Long interview with Kazuya Iwai, Director of Photography! (The "inside" of anime/game No.33)

The opening video of "It's Your Fault That I'm Unattractive!" is still shocking even today. Tomoko, a "mourning woman," screams in a dimly lit space to the accompaniment of intense metal sounds, tears off her chains, and reaches out for the light. It was a terrific opening, filled with an obsession, or perhaps a grudge, against being popular. The cinematographer who created the atmosphere and emotion of the film, making full use of lighting and special effects, is Kazuya Iwai, the representative of Studio Shamrock Inc. In addition to "Watamote," he also directed "The Day After Tomorrow," "Skygirls," Skygirls," "First Love Only," "Bakuman. Bakuman. Alice in the Land of Imagination," "YuruYuri Nachyachumi! YuruYuri San☆High! and "Yume Oukoku to Nemureru 100 no Ojisama (The Kingdom of Dreams and 100 Princes)," all of which are masterpieces that demonstrate the high level of his technical skills. Mr. Iwai's visual sense was honed at J.C. STAFF, a long-established animation production company. Currently, as the representative of Studio Shamrock, a film production company, he is also putting his efforts into training the next generation of film crews. In this exclusive interview, Mr. Iwai talks a great deal about his history, his unique work style, and his aspirations for the future.

Work that conveys the atmosphere and emotion of all episodes

Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule. First of all, what does being a cinematographer mean to you?

Kazuya Iwai (Iwai): Basically, it is a job that brings together materials from various departments, but since the materials go through various departments, sometimes the quality is different from what I expected or the colors are different from what I expected. I think it is important to have a sense of atmosphere, and I try to convey the emotional aspects of the scene through the screen.

I see that you sometimes adjust the color tones. What other adjustments do you make?

Iwai: The position of the cell often does not fit. For example, Director Katsushi Sakurabi is a very good layout designer, so he would come to the side of my seat and explain things like, "Shift this character this much," or "Rotate it a little," and I would work on it with him.

Iwai: I heard that live-action cinematographers are sometimes seen as "extensions of the director" in the sense that they have influence over the look and style of the images.

Iwai: Shooting animation is different from live-action because there are materials, and we do not create them from scratch. If we don't process the material with a clear understanding of the intentions of the animators, art directors, and finishers, we may end up ruining the film, to put it mildly.

When do you find it most rewarding to work on a project?

Iwai: Shooting is the earliest time I can see the "moving image" on the set. Also, when I see the viewers praising the cuts that I put a lot of effort into on their impression blogs, I feel happy and say, "You know what you're doing! (laughs).

I originally wanted to be a director. But when I joined J.C. Staff, I saw Yoshio Okochi, one of my seniors, working on a film, and I thought to myself, "Filming is so interesting! I felt that it was very interesting. Mr. Okochi is the cinematographer for "Ai Yori Aoshi" (2002-03), "Honey and Clover II" (2006), and "Jail Academy" (2015). When directing, you may only be in charge of one episode, but as a cinematographer, you are in charge of all the episodes, so I think cinematography is interesting from that point of view as well.

What works have had the greatest influence on your creative work?

Iwai: In terms of what made me decide to do animation, it was "Cowboy Bebop" (1998). I played baseball in junior high school and didn't watch anime or dramas, but when I was in high school, I watched "Cowboy Bebop" and got hooked, and that's when I decided I wanted to do it.

Coolness rather than realism

Iwai: Is there a genre or method of expression that you are good at?

Iwai: I enjoy creating a sense of atmosphere and what kind of light I can put on a scene rather than a gag-like scene, and I think that is the best way to show my skill in filming.

I am impressed by the low key lighting in "Alice in the Land of Imagination" (2015) and "Yuru Yuri Nachyachumi! (2015), you also used powerful sunlight to bring out the feeling of summer to the fullest. Are you particular about realistic lighting?

Iwai: Since it is an animation, it is not about whether it is realistic or not, but rather about the meaning of the scene and making it look cool. No matter how the light comes in, for example, if it suddenly comes in from the opposite direction, as long as it fits the scene, I think it's a good thing.

First Love Only" (2009) (2009) The circular diffuse light flashing all over the window in episode 6 was a perfect representation of Satoshi's love troubles with Kusuda, whose relationship with Kusuda had deteriorated before Christmas. Realistically speaking, I am wondering what the source of the light was.

Iwai: I think that the director had told us about that cut. On the other hand, in the first episode of "The Day After Tomorrow. (2006) In the first episode, I was free to do the scene where Hiro tells Shoko, "I don't like being treated like a child," and watches her body frolicking in the waves at the edge of the sparkling sunset.

The scene "First Love Only. In the scene of "First Love Limited," there is some whitening in the periphery of the background. Is this done during filming?

Iwai: I think it was director Yoshiki Yamakawa's intention, and he did it in a way that "it's okay to have pure white areas on the screen. The art director also told me that he did not want to draw anything in the white areas.

The oil painting of Nao by Renjo-senpai in episode 9, combined with the petals of the cherry blossoms, seems to have been well received by fans.

Iwai: The cherry petals were done during the shooting, but I think the director was good at that episode as well. In this episode, the expression of the paints on the palette was done with a lot of attention to detail. When the cel-shaded images were produced, they were very sticky, so I used special effects to create the blurred look of the paints.

What do you think about the snow scene?　First Love Only. The white Christmas in episode 6 and the snowphilia blizzard in "Dream Kingdom and 100 Sleeping Princes" (2018) episode 6 both added to the drama, but the texture and lighting of the snow was completely different.

Iwai: The snow is made to fit the work. Do you simply want round snow or is it more realistic? Sometimes we would actually shoot cotton and scatter it in the animation. But there are not many directors or directors who specify that much, so I often make my own suggestions.

In the 10th episode of "Yume 100," a talking Daiki appears. The eerie feeling of the character came out well.

Iwai: The art director did his best on that part, so I just added a little more to it to give it an atmosphere, and that was it.

Bakuman. Were the lines drawn with a G-pen to gradually form the characters specified in advance in the storyboards? Were the lines drawn in G-pen gradually forming the characters specified in advance in the storyboards?

Iwai: In the storyboard, the order was to use a "wipe-out," but we used line animation. I had worked with Atsushi Takeyama, a director with a background in filming, and when I saw him do line animation for the ending, I thought, "I'd like to do that someday, too," and then I happened to get an offer. I thought it might not be a bad idea in terms of the content of the work, so I proposed the idea.

The Secret of "Watamote"'s Visual Beauty

The visuals in the film "Watamote" (2013) are truly amazing. (2013) is truly wonderful, and I have the impression that it was created by mobilizing all the filming techniques used in animation.

Iwai: "Watamote" was the first work I did after becoming independent and starting Studio Shamrock. It was right after I established the company and we didn't have that many people, so I was working very hard.

The first thing you notice when you look at the screen of "Watamote" is the large lens ghost. It's a feature that is not subtle, but rather shows and has a strong presence.

Iwai: Director Shin Onuma asked me to find a way to express the light in a way that would make it visible, and this is how I came up with this expression.

What did you focus on in "Watamote" in terms of filming?

Iwai: The way we put in flare and para (editor's note: "flare" refers to the gradation of light, and "para" refers to the gradation of shadows).

) - The flow from the change of seats in episode 10 to the opening is also highly praised as divine. The opening image was also slightly different, wasn't it?

Iwai: The director was wonderful. The additional parts of the opening were filmed separately, and Director Onuma adjusted them in the V-edition.

I personally thought that the scene in the third episode where Tomoko gets upset when a boy happens to talk to her while she is taking shelter from the rain in the park was a great depiction of her character and feelings in an animated way.

Iwai: We had a storyboard that said "Tomoko is filled with water," and we thought about how to express that water during the shooting, and decided to use actual water images.

So you used actual water for the animation, rather than 3DCG?　Even in the opening, you used pictures of buildings and crowds.

Iwai: I believe that if 3D is possible, then live-action is also possible. Director Onuma brought the photos for the opening, and I used them by squashing out all the parts that should not be visible.

I also remember the scene in episode 6 where Tomoko looks around the library through a gap in the bookshelf to find someone to go to the fireworks. In live-action, all you had to do was rotate the camera, but in animation, it must have been very difficult.

Iwai: That was done by Toshiro Hamamura, a 3D director who used to work for our company.