Interview with ‘Lord of the Rings’ Director Kenji Kamiyama

By IZUMI HASEGAWA
Translated by Jerry Jorgenson
HOLLYWOOD NEWS WIRE

Kenji Kamiyama, one of the leading anime directors in Japan, was selected to direct the latest animated film from the “Lord of the Rings” franchise, which was a huge success when film director Peter Jackson made it into a trilogy.

“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” takes place in the time of Helm Hammerhand the Kind of Rohan, a country inhabited by people whose name means “horsemen.”

J.R.R. Tolkien’s story of King Helm has had some characters and their backstories added to fill out the tale.

Kamiyama discussed his enthusiasm and the difficulties he faced in his Hollywood debut.

Question: What was your reaction when you received the offer?

Kamiyama: “What do you think about turning a Hollywood franchise into an anime?” I didn’t think it was an offer to direct at first. “I think it would be very difficult. Even drawing horses and armor is hard, and even talented Japanese animators probably wouldn’t be interested in drawing an army.” I answered as if it was someone else’s problem.

Then he asked me, “Would you like to try making a movie as a director?”… I thought it would be difficult, but I grew up watching Hollywood movies since I was about 14 years old, so I thought it would be a chance to direct a Hollywood movie and I wanted to give it a try. However, I thought there would be many difficulties…

Question: Please tell us what you focused on in this work.

Kamiyama: First of all, I had to get into the mindset of a Tolkien fan. And then, I had to get into the mind-set of a fan of the “Lord of the Rings” film series directed by Peter Jackson. I was a fan myself, but there are fans all over the world, so I thought about what they like and what they want, and I thought I shouldn’t stray too far from that, re-experienced the exciting parts myself, and then delved into the character image that everyone would be satisfied with, since this film is almost an original story.

The original work on which this story is based is only about 11 pages in Tolkien’s English version and about six pages in the Japanese translated version. Moreover, it only describes the situation. There was a question of how to create it without damaging the image of Helm’s story, which is the original work.

The heroine, Hela, is an original character for this film, but her appearance had to feel natural. We needed a character who could watch Helm’s tale from start to finish, who could, in a way, see it through to the end together with the audience, so we were very particular about making sure that there was no discrepancy with the book and that we could empathize with the feelings of the films’ fans.

Also, by sharing the worldview of the settings, armor, and swords of director Peter Jackson’s trilogy, I think we were able to visually create commonalities with the film. The theme of this film is a war between humans. In the trilogy, they were fighting non-humans rather than humans, but this time, I think the fact that humans have to fight each other is a theme that matches today’s world.

Question: Japanese anime is mainly done using the dubbing method, while Hollywood works use the pre-recording method, where the voice is recorded first and then the picture is created. Which one was used this time, and what difficulties did you face?

Kamiyama: It was the pre-recording method. We added animation to match the voices of the actors recorded in London. It is certainly difficult for animators to lip-sync, but recent (Japanese) animation is not necessarily dubbed, so that in itself was not so difficult, but recording was difficult.

I told them, “They are about 200 meters away, so call out to them,” but in a live-action movie, even if you are 200 meters away, you don’t make a voice that can reach 200 meters away, so I was told, “Do we have to yell that much?” …

It was difficult to convey to the actors how to act in an anime-like voice and have them act it out. When the picture was completed, the actors understood, “Oh, I see, we were standing here shouting,” or “The room was larger than I thought,” so the nuance of the acting changed, so we re-recorded.

Question: Please tell us about scenes that have expressions unique to anime, such as character movements.

Kamiyama: I think that in live action, such as fights between humans or fights with swords, if you wear heavy armor and carry heavy swords, you can’t do absurd action. But I think we were able to make the action more powerful in the anime. On the other hand, I drew the horse scenes as realistically as possible. I thought that by not exaggerating like in cartoons, but expressing them realistically, the work would be more convincing.

However, even though this is animation, I have incorporated a slightly more realistic expression than animation can provide. In a fantasy world, if you depict too many lies, it loses its persuasiveness. If you deform it like a cartoon or go too far with painting-like expressions, it loses its realism, so I think it’s necessary to have a certain degree of realistic, lifelike expressions.

This time, I have accurately brought in the angle of view of a live-action camera lens, and the layout looks like it was shot with an actual camera. The lighting has exposure and lighting like when shooting a live-action movie, so I have incorporated a technique to make it look a little more realistic.

Question: Finally, please give a message to young people.

Kamiyama: When I was young, I wanted to go to a place where no one had seen anything before, a new expression, but I’m at an age where I want to create something more traditional, mature, and stable, so I would be happy if people are interested in that kind of thing.

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“The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim” opens in theaters Dec. 13.