Sunday, October 28, 2012

Panorama no Haiji

In the course of analyzing several scenes from Miyazaki films I have recently decided to catch up on those Takahata works (mostly pre-Ghibli) which I have never seen before. Of course, Arupusu no shôjo Haiji [Heidi, Girl of the Alps] (1974) was on the top of the list (even though I hated the mere sight of it when it was ubiquitously broadcast on television).

Now that the first snow has fallen around here, I can't resist posting some Swiss mountain pans - as seen through the eyes of unknown Japanese background painters (based on Miyazaki's layouts).

After heavy snowfall.

I hope you enjoy these reconstructed pans as much as I do (click on the images to see larger versions). Considering the time pressure of creating a 52 episode TV series within one year, these backgrounds are simply amazing.

If you have any information on who painted these backgrounds, please share it in the comments! 

[Update Dec 2023: Thanks to reader Luca Giubertoni, I now know that one of the background painters of these panoramas is Masahiro Ioka!]

Mood - especially weather and lighting - is of paramount importance to the success of Heidi:



Dörfli in summer - credits sequence.
Dörfli in the evening.
A virtual 360° pan, incredibly wide.
The same environment at golden hour.
Springtime.
Autumn.

Bottom-up pan - credits sequence.
Bottom-up pan, connects Dörfli with mountains.

Bottom-up pan, Heidi dreaming of Switzerland (homesick in Frankfurt).
The three firs before dusk...
...and at noon (top-down pan).

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I am searching too and Ithink he was Miyasaki.

https://books.google.cl/books?id=oAYsyZRRqzcC&pg=PA228&lpg=PA228&dq=Arupusu+no+sh%C3%B4jo+Haiji+miyazaki+work&source=bl&ots=GGNWfNN_f-&sig=O1OJZnHculOgCvuMkZEawOye0do&hl=es-419&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi13N2I6pTMAhWFFpAKHdkgABgQ6AEILjAC#v=onepage&q=Arupusu%20no%20sh%C3%B4jo%20Haiji%20miyazaki%20work&f=false

salute