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Part 2 : Production Notes
Translation by Patrick Yip
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
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)
Next Page ( Part 3 : Glossary )