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Part 2 : Production Notes

Translation by Patrick Yip

[email protected]

     First the usual disclaimer of translation:
    
                 The STANDARD TRANSLATION COPYING POLICY (tm)
    
      Want to repost or archive this? Just follow these rules:
    
              1) Don't change the content, although formatting is ok. You
                 can translate it into html, just don't go inserting your
                 own paragraphs, or changing words (even spell-checking).
                 If you want to translate this, you have far too much free
                 time on your hands. Mail me.
              2) Bill me as "Patrick Yip <[email protected]>",
                 despite what email address you see this coming from.
              3) Leave this disclaimer intact.
    
      This applies to all my translation that have been released (either
      posted to the Evangelion ML, or rec.arts.anime.misc). You don't need
      to send me mail to ask permission to archive this, but it might be
      a nice gesture to let me know you did it.


     Secondly, the FAQ of "What is RCB?"
    
     THE RED CROSS BOOK (aka RCB) -- the final(?) canon of Evangelion
     translated by Patrick Yip ([email protected]) 1997/10/19
    
     Cover of RCB
     The Red Cross Book (referred to as RCB onwards) is the pamphlet sold
     in the cinema to those who came to see the movie "the End of
     Evangelion". It cost 800 yen. The book is A-4 in size and landscape in
     orientation. The cover is pitch black with a red Georgian cross
     superimposed on it, hence the name "Red Cross Book" On the cross, the
     words "THE END OF EVANGELION" was printed, in thin, match-like manner.
     What makes this book particularly special and meaningful to all EVA
     fans is that, for the first time, we hear the voice from Gainax about
     why and how the movies were made. We also know a great deal about the
     answers to some of the most discussed after mysteries in the anime.
     The "commentary" "glossary" and "production notes" are three parts
     that are most informative. I shall strive to translate these three
     sections so that all the EVA fans could know the latest update of the
     "official" answers to the EVA mysteries (real-life or anime :-)


     PRODUCTION NOTES
     ================
    
     (PY's Note: In the Production Notes, a lot of staff's names are introduced.
       Although I have a Japanese Name Dictionary, I have got lazy and decided
       to go for the translation without bothering to find out the
       pronounciation of the names. This means many of the names would be left
       untranslated, and absent from this version of translation. I hope I
       could get the name right later. My apologies.
       Also please note that I keep the Japanese convention of writing the
       surname first, followed by the "first-name")
    
    
     Two kinds of title logo of "THE END OF EVANGELION" were designed. One
     is the logo used on the poster and the advance-sale ticket. Another
     one is used as the title in the movie, following the hand-written
     style of the title used in "REBIRTH". It is the latter title logo
     that is used on the cover of this pamphlet.
    
     The movie ep.25 "Air" is based on the script already in place during
     TV production originally intended for TV Ep.25. Because of various
     problems during production, this script was not used and the TV Ep.25
     "The Ending World" was done in a same way as TV Ep.26 in which
     the drama was developed within an internal mind universe. Because of
     this, it could be said that this ep.25 is a return to the original
     intended story. In contrast, the movie ep.26, when compared with
     TV Ep.26, contains much more content on the story and plot, thus
     deepening the theme brought out in TV.
    
     Since this movie is supposed to be the remake of the last two
     episodes of the TV series, the TV episode format is followed,
     with each episode having its own subtitle and eyecatch scenes.
     (PY: you know, those static scenes that contain nothing but
     black background and white Japanese/English words)

    
     The animation production of this movie, PRODUCTION I.G., is known
     to have produced anime movies like "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and
     "Ghost in the Shell". PRODUCTION I.G. made the most out of the big
     composition production effort put into this movie, a theatrical
     film, and it became a high quality film.
    
     In movie ep.25 "Air", the director is Tsurumaki Katzuya, the
     deputy director in the TV series. Although the script play is from the
     hands of the chief director Anno Hideaki, and all the operations
     from direction downwards are also generally entrusted to Tsurumaki.
     Masayuki, also the deputy director in the TV series, is responsible
     for the animation storyboarding (PY: kai-konte? those pencil drafts
     of the scenes as they should look in the real animation)
. Also,
     Higuchi Shinji partcipated in script play as well as animation
     drafting. They all followed the instruction from Director Tsurumaki.
    
     The direction of the movie ep.26 "True Heart to You" was taken up by
     Chief-director Anno himself. Because of that, this movie bears a
     strong flavour of his individual taste. As for animation drafts,
     Jime Kiichi and Higuchi Shinji also took part.
    
     Masayuki, who was the deputy director of the TV series and the
     director of the movie "DEATH", served several responaibilites in
     this movie: animation drafts, original print, virtual water artist.
     The depiction of water is the most difficult part in animation, and
     he worked as the art director of all depiction realated to natural
     phenonmena like water and waves. As a result, a post called "virtual
     water artist" was recreated for such responsibility. He also drew
     the original print for the advertisement poster of this movie.
    
     There are two art directors in ep.25 and three in ep.26. In ep.25,
     the art director for scenes centred on charcters is Kouse Kazuya
     from PRODUTION I.G.. Kouse is known as the animator of movies like
     "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and "Ghost in the Shell", and he worked
     twice as the art-director in the TV series. Honda Yuu is the main
     art director, as well as the animator for the "opening"
    
     The art directors for ep.26 are Suzuki Gotoni, Hiramatsu Teishi and
     Anno Hideaki. Suzuki and Hiramatsu are both the art directors for
     the general scenes, while Anno concentrates on the mecha scenes and
     cuts centred around special effects.
    
     In order to depict the interal world of Shinji in ep.26, real life
     scenes were employed in one part of the movie. Because of this
     decision, a team called "Special Production Team" was formed. The
     script play and chief director in this team is also Anno Hideaki.
     The post for special effect director was taken up by Higuchi Shinji.
     "Special effect director" in this context means the director for
     the filming of special effects. The real life filming was done
     according to the combined opinion formed between Hideaki Anno and
     Higuchi Shinji.
    
     Although CG (computer graphics -PY) was widely used in Evangelion
     TV, those CG scenes were all computer screens, processed in a
     2-dimensional manner. This time, in "THE END OF EVANGELION", broadened
     3-dimensional CG was used. The core of the CG production is
     Omnibus Japan, which did the CG in "Pat Labour 2 the Movie" and
     "Ghost in the Shell". Most of the CG scenes are found after
     the start of the Human Complmentation Project in ep.26. Some
     examples include the cut which has the surface of the Earth gradually
     buried under more and more big crosses, and the cut which has
     numerous Rei swimming around. This time, the most difficult challenge
     for CG is the issue of translucence. Also, in order to create a
     visual feeling closer to other cuts, some scenes, after the normal
     CG operations, underwent a further analog filiming process with
     filters. The CG effect seen in the staff roll (in ending) was also
     done by Omnibus Japan.
    
     PRODUCTION I.G. also did several C.G. cuts. One of them is in ep.25,
     in which 9 gigantic transport planes carrying the mass-production
     model of EVA's first appeared. The nine big planes are seen from
     a bird-eye's view from top, with one plane overlapping another, and
     they each slided towards a different direction. Such scene is nearly
     impossible in conventional anime camera work, but C.G. makes it
     possible. The "Eirin" mark (the trade-mark of the studio appeared
     at the beginning of the movie -PY)
is also C.G. done by PRODUCTION
     I.G. So it is also billed as 3D animator in the telop. As for the
     CG seen in the computer screens, they were all done by Gainax
     in-house, as in the TV series. This is billed as the 2D animator in
     the telop.
    
     There is a substantial part in movie ep.25, which repeats the
     content shown in "REBIRTH", released in spring time and is the first
     part of the final. One quarter of it underwent various retouch work
     so as to improve its quality.
    
     The effective use of classical music in Evangelion TV series and
     the spring movie "DEATH" leaves a deep impression to everybody.
     In this movie, 2 classical pieces were used: "Air on G" and
     "Jesus bliebt meine Freunde" by J.S.Bach.
     "Air on G" is a version from a new recording arranged by Sagisu Shiro.
     It is used in the scene in which the second half of the battle scene
     between EVA-02 and mass production model EVA's is intermixed with
     the scene when Gendou faced off Ritsuko. "Jesus bliebt meine Freunde"
     is from a compliation of an existing source. It is used in the real
     life scene in ep.26.
    
     2 songs were written for "THE END OF EVANGELION", both are produced by
     the team of Anno Hideaki and Sagisu Shiro. One is "THANATOS - IF I
     CAN'T BE YOURS", heard in the end of ep.25. This is the vocal version
     of the BGM "THANATOS (E-13)" used in TV Ep.19 "Man's Battle". Vocalist
     is LOREN and lyrics is by MASH. Song and arrangement is by Sagisu
     Shiro. THANATOS is the god governing death in Greek mythology. It also
     carries a meaning of "impulsive desire for death" in psychoanalysis.
    
     As for the other song, it is the insert song used in ep.26 "Komm,
     suesser Tod". The lyrics is the English translation of words composed
     by chief-director Anno (PY: In my opinion, this is no translation, but
     inspired rewriting of the Japanese words)
. The title is a German,
     meaning "come, sweet death". Vocalist is Arianne, and song and
     arrangement are by Sagisu Shiro.
    
     There are altogether 18 BGM with new music and recording. The BGM used
     in this movie were done according to the opinions from chief-director
     Anno. So new music is even used in the part which repeats the story in
     "REBIRTH"
    
     It can be seen that the Municipal Haishima Kindergarten of Akishima
     city is billed in the "Thanks to" section in the telop. The is the
     kindergarten to where the daughter of Ishikawa, the producer of
     PRODUCTION I.G., goes. Since chief-director Anno wanted to use some
     children songs as close to real-life recording as possible in the
     sand bank scene of ep.26, Ishikawa and his team-mates went to that
     kindergarten and recorded the songs.
    
     (END of PRODUCTION NOTES)


 

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