Filmmaker stays with hand drawing
CANNES, France (AP) -- Three-dimensional computer animation may come to dominate Hollywood cartoons, but traditional hand-drawn animation will remain alive and well in Japan, says filmmaker Mamoru Oshii.
"Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence," Oshii's follow-up to his 1995 anime crime tale, joined "Shrek 2" in a Cannes rarity -- two animated movies in the festival's main competition.
"Shrek 2" continues the Hollywood trend of computer-generated animation, but "Innocence" is a hybrid. The human and cyborg characters in the sci-fi thriller were created in two-dimensional hand-drawn animation, while the machinery and backgrounds were done in computer animation.
Much of the strength of Japanese anime comes from the facial expressions and character design that result from human hands putting ink to paper, Oshii said.
"I want to continue to work with artists who work with pen in their hand and draw on paper," Oshii said at the Cannes Film Festival. "The fact that you can now make films in 3-D as the Americans do is not a method which I like to use. I really don't want to go any further in that direction."