A screening of the fifth chapter, "The Heated Galactic War," of " Be Forever Yamato: Rebel 3199, " the latest installment in the remake series of the popular anime " Space Battleship Yamato ," was held on March 17th at Shinjuku Piccadilly (Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo) with a special "Yamato Talk Screening <Filming Edition>." In addition to the general director Harutoshi Fukui, director Naomichi Yamato, screenwriter Hideki Oka, and voice actress Eriko Nakamura (who plays Mikage Kiryu), cinematographer Daisuke Horino appeared as a guest and explained the "filming" of "Yamato 3199."
Filming is a crucial step that handles the "final stage of filmmaking." Horino says he has been working in filming for "about 25 years, and became a director of photography about 15 years ago." Although filming has been digitized, he also has experience from the analog era, saying he "used to hand over animation cels."
According to Horino, filming is "the process of compositing materials such as characters, mechs, effects, and backgrounds into a video," and he explained the filming process using the scene of Yuki Mori and Alphonse walking through a fire as an example. Some of the craftsmanship was revealed, including "compositing background and character materials," "creating a sense of perspective by blurring the background," "adding highlights to the eyes and the light of the flames," "blending the background and characters," "adding sparks," "adding a hazy heat," "adjusting the contrast," and "adding light."
"Sometimes we deliberately leave things out to create contrast in the work and make it more effective. If we do everything, it becomes overwhelming, so we discuss it with the director," he said, explaining how he and the staff discuss and decide on the direction together.
Horino also participated in the remake series of " Space Battleship Yamato," "Space Battleship Yamato 2202: Warriors of Love," and said that there are tendencies in each production, stating, "With '2202,' we want to showcase the people, so we try not to get in the way, but with '3199,' we tend to make things beautiful and flashy." Regarding the process unique to "Space Battleship Yamato," he said, "Since CG is involved, I talk closely with the CG director."
Horino cited the scene in Chapter Five where Yamato flies over Tokyo as his "ultimate" shot. He said, "We received a request to 'make it look like summer,'" and added lighting and other effects. Oka praised the shot, saying, "You can almost hear the cicadas. It's vivid and appeals to all the senses," highlighting how they created a "summery feel."
Fukui seems to have a lot of trust in Horino, saying, "He always helps me out," while Horino seems to be experimenting, saying, "I'm thinking about how to make them happy and surprised. That way it can be fun." Oka said, "Various elements from the original work will be depicted from the sixth chapter onwards. I'm looking forward to seeing how they will be polished up for modern animation."
"Yamato 3199" is a reinterpretation and re-imagining of "Be Forever Yamato" and "Space Battleship Yamato III." It consists of seven chapters, with the sixth chapter, "The Blue Labyrinth," opening in theaters on June 26th.
