Unit 12
For unit 12 we had to do a Found Footage Documentary, for this project I worked with my usual group of 90%Bloopers+Charlie (aka, Gareth, Adam, Ellie, Harley and myself) we decided to do our documentary on Studio Ghibli, we all agreed that we all do a research paper on/around Studio Ghibli and its founder Hayao Miyazaki I decided to cover the impact of Studio Ghibli, unfortunately when it came to putting a script together my subject of choice wasn’t part of the main focus of the documentary with our documentary instead focusing on the history of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, but i did agree with this choice as we all agreed it was an area of the studio that not many knew a lot about.
The documentary itself was written, edited and voiced with the idea of it being a more modern style of documentary, referred to as a ‘Video Essay’ with inspiration drawn from that genre our writer (Harley) thought it was best to keep the documentary fairly short aiming for around five minutes, Gareth (our editor) kept the ‘Video Essay’ style in mind when editing keeping it relatively simplistic and relaxing.
Below is the finished edit
And down here is my research paper on Studio Ghibli’s impact and success
The Impact of Studio Ghibli
In this paper I will look at the impact of the animation company ‘Studio Ghibli’ throughout the years and across the globe, seeing how they impacted other animators, artists and companies. I will also explain why I believe Studio Ghibli has been so successful and so dearly beloved by many.
Timing
An important part of both comedy and business is timing, knowing when to do something is can often lead to more success than making something good at the wrong time, luckily for Studio Ghibli they had the perfect mixture of timing and quality, as when ‘Spirited Away’ (Ghibli’s first break into mainstream western movies) was released (2001, 2003 for the UK) anime (Eastern animation) had had over ten years to grow in popularity as anime started its popularity surge in the 1990’s (at least within the west). But surely the timing of the movie wasn’t all that lead to people loving it so much, and it wasn’t.
The Art
It’s nothing new to a Studio Ghibli movie to be obscure, and ‘Spirited Away’ still stands was being one of the most visually perplexing Ghibli movies in my opinion, but it wasn’t just this that made it stand out, it was also how complex and detailed each frame of the movie is, with multiple moving parts in each scene, something very impressive for early 2000’s hand drawn animation, this leap in quality from TV anime to Ghibli undoubtedly raised the standards for all other animation companies, and Ghibli only further cemented their attention to detail with every film they made.
What did this do to us?
Unsurprisingly many people who grew up watching studio Ghibli have a great appreciation toward quality animation and art. I’ve known a sizable amount of artists and aspiring animators who see studio Ghibli as an inspiration to them and likely wouldn’t have become who they are without Ghibli.
In the wider world Studio Ghibli also was one of the first movie companies (inside and outside of animation) to have strong female characters that weren’t horrendously sexulised, this mixed with when their movies were released (90’s to 2000’s) undoubtedly inspired young girls.
Even looking back on their movies the animation is still beautiful, and knowing each frame was hand drawn and coloured really gives you an appreciation for the time put into the movies. This unaged quality within the animation makes the movies far more timeless than other animated movies of the time, such as the plethora of classic Disney movies that were also hand drawn but have visibly aged over time.
Conclusion
While Studio Ghibli hasn’t released a new hand drawn movie since 2014, it still stands at the apex of animation studios in both the east and west, and has forever changed how people view the art of animation.