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Ponyo (崖の上のポニョ), is a 2008 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi, and distributed by Toho. The film stars Yuria Nara, Hiroki Doi, Tomoko Yamaguchi, Kazushige Nagashima, Yūki Amami, George Tokoro, Rumi Hiiragi, Akiko Yano, Kazuko Yoshiyuki and Tomoko Naraoka. It is the eighth film Miyazaki directed for Studio Ghibli, and his tenth overall. The film tells the story of Ponyo (Nara), a goldfish who escapes from the ocean and is rescued by a five-year-old human boy, Sōsuke (Doi) after she is washed ashore while trapped in a glass jar. As they fall in love with each other, the story deals with resolving Ponyo's desire to become a human girl, against the devastating circumstances brought about by her acquisition and use of magic.

The film was originally released in Japan on July 19, 2008 by distributor Toho. It was a major commercial success, with a total gross of over 202 million US dollars worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing anime film of all time. It was critically acclaimed for its emotionally positive themes, visual design, and simultaneous appeal towards young children and all audiences.


 * production Kondo is anim supervisor, disney release is aug 14 2009, aimed at young children, Miyzaki more energised and emotional, show Ponyo in a way that "casts her radiating emotion and desire to shape", around 50 key animators, closed down CG department
 * critic Manohla Dargis praised the visual design d
 * production the book
 * featuring the sea as a character was challenging
 * While moving a ship would normally be animated by creating one cel and sliding it across the frame, Miyazaki wanted it be drawn frame-by-frame. Allowing things move freely in the setting, rather than a pretermined angle and perspective
 * Miyazaki sketches drawn by pastels
 * Noburo Yoshia, the world has a soft storybook quality, characters lack shading. Actually visited a small town near Seto Inland Sea as research, observing the bay, docks and how the town slopes into the mountain.
 * Michiyo Yasuda, difficulty in assigning colours to Ponyo, who was surrounded by complementary colours. opted to keep her red, but not a saturated red. Skating a fine line between two conflicting color intensities. Color saturation was unusally high.
 * Yasuda, treatment of water was difficult. While normal approach of color design for underwater scenes were to tint colours with blue, altering Ponyo's colour as she appears underwater would "no longer make her Ponyo", sought to keep her color similar for land and under water.
 * Yoshida, backgrounds done in poster paint. Nearly all art done free hand, without a ruler. Even straight lines would at least vary in weight; expressive lines over monotonous and uniform lines.

Development
The film's director and writer Hayao Miyazaki was prompted to create another film after producer Toshio Suzuki suggested he make one aimed at children, noting the success of Howl's Moving Castle (2004). The film would be created from a mixture real-world and fictional influences, combined with a desire to implement new art and animation approaches developed by other Studio Ghibli staff into a feature length film. In 2004 and 2005, Miyazaki had spent time in Tomonoura, a seaside town in Setonaikai National Park, where he familiarised himself with its community and environment. His experience in Tomonoura would later influence many of the settings in the film. During time there, he had also drew influence from reading the complete works of Natsume Sōseki, with particular interest in The Gate (門), a book involving a character named Sōsuke who lived at the bottom of a cliff. Initially, Miyazaki solely considered the concept of a film that would depict a stormy sea with "waves higher than the house on a hillside". He later created the character Ponyo, a name he thought of as an onomatopoeia of what "soft, squishy softness" feels like when touched. Miyazaki recalled that as a nine-year-old he borrowed a copy of Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid" from his neighbour, and that while he was reading it he had difficulty accepting its premise that its protagonist did not have a soul.

In the course of preparing pre-production materials, Miyazaki hit a creative block before visiting the Tate Britain art museum, where he found himself being startled by an 1852 painting named Ophelia and its attention to detail. He remarked, "I thought, my work is shoddy compared to those artists. I was just astonished. At that point, it became clear to me. Our animation style could not go on as before." At the time Katsuya Kondo, Miyazaki's colleague, had been the animation director of House Hunting (2006), a 12 minute short film made for screening at the Ghibli Museum. The short used solid and simple lines, and largely used hand-drawn animation. During the production of the short, Kondo had discussed the possibility of producing a feature length film like this. Kondo accepted an offer to work on the next Studio Ghibli feature film soon after completing the short, identifying an opportunity to progress the ideas behind House Hunting with more consideration to story.



Production of Ponyo began in May 2006. Kondo was given the role of animation supervisor, and worked closely with Miyazaki in outlining a set of goals that defined the direction of the project, including the use of traditional animation throughout production. Borrowing from Kondo's experience in animating House Hunting, Ponyo would solid and simple lines; in isolating basic animation elements, the film would aim to demonstrate the advantages of hand drawn animation through the depiction of motion that cannot be reproduced in any other medium. In normal productions, animating a sailing ship would usually involve drawing one cel and sliding it across the frame, which would fix it in a predefined perspective and direction. Miyazaki, however, wanted the ships that appeared in Ponyo to be drawn frame-by-frame. A few previous Studio Ghibli films used computer-generated imagery (CGI), the earliest being Princess Mononoke (1997). For the production of Ponyo however, the computer graphics section at the studio was closed to prioritize hand-drawn animation.

The artist Nobouro Yoshida, another colleague of Miyazaki who contributed to previous Studio Ghibli feature films, was made art director for Ponyo. Miyazaki worked with Yoshida in devising production goals that was built on the goals discussed with Kondo; Miyazaki wished to showcase Yoshida's "picture book-quality" artwork in the background art. Nearly all art was completed freehand and without a ruler, prioritising "expressive" lines over "monotonous and uniform" lines, where even straight lines would at least vary in weight.

Critical reception
Critics frequently observed the child-friendly appeal of Ponyo, especially relative to other films animated by Studio Ghibli.