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Princess Kaguya Docmentary Released March 23

posted on by Andrew Osmond
Feature-length documentary about the making of Isao Takahata's new film

UK Anime News reports that Studio Canal, which will release Isao Takahata's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in UK cinemas on March 20, will also release a feature-length documentary on the making of the film.

The documentary is called Isao Takahata and His Tale of The Princess Kaguya, and is listed on Amazon for a DVD release on March 23. A digital copy is also listed on the iTunes website for the same date. According to the iTunes listing:

Part 1 (approx. 43 minutes) Animation director Isao Takahata embarks on production of "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya", his first film in 14 years. The first half of the documentary covers the process by which he came to take on the project, the pre-recording of the character voices, and the reasons behind the establishment of "Ghibli Studio 7", a facility set up to meet the demands of a new type of animation that does not fit easily into the traditional Ghibli animation process. Deriving characters from the recorded voices, the production gets underway, but quickly falls behind schedule.

Part 2 (approx. 43 minutes) Production on "The Tale of the Princess Kaguya" is already well behind schedule when director Isao Takahata decides on composer Joe Hisaishi to score the film's soundtrack, and singer Kazumi Nikaidō for the theme song. With a third of the film's storyboards remaining to be done, producer Yoshiaki Nishimura suspends all other activities while Takahata and Storyboard Artist Osamu Tanabe work through the New Year's holiday. A simultaneous release with Hayao Miyazaki's "The Wind Rises" is abandoned, and the staff works frantically to meet the new date, now set for November 2013.

The film The Tale of the Princess Kaguya itself is based on the famous Japanese folktale Taketori Monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), which centers on a princess named Kaguya who was discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. The film won the Animation Film Award at the 68th Mainichi Film Awards. The film has also been nominated for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.


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