Joe Hisaishi, pictured above, is a japanese pianist/composer who has done some fantastic work over the past couple of years to bring life to Studio Ghibli's animated films.
This song, One Summer's Day, by Hisaishi is the main feature of the animated film "Spirited Away" from Ghibli. This movie eventually went on to win an Academy Award for "Best Animated Feature" in 2002. This Movie was actually the first movie that I saw from Studio Ghibli and I distinctly remember this song. This song just brings such emotion with it and tugs at the heart in a way that not a lot of music does these days, and even just the melody of this song is so beautiful which is usually a trademark of Hisaishi. Even the first time you hear this tune it is under extreme sorrow in the film and the main character is being comforted but yet she is still crying because of her sear frustration and abandonment that she feels at the moment thus giving this heavy connection and sympathy for this character. It is this sympathy that helps draw you farther into the film making you feel more and more for the character and it is all because of Hisaishi's music that you feel this way.
Next song, Kaze no Toorimichi or Path of The Wind, is one of the main features of the film "My Neighbor Totoro". This film depicts a small family of a father and his two grirls moving into a new house so that they can be closer to their mother who is in the hospital. Throughout the stroy we meet a character named Totoro that lives in a large tree next to the house. This song is just played when the two children join Totoro one night and go on an adventure. This song is very playful and once again shows how well Hisaishi can make a melody that can get stuck in your head so quickly and how well he can covey a feeling. It also amazes me that Hisaishi went all out even for a children's film. For some of other films he has composed, they seem more serious and he usually does a very good job of conveying these serious emotions, however for even this children's movie he still conveys this array of joy and happiness very well and doesn't make a typical child friendly movie.
This last song is called Ashitaka and San. this song is featured at the end of Ghibli's "Princess Mononoke". This song if heard just after the main conflict has been resolved and all of the forest starts to regrow and flourish again. This song has a deep meaning of hope and starting a new. Just the overall feel and melody of this song just seems to be so uplifting and happy that it truly brings this film to a complete end that makes you feel like everything is going to be all right now. Also the choir part of this song gives me chills every time I hear it. I also find it amazing that this video is eight and a half minutes but yet almost half of that is just the applause from the crowd just showing how great of a composer he is. This video also shows one of the great aspects of Hisaishi that I also admire and that is that he doesn't just compose for other people to play, he actively takes part as well as conducts which is a feat just by itself.
Well as you may have noticed I can't get enough of this guys music but if it were not for Studio Ghibli then I would have never even heard of him. Which leads me to my second artist, Hayao Miyazaki, also known as the Co-Founder and lead animator for Studio Ghibli.
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the many great artist that help bring the worlds he depicts to life using the old pencil and paper method even to this day. however they have made a few changes like including 3d model elements in some of their films and using editing software to enhance some of their films, but most of these scenes are hand drawn.
Above is an actual piece of art used in Miyazaki's film "Howl's Moving Castle". In this picture we can see Howl's moving castle that is out in the wasteland of this area. underneath we can see Sophie, the main protagonist, and Turnip Head (yes, Turnip Head), a brief but important side character. This picture just shows so much detail about this amazing yet dilapidated castle that Howl lives in. It just a magnificent display of how intricate one artist can get when they have an idea.
This picture is a drawing from the Miyazaki movie "Laputa: Castle in the Sky". In this scene we see the actual city of Laputa floating in the sky. This movie is basically like a reverse Atlantis. A race of very smart people decide to leave the surface and fly in the sky living in a Utopian society, however they end up disappearing but their city remains. this picture is actually the first time that the main characters get to see this magnificent city just hanging in the sky, and once again we can see the complexity that we see in all of the other main focuses of the films that he makes. there also is another beautiful scene in this movie that shows interior of Laputa and a great garden that in within the castle. Just the shier time it took to make these types of scenes in amazing to me.
This last picture is of the bath house featured in the Miyazaki film "Spirited Away". on the left is the outside of this mysterious bath house for the spirits and on the left is the inner working of the bath house itself. One of the thinks I find fascinating is that he went through the trouble to map out the entire bath house and not to just draw what he need when he needed it. I think this eventually lead to him being better equipped to not over estimate the size of the bath house because he could now have a template work off of for each scene making sure that the rooms and hallways were consistent for the whole movie.
Well, after analyzing both Joe Hisaishi and Hayao Miyazaki's work it gives me a lot of inspiration for my Photoshop final. it will help have the main theme of conveying huge emotions of fear, joy, and sorrow through these massively detailed and meticulous scenarios.
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