Animation Industry Watching Vol. 30: How are "Director" and "Direction" different professionally?　Interview with Toshimasa Suzuki!

Observing the credits of animated films, one notices that the "director" and "direction" are two different people. In a live-action film, the person directing should be the "director. How are the "director" and the "director" divided in the field of animation works?
We asked Toshimasa Suzuki, who directed "Soukyu no Fafner: Heaven and Earth" and "Rinne no Lagrange" but is credited as "director" for "Wound Story," about the difference between "director" and "direction," which is unique to the animation industry.

What does the director do while the director is working?

─ ─ For the animated feature "Kizumonogatari", the general director was Mr. Akiyuki Shinbo and the director was Mr. Tatsuya Oishi, right? Of the three films, "Iron Blood Arc" and "Cold Blood Arc" have you and Yukihiro Miyamoto jointly credited as "director".

Suzuki Yes, for the second film, "Hot Blood Arc," Mr. Miyamoto is directing by himself.

─ What is the difference between the work of a director and that of a director?

Suzuki: Basically, in theatrical animation, there is a flow of "the director checks the material that the director has seen", so they are not doing completely different things. In the case of "Kizumonogatari," Mr. Oishi is the type of director who wants to control the whole process, so he was deeply involved in each section to instill his own image.
Whether it is animation or live-action, I believe that the work belongs to the director. And directing is the job of taking the image that the director wants to convey and putting it into concrete work. The director is involved from the planning stage and pre-production (preparation work), but it is rare for the director to be involved from the pre-production stage. The director plays a central role in the setting and script during the pre-production stage.

─ Animation production is divided into sections such as drawing, background art, finishing, and filming. Does the director hold meetings with these sections?

Suzuki: In the case of TV animation, yes. For TV animation, there are cases where only storyboarding is done, cases where only directing is done separately from storyboarding, and cases where both storyboarding and directing are done. At the first meeting, the director will ask questions about what kind of worldview the work has, what the director wants to convey in this episode, and the emotions of the characters, and the director will explain. Recently, there are many cases in which the director does not cut the storyboards, but only handles the production process, so the director will explain in more detail how the acting and visuals are to be expressed in the cuts and scenes at the processing meeting. The level of detail depends on the director.
After the processing meeting, the director meets with each section to check, instruct, and correct the material as it comes in, creating more and more pictures. Simultaneously, the director attends cutting, postrecording, and dubbing, and then edits the video to make it ready for broadcast. So I guess you could say that the director is "in charge of the scene.

─ ─ What does the director do in the meantime?

Suzuki: Of course, I am not idle (laughs). (Laughs) When I start directing each episode and actually work on it, I find myself thinking, "Something doesn't add up," or "Maybe it would be better to handle it this way. I think it would be better to handle it in this way. The final decision is made by the director. Also, as the number of episodes progresses, new settings become necessary. The director, rather than the director of each episode, must meet with the director to decide on such settings. The director's role is to make major decisions regarding not only the settings but also the production, but it is sometimes difficult to know which way is the right one. There is a lot of pressure on the director.