Cinematography technique · used in 3 films
Painting backgrounds by hand with exceptional detail and scale. The settings feel real in texture and fantastical in presence, and they look both beautiful and irreplaceable.
Examples
Masaki Kobayashi · 1965
The skies and landscapes are painted backdrops, not real places. The huge painted skies make the characters tiny and dreamlike, and they give the snow and the sea battles a look no location could.
Where to see it: The Woman of the Snow. The woodcutter Minokichi meets a snow spirit in a painted, otherworldly landscape.
Hayao Miyazaki · 1986
The backgrounds were painted by two art directors in watercolor or other paint on paper, which was unusual for the industry. The mining town and the castle in the clouds both have a handmade depth. They feel big because someone painted every inch.
Where to see it: The mining town: Pazu shows Sheeta his home and a photograph of Laputa.
Hayao Miyazaki · 1997
Ghibli's background artists painted the ancient forest in extraordinary detail (specific moss textures, light through the treetops, root systems). Everything looks so particular that you feel this world is worth saving. That is, you can't separate the beauty of the backgrounds from the film's point about protecting nature.
Where to see it: The ancient forest sequences. The backgrounds are so detailed that the forest feels sacred and unlike anywhere else.
Questions