"The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of Rohan" Production Director: Tomisaburo Hashimoto x Animation Producer: Dong Zhe The challenge of tracing full CG with hand-drawn illustrations [CINEMORE ACADEMY Vol.34]

Based on the masterpiece novel by JRR Tolkien, the fantasy epic trilogy " The Lord of the Rings " directed by Peter Jackson has made its mark in film history. "The Lord of the Rings: Battle of Rohan ", an animated film based on the unknown story of 200 years before "The Lord of the Rings", will be released in theaters.

The story takes place in Rohan, the kingdom of knights. With the kingdom on the brink of destruction, the fate of the kingdom is entrusted to a single young princess, Hela. Her greatest enemy is her childhood friend, Wolf, with whom she grew up. Now, the curtain rises on a legendary battle that will decide the fate of Middle-earth!

The director of this Hollywood blockbuster, which is being produced by Peter Jackson, is Kenji Kamiyama, a leading figure in Japanese animation who is supported by enthusiastic fans all over the world. The Japanese studio SOLA Entertainment worked with Director Kamiyama to produce the animation for this film.

This time, CINEMORE ACADEMY visited SOLA Entertainment and interviewed the production manager, Tomisaburo Hashimoto, and the animation producer, Dong Zhe. We had a long talk about the behind-the-scenes of this blockbuster.

The Lord of the Rings: Battle of Rohan Synopsis

Under the protection of the great King Helm, the people of Rohan, the kingdom of knights, lived in peace. However, a sudden attack brought the beautiful kingdom to ruin... The young princess Hela, daughter of King Helm, stands against the threat of the kingdom's destruction. Her greatest enemy is Wolf, her childhood friend who grew up with Hela and had feelings for her. A great eagle soars through the sky, Mumakir goes on a rampage, orcs appear, "someone" who collects golden rings is secretly working, and Saruman the White appears... Can Hela save the proud kingdom of knights and the future of its people?

Index

• With full cooperation from WETA Studios
• Drawing the full CG
• Peter Jackson glued to the screen
• Differences between Japanese anime and anime for overseas markets
• The staff are my travel companions
• I want everyone on Earth to see this

With full cooperation from WETA Studios

Q: This seems like a pretty big project even on a global scale, but how did the idea of producing it come to you, Sola?

Hashimoto: There are various reasons, but a big one is that Japanese anime is starting to sell worldwide. In the past few years, anime such as the full CG "Super Dragon Ball Heroes" (23-24 OV), " Jujutsu Kaisen " and " SPY×FAMILY " have started to enter the top ten in Hollywood. There is a trend for movie companies to consider anime as a business. Our representative, Joseph, originally worked at Warner and is a producer who made " The matrix " and other works. We had a relationship with Warner that said, "If it's anime, it's Joseph's company." This time it was a big title, but due to the timing, we were ordered as one of the many "Lord of the Rings" projects.

Q: How did you feel about participating in such a historic production as "The Lord of the Rings"?

Hashimoto: There was certainly pressure from the fans. There are fans of the original work, and fans of the movie. This time, the anime is being added to the mix. With three major groups of fans, Director Kamiyama must have had a hard time dealing with it, but he managed to strike a good balance without leaning too much to any one group.

Amidst all that pressure, the full cooperation of WETA Studios, which made the film version, was huge, and they provided almost all of the film's settings this time. Normally, to create a world like this, it's very difficult to set it up, and you have to supervise everything and create something that everyone can agree with. But this time, WETA already had the settings they created in the film, so that was a great help at the start. If we hadn't been able to borrow WETA's settings, I don't think we would have been able to create something that everyone could agree with.

We also used backgrounds and sets made by WETA, but this time the setting is 200 years before the movie trilogy. We added some new elements to the backgrounds that served as the base. Still, the fact that the worldview was the same was a big factor.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle of Rohan LOTR TM MEE lic NLC. © 2024 WBEI

Q: What specific tasks did you undertake to depict the world of 200 years ago?

Hashimoto: I remember having many discussions with Kamiyama about that in the early stages of planning. There is a difference in the speed of development of civilization 200 years ago in modern times and 200 years ago in the Middle Ages, so we didn't consciously try to make the worldview retrograde. We made Edolas's buildings and streets full of life, but we didn't make any particular changes to the way people fought. We thought that if we went too far, fans would start to criticize us.

Dong: It's a world where magic and monsters appear, so you can rely on magic, and if you can catch big monsters, you don't need planes or ships (laughs). That's one interpretation, but in conclusion, I don't think there's any need to change it that much. Also, Sauron hasn't been very active yet, so the common people are living happily (laughs). .

Hashimoto: It feels peaceful and idyllic. There were probably dark forces there, but it was a time when they weren't very active openly.

Q: Was there a reason why the Battle of Rohan was featured in this episode of The Lord of the Rings?

Hashimoto: This was an order from Warner. Fans of the original work may know that King Helm, a popular character in the original work, has never been filmed before. I think it's a very positive thing to focus on him this time. However, in the original work, he is only a few dozen pages long, so it was a challenge to figure out how to expand on him.

At the time, the setting of the story was Middle-earth, where Gondor was being attacked by the Southerners. Taking advantage of this, a civil war broke out, and thousands of pirates attacked from the sea. In the original plot, this was the opening scene, but I thought, "How do you make something like this?!" (laughs). In the end, I cut out the unnecessary parts and focused on the ethnic conflict between King Helm's family and the wolves, and on family love.

Drawing the full CG