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Kenji Iwaisawa‘s last film to play at the Annecy Animation Festival was a far cry from this year’s “100 Meters,” which screened this week in the fest’s Anney Presents selection.
The rotoscoped “On-Gaku: Our Sound” was a “deadpan music comedy” about a group of amateur musicians chasing a seemingly random dream of starting a rock band despite their total lack of playing ability. The film’s seven-year production somewhat reflected the story it told, produced by a team of animators with little or no industry experience.
“100 Meters,” based on the manga by Uoto, boasts more visual polish, in part due to the involvement of more experienced animators like character designer and chief animation director Keisuke Kojima. The film’s story centers on two sprinters: Togashi and Komiya. Togashi is born to run, first seen in the film refining his talent. Komiya has to work for it, starting from much scrappier beginnings, but his fierceness is gradually forged into something that can compete with Togashi.
For the film’s Annecy premiere, Variety spoke to director Iwaisawa about shaping his own skills as a director into something new.
“On-Gaku” came from a very personal place. What about the “100 Meters” manga appealed to you?
What attracted me most was the story of the protagonist, who was called a genius, feeling the limits of his talent while growing up, but overcoming obstacles and making a comeback. I could relate to that because I also played sports.
How has your experience with rotoscope animation changed since “On-Gaku”? What do you think made the technique a good fit for “100 Meters”?
Rotoscoping is the only animation technique I know, and I think it suits my strengths. When I worked on “On-Gaku: Our Sound,” it was a very small team, but this time we have a larger team with many professional staff members who are helping me refine the rotoscoping technique to make it more efficient and improve the quality.
At the Work in Progress session at Annecy last year, members of the team said that “100 Meters” was like an independent project for them, while for you, this felt like a more mainstream production. How did these different perspectives color the experience of working on the film?
Since what I can do is more of an independent style, the production method itself hasn’t changed much from “On-Gaku: Our Sound.” However, in order to get the many new external staff members involved, I mixed independent and commercial methods. At first, there were some areas where we were unsure of each other, but we worked hard to find a balance so that the good parts of each method didn’t get lost.
Your art director, Keikankun Yamaguchi, also worked with you during “On-Gaku”— how was it to work together again on this film?
When we were working on “On-Gaku: Our Sound,” there was no one else around, so I had Yamaguchi-san draw everything while I made corrections to the artwork. This time, Yamaguchi-san is the art director, and she has a team of young staff members working with her.
My favorite shot in the film is the long take of the sprinters preparing in the rain. It looked like a lot of backgrounds were painted for that one sequence. Could you talk more about how that shot was created?
That scene perfectly symbolizes the rotoscope technique; it’s a scene that can only be done with rotoscope. We worked tirelessly to draw the background art to match the long live-action shots. Preparing to shoot the live-action footage was also challenging. We took great care to create the props and costumes worn by the cast that appear in the footage.
What was your and [character designer, animation director] Keisuke Kojima’s overall philosophy for the look of the characters and how they moved?
In terms of visuals, I asked him to make the characters as realistic as possible and to capture the atmosphere of Uoto-sensei’s original manga. Other than that, I didn’t give him many instructions. Kojima-san came up with lots of ideas on how to make the most of rotoscoping and work efficiently.
The film changes styles many times, sometimes even during the same sequence—how did it feel to experiment in this way?
I have been thinking of this kind of direction since my last film, “On-Gaku: Our Sound,” and have been incorporating it into my work. I think it is an effective way to give the film a more lively feel by cutting different styles at different points in the film. I wasn’t aware that I was doing anything too special, but when “On-Gaku: Our Sound” came close to completion, I started to look through the whole film and see how it was done. I realized that it had become my individuality or perhaps my auteur style.
What difficulties were there in figuring out how these different styles would fit together?
In “100 Meters,” I wasn’t drawing the key art myself, but rather having the key art staff draw it, so I realized that explaining these bold visual images to the staff and getting them to understand was different from when I was working on my own.
What’s your personal best time in the 100m sprint?
I don’t really remember ever running 100 meters. When I was a student, I wasn’t slow, but I wasn’t particularly fast either. Maybe at Annecy I’ll use an app to measure my speed near the lake.
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