Watch Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Characters Enter the Real World

Beau­ti­ful back­grounds are a sta­ple of direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki’s ani­mat­ed fea­tures. Whether depict­ing a whim­si­cal Euro­pean vil­lage, a mas­sive tra­di­tion­al bath­house com­plex pop­u­lat­ed by ghosts, or a rainy bus stop in sub­ur­ban Tokyo, they come to the fore in the qui­et moments for which this direc­tor is also deserved­ly cel­e­brat­ed.

Giv­en the rev­er­ence this old-fash­ioned artistry has inspired, it was par­tic­u­lar­ly auda­cious of Kore­an film­mak­er Kojer to sep­a­rate some of Miyazaki’s best known char­ac­ters from their hand-paint­ed habi­tats, via a painstak­ing Roto­scop­ing pro­ce­dure.

Their lib­er­a­tion was short lived, giv­en that Kojer’s inter­est lay in trans­pos­ing them onto live action approx­i­ma­tions of the Stu­dio Ghi­b­li orig­i­nals.

Shot pri­mar­i­ly in South Korea, the new set­tings, above, are uncan­ny dop­pel­gängers, fol­low­ing some vig­or­ous Pho­to­shop­ping. One won­ders if Kojer expe­ri­enced any regret, sev­er­al hun­dred hours into this masochis­tic assign­ment. So many challenges—from shad­ows to light­ing to cloudy skies in need of alter­ing, frame by painstak­ing frame. The obsta­cles posed by semi-trans­par­ent char­ac­ters such as Spir­it­ed Away’s No Face sound pos­i­tive­ly unearth­ly.

Clear­ly a labor of love from an artist whose most high pro­file work seems to be a web­series star­ring his own hand. His quest took him to Provence Vil­lage in Paju, South Korea and Seoul’s Olympic Park. He rode the #4 line sub­way to the end of the line and the #2 to Seok­chon Lake where the Amer­i­can art col­lec­tive FriendswithYou’s Super Moon project float­ed ear­li­er this year.

The result—some of it some shot out a car win­dow and cor­rect­ed in Adobe’s Warp Stabilizer—is set to the tune of “One Sum­mer’s Day” from Spir­it­ed Away.

Love­ly.

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Build Your Own Minia­ture Sets from Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Films: My Neigh­bor Totoro, Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice & More

Soft­ware Used by Hayao Miyazaki’s Ani­ma­tion Stu­dio Becomes Open Source & Free to Down­load

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her play Zam­boni Godot is open­ing in New York City in March 2017. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.