©Warner Bros. Animation

 

Exclusive Interview with Director Kenji Kamiyama 

 

 

Q : I heard that Warner Bros. offered a writer Philippa Bowens and Director Peter Jackson from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ film series to make an animation film, what point did you get involved in this project? 

Kenji Kamiyama : Yes, that’s right. Before this film, I had collaborated with Warner Animation producer Jason DeMarco on the animated series ‘Blade Runner: Black Lotus’. I was working on that film with Sola Entertainment, Jason DeMarco asked Joseph Cho, a producer at Sola Entertainment, if he could do a hand-drawn animation of ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ Then, Jason and Joseph asked me if I was interested in hand-drawn animation for ‘The Lord of the Rings.’ I was already involved in both 3D and hand-drawn animation at the time, so I accepted the offer.

Q : This film is set 200 years before the original film series, based on the works of the original author, J.R.R. Tolkien’s book, ‘The Lord of the Rings’. What thoughts and values resonate with you that made you want to be involved in this film? 

Kenji Kamiyama ： I grew up reading ‘The Lord of the Rings’ like you all did, even though I was so impressed by Peter Jackson’s ‘Lord of the Rings‘ film trilogy’, but I believed animation was originally better suited to illustrating fantasy. Ralph Bakshi(‘Fritz the Cat‘) had already animated it in 1978. However, director Peter Jackson did a wonderful job of adapting a fantasy that was said to be impossible to make into a live-action films, I was very impressed by that, and I am a big fan of all three films, and I went to see all three on the first day they were released. 

The part of the reason is that in fantasy, as in science fiction, it is very important to show something that does not exist in a realistic way, as if it did exist. So, if you draw with the touch of a picture book, you don’t need anything like reality anymore, it’s easy to get into the world of the story, so I was very impressed with the way he(Peter Jackson) expressed the story in live-action.

 I was honestly troubled at first, because there is so much amazing footages that already existed, so what’s the point of making it in animation again? I wonder what would be great to make it again in animation? To be honest, that was one of the things that troubled me at first. I thought that unless I could find a new way of expressing the superiority of animation, there was no point in making it in animation.

However, there was once an incident in one of the frame stories of the original “The Lord of the Rings” Return of the King where the bloodline of Rohan was broken in the generation of the 9th King Helm Hammerhand of Rohan. It’s really a short sentence in the original story, but he was the strongest king, and he appears as a statuette in the Two Towers, which are very popular among fans of the original story, but how the bloodline was once cut off, despite the fact that he was the strongest king.

I was deeply interested in the idea of making a film about that portion of the story, and I believed it would be both fascinating and deserving of a film. All of  the book of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ has been made, so even if it wasn’t, it would be a subject matter to expand on that world, this time, there are no elves, hobbits, or dwarves in Rohan, only humans, but I was attracted to the idea that it could be expanded and made into a franchise.

When I thought about what I could do to exceed the greatness of live-action films, I decided to use 2,000 cavalry horsemen, which was thought to be the most difficult and impossible task for animation. The famous epic war scene in the movie ‘The Lord of the Rings‘ involves infantrymen with spears and soldiers with bows colliding with each other. I thought that reproducing such hand-drawing scenes, which everyone thinks cannot be visualized on film, would be an amazing thing only animation can do. It is really difficult, but that is one of the values of visualization.

©Warner Bros. Animation

Q : I heard that you met with the WETA team that worked on Peter Jackson’s original film series and saw the production design, costumes, etc. before you started work on the film, what did you take from that and how did you incorporate it into the film?

Kenji Kamiyama : The reason why I asked WETA to cooperate in this project was that they had previously expressed such a fictional world in live-action. The main reason was that I believed it would be more effective to replicate the actuality of the city of Edoras, the capital of Rohan, in the background, just like it appears in the animation, if possible.

If we had to rework the design from scratch, even if it was 200 years ago, director Peter Jackson has created a fantasy world with such a strong sense of presence and reality, so it would be better to rewrite it in the form of what it was like 200 years ago, so that it would be the same (as the original film). Although it’s an animation that has the same setting as the original film, I thought it would be more realistic. Furthermore, fans of the original trilogy would eventually recognize that this world is connected.

So, first of all, we showed us the design, and then we decided what we should share, and since we were setting up Edoras and Hornburg again, we borrowed from them, then there were the details such as the armor and sword designs, and the Dunlendings and Rohirrim people, who are the same people but of different races, and the Anglo-Saxon and dark-skinned Indians in the original work, although it is not indicated.

The same human being, but how were they differentiated between Westerners and Asians, or how were the Southern people designed? WETA showed us how they tried to avoid similarities, but at the same time, they incorporated the nuances of the original book into their designs. The three countries are represented in the film, but the design of the swords and the costumes are all in the same direction. I used that as a reference for the costumes and so on.

Q : Can you give us some insight into the casting process? I was particularly impressed with Brian Cox’s portrayal of King Helm. What direction did you use during recording? Or did you leave it up to the voice actors? I think that’s a different approach to directing Japanese voice actors.

Kenji Kamiyama : Yes, first of all, when the script was completed, the British actors, this time, I think they will also work on the voice later on their own film, but it is probably difficult to apply the sound to the animation, and when explaining the English acting to the animators, it is better to have the English voice first. So, I decided to use presco(presco is short for pre-scoring, which means that the voice actors record their lines before shooting the video, and then shoot the video and create the animation according to this voice. The casting was done in consultation with the film company and the producer, Philippa Bowens, The drawings of animation were already done. 

Looking at the character design, I discussed with the film company Warner and producer Philippa Bowens what kind of person would be best for the role, and we cast the actor.We also decided that it would be best to have an actor who could speak British English, so we tried to cast as many people from the UK as possible, and Brian Cox came up in that process, as he had worked with me for the animated film ‘Blade Runner: Black Lotus.’ He had played the role of the villain in that series and his performance was excellent, so he was the first name that came up.

However, the American drama Succession was very popular at the time, so I wondered if he would be able to appear in the film due to his schedule, but now that the voice can be recorded online, we managed to get him to perform in that way. But basically, I couldn’t teach him everything in English, so Philippa Bowens directed the acting part, while I listened along with him, and gave him some directions, for example, “This is a smaller space, so it’s not so intense”,  and “This is a large battlefield, so please make the projection” and such. 

For example, in live-action, even if the actor is talking on a horse at a distance from the enemy, his voice is not as strained as one might think because it is shot in close-up, because he is aware of the distance from the enemy. When I saw the film later, I thought, “I see,” but I wondered why it was necessary to make the actors’ voices so tense. But animation is different from real life, so you have to exaggerate a little to make it more powerful, so please make your voice a little tauter. Brian would say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” and he wouldn’t listen to me at all, but in the end, we were able to do it without any problems at all.

Q : The original film series used horns and other sound effects, but I have the impression of drums in this film. How did you collaborate with composer Stephen Gallagher?

Kenji Kamiyama : Since Rohan and the like appear in the film, we used the musical themes from the past original film series, but while the original film series certainly had a strong horn impression, we decided to use percussion to give this film a distinctive character. When Stephen came to Japan for a meeting, he told me about a musical performance using taiko drums in my hometown, and I think the sound of taiko drums is in the soul of the Japanese people.

When I suggested the use of taiko, he said, “It’s interesting and surprisingly not used in the original film series,” and Stephen and producer Mark asked me, “if we could record the taiko sound in Japan, or if not in Japan, there is a Japanese performer in London who could do it. Can I ask him to do it? We would ask the Japanese performers in London if we couldn’t record in Japan.” 

While utilizing the ‘Lord of the Rings‘ style, I thought that using only high notes would be good for expressing the emotional images, but without rhythm, it would be difficult to create a sense of speed and excitement in the action scenes. So I suggested that we incorporate some rhythmic sounds into the music, and we created the sounds.

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