–85.

Manga[link]

Miyazaki has illustrated several manga, beginning in 1969 with Puss in Boots (Nagagutsu wo Haita Neko). His major work in this format is the seven-volume manga version of his tale Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which he created from 1982 to 1994 and which has sold millions of copies worldwide. Other works include Sabaku no Tami (砂漠の民, People of the Desert^?), Shuna no Tabi (シュナの旅, The Journey of Shuna^?), The Notebook of Various Images (雑想ノート, Zassō Nōto^?), which was the basis of his film Porco Rosso.

In October 2006, A Trip to Tynemouth was published in Japan. Miyazaki based it on the young adult short stories of Robert Westall, who grew up in World War II England. The most famous story, first published in a collection called Break of Dark, is titled Blackham's Wimpy, the name of a Vickers Wellington Bomber featured in the story, whose nickname comes from the character J. Wellington Wimpy from the Popeye comics and cartoons (the Wellington was named for Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, victor over Napoleon).

In early 2009, Miyazaki returned with a new manga called Kaze Tachinu (風立ちぬ, The Wind Rises^?), telling the story of Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter designer Jiro Horikoshi. The manga was published in two issues of the Model Graphix magazine, published on February 25 and March 25, 2009.^[15]

Creation process and animation style[link]

Miyazaki takes a leading role when creating his films, frequently serving as both writer and director. He personally reviewed every frame used in his early films, though due to health concerns over the high workload he now delegates some of the workload to other Ghibli members.^[16] In a 1999 interview, Miyazaki said, "at this age, I cannot do the work I used to. If my staff can relieve me and I can concentrate on directing, there are still a number of movies I'd like to make."^[17]

Miyazaki uses very human-like movements in his animation. In addition, much of the art is done using water colors.

In contrast to American animation, the script and storyboards are created together, and animation begins before the story is finished and while storyboards are developing.^[18][19]

Miyazaki has used traditional animation throughout the animation process, though computer-generated imagery was employed starting with Princess Mononoke to give "a little boost of elegance".^[16] In an interview with the Financial Times, Miyazaki said "it's very important for me to retain the right ratio between working by hand and computer. I have learnt that balance now, how to use both and still be able to call my films 2D."^[20] Digital paint was also used for the first time in parts of Princess Mononoke in order to meet release deadlines.^[21] It was used as standard for subsequent films. However, in his 2008 film Ponyo, Miyazaki went back to traditional hand-drawn animation for everything, saying "hand drawing on paper is the fundamental of animation."^[22] Studio Ghibli's computer animation department was dissolved before production on Ponyo was started, and Miyazaki has decided to keep to hand drawn animation.^[23]

Themes and devices[link]

Miyazaki's works are characterised by the recurrence of progressive themes, such as environmentalism, pacifism, feminism, and the absence of villains.^[24] His films are also frequently concerned with childhood transition and a marked preoccupation with flight.

Miyazaki's narratives are notable for not pitting a hero against an unsympathetic antagonist. In Spirited Away, Miyazaki states "the heroine [is] thrown into a place where the good and bad dwell together. [...] She manages not because she has destroyed the 'evil', but because she has acquired the ability to survive."^[25] Even though Miyazaki sometimes feels pessimistic about the world, he prefers to show children a positive world view instead, and rejects simplistic stereotypes of good and evil ^[26]

Miyazaki's films often emphasize environmentalism and the Earth's fragility.^[27] In an interview with The New Yorker, Miyazaki claimed that much of modern culture is "thin and shallow and fake", and "not entirely jokingly" looked forward to an apocalyptic age in which "wild green grasses" take over.^[28] Growing up in the Shōwa period was an unhappy time for him because "nature — the mountains and rivers — was being destroyed in the name of economic progress."^[29] Miyazaki is critical of capitalism, globalization and their impacts on modern life.^[30] Commenting on the 1954 Animal Farm animated film, he has said that "exploitation is not only found in communism, capitalism is a system just like that. I believe a company is common property of the people that work there. But that is a socialistic idea."^[31] Nonetheless, he suggests that adults should not "impose their vision of the world on children."^[18]

Nausicaä, Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle feature anti-war themes. In 2003, when Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, Miyazaki did not attend the awards show personally. He later explained that it was because he "didn’t want to visit a country that was bombing Iraq".^[32]

Miyazaki has been called a feminist by Studio Ghibli President Toshio Suzuki, in reference to his attitude to female workers.^[33] This is evident in the all-female factories of Porco Rosso and Princess Mononoke, as well as the matriachal bath-house of Spirited Away. Many of Miyazaki's films are populated by strong female protagonists that go against gender roles common in Japanese animation and fiction.^[34]

Influences[link]

A number of Western authors have influenced Miyazaki's work, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Lewis Carroll, and Diana Wynne Jones. Miyazaki confided to Le Guin that Earthsea had been a great influence on all his works, and that he kept her books at his bedside.^[35] Miyazaki and French writer and illustrator Jean Giraud (a.k.a. Moebius) have influenced each other and have become friends as a result of their mutual admiration. Monnaie de Paris held an exhibition of their work titled Miyazaki et Moebius: Deux Artistes Dont Les Dessins Prennent Vie (Two Artists’s Drawings Taking on a Life of Their Own) from December 2004 to April 2005. Both artists attended the opening of the exhibition.^[26][36] Moebius named his daughter Nausicaa after Miyazaki's heroine.^[37] Miyazaki has been deeply influenced by another French writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He illustrated the Japanese covers of Saint-Exupéry's Night Flight (Vol de nuit) and Wind, Sand and Stars (Terre des Hommes), and wrote an afterword for Wind, Sand and Stars.

In an interview broadcast on BBC Choice on 2002-06-10, Miyazaki cited the British authors Eleanor Farjeon, Rosemary Sutcliff, and Philippa Pearce as influences. The filmmaker has also publicly expressed fondness for Roald Dahl's stories about pilots and airplanes; the image in Porco Rosso of a cloud of dead pilots was inspired by Dahl's They Shall Not Grow Old. As in Miyazaki's films, these authors create self-contained worlds in which allegory is often used, and characters have complex, and often ambiguous, motivations. Other Miyazaki works, such as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away, incorporate elements of Japanese history and mythology.

Miyazaki has said he was inspired to become an animator by The Tale of the White Serpent, considered the first modern anime, in 1958. He has also said that The Snow Queen, a Soviet animated film, was one of his earliest inspirations, and that it motivated him to stay in animation production.^[38] Yuriy Norshteyn, a Russian animator, is Miyazaki's friend and praised by him as "a great artist."^[39] Norshteyn's Hedgehog in the Fog is cited as one of Miyazaki's favourite animated films.^[38] Miyazaki has long been a fan of the Aardman Studios animation. In May 2006, David Sproxton and Peter Lord, founders of Aardman Studios, visited the Ghibli Museum exhibit dedicated to their works, where they also met Miyazaki.^[40]

Pete Docter, director of the popular films Up and Monsters, Inc. as well as a co-creator of other Pixar works, has praised Miyazaki and described him as an influence.^[41] Glen Keane, the animator for successful Disney films such as The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Tangled, has also credited Miyazaki as a "huge influence" on his work and on Disney in general during the past two decades.^[42]

Miyazaki has also been cited as an influence on various role-playing video games. The creator of Square's Final Fantasy series, Hironobu Sakaguchi, cited Miyazaki as inspiration for elements such as the airships and chocobos featured in the series.^[43] The post-apocalyptic setting of SNK's Crystalis was inspired by Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Crystalis in turn influenced Square's Secret of Mana.^[44]

Family life[link]

Miyazaki's dedication to his work has often been reported to have impacted negatively on his relationship with his son Gorō.^[45] He has expressed he does not wish to create a dynasty of animators and his son has to create a name for himself.^[23] Nonetheless he has shown support of his son's career in animation in recent times, co-writing the screenplay for Gorō's feature From up on Poppy Hill and is currently in the process of developing the story for his son's third film.^[46]

Filmography[link]

Miyazaki at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International

Early works[link]

• Lupin III Part I, 1971–72 anime series (with Isao Takahata)
• Yuki's Sun, 1972 (Pilot film for a never-realized anime series)
• Future Boy Conan, 1978 anime series
• The Castle of Cagliostro, 1979 film
• Lupin III Part II, 1980 anime series (2 episodes in season 4 under the pseudonym Tsutomu Teruki)
• Sherlock Hound, 1984 anime series

Films in the Studio Ghibli canon[link]

• Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, 1984 film
• Castle in the Sky, 1986 film
• My Neighbor Totoro, 1988 film
• Kiki's Delivery Service, 1989 film
• Porco Rosso, 1992 film
• Princess Mononoke, 1997 film
• Spirited Away, 2001 film (winner, Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, 2002)
• Howl's Moving Castle, 2004 film (nominee, Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, 2005)
• Ponyo, 2008 film

Ghibli works (screenplay and storyboards)[link]

• Whisper of the Heart, 1995 film (screenplay, storyboards)
• The Secret World of Arrietty, 2010 film (screenplay)
• From up on Poppy Hill, 2011 film (screenplay)

Shorts[link]

• "On Your Mark", 1995 music video for Chage and Aska
• "The Whale Hunt", 2001 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum)
• "Koro's Big Day Out", 2001 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum)
• "Mei and the Kittenbus", 2002 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum)
• "Imaginary Flying Machines", 2002 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum as a part of the exhibited material)
• "Ornithopter Story: Fly! Hiyodori Tengu Go!", 2002 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum as a part of the exhibited material)
• "Monmon the Water Spider", 2006 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum)
• "House-hunting", 2006 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum)
• "The Day I Harvested A Planet", 2006 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum)
• "Film Guruguru", (2001–8 — short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum as a part of the exhibited material)^[47][48]
• "Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess", 2010 (short film exclusive to the Ghibli Museum)

Other work[link]

• Hols: Prince of the Sun, 1968 film: Key animation, storyboards, scene design
• Puss 'n Boots, 1969 film: Key animation, storyboards, design
• Flying Phantom Ship, 1969 film: Key animation, storyboards, design
• Moomin, 1970 series: Key animation on the Mushi Production version
• Animal Treasure Island (どうぶつ宝島, Dōbutsu Takarajima^?), 1971: Story consultant, key animation, storyboards, scene design
• Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (アリババと40匹の盗賊, Aribaba to Yonjūbiki no Tozuku^?), 1971 film: Organizer, key animation, storyboards
• Panda! Go, Panda!, 1972 short film: Concept, screenplay, storyboards, scene design, key animation
• Panda! Go, Panda! and the Rainy-Day Circus (パンダコパンダ 雨降りサーカスの巻, Panda Kopanda: Amefuri Sākasu no Maki^?), 1973 short film: Screenplay, storyboards, scene design, art design, key animation
• Heidi, Girl of the Alps, 1974 anime series: Scene design, layout
• 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother, 1976 anime series: Scene design, layout
• Anne of Green Gables, Episodes 1-15, 1979 anime series: Scene design, layout
• Pom Poko, Executive Producer, Story concept
• Whisper of the Heart, 1995 film: Screenwriter, storyboards, executive producer, sequence director
• The Cat Returns, 2002 film: Executive Producer, Project Concept Designer
• The Secret World of Arrietty, 2010 film: Executive Producer, screenwriter, animation planning supervisor ^[49]
• From up on Poppy Hill, 2011 film: Planning, screenwriter

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Cavallaro, Dani (2006). The Animé Art of Hayao Miyazaki. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-2369-9. OCLC 62430842.
• McCarthy, Helen (1999). Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. Berkely, CA: Stone Bridge Press, Inc. ISBN 978-1-880656-41-9. OCLC 42296779
• Miyazaki, Hayao (2009). Starting Point: 1979–1996. Beth Cary and Frederik L. Schodt, trans. Foreword by John Lasseter. San Francisco: VIZ Media. ISBN 978-1-4215-0594-7. OCLC 290477195.
  • Miyazaki, Hayao (1996). Shuppatsuten, 1979–1996 (出発点—1979~1996^?). Tokyo: Studio Ghibli, Inc./Hatsubai Tokuma Shoten. ISBN 978-4-19-860541-4. OCLC 37636025. Original Japanese edition.
• Odell, Colin, & Le Blanc, Michelle (2009). Studio Ghibli: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England: Kamera. ISBN 978-1-84243-279-2. OCLC 299246656.
• Schodt, Frederik L. (1996) Dreamland Japan

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hayao Miyazaki

• The Official Studio Ghibli Site (Japanese)
• Miyazaki Information at Nausicaa.net
• Profile at Japan Zone
• Interview in The Guardian
• August 1997 interview -(Nikkei Entertainment)
• Hayao Miyazaki at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Hayao Miyazaki at the Internet Movie Database
• Links from Miyazaki’s Laputa to the works of Jules Verne.