Date:         Thu, 21 Jan 1999 02:39:35 -0800
Sender:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group 
From:         Michael S. Johnson
Subject:      Neil Gaiman 1/20 visit to Seattle


Ok, here's my report.  Feel free to send in corrections if you were there
and notice mistakes or gaps.  My memory is not perfect, and I didn't have
a tape recorder to capture exactly what he'd said.



There were about 200-300 people seated, and for a comic fan crowd,
surprisingly not foul-smelling. ^^;  Neil was stuck in traffic, so we
started about 15min late (7:15).

...

Mr. Gaiman began with a 30 minute reading from the middle of his new
book _Stardust_, proceeded to take about 15-20 minutes worth of questions,
then stopped to begin signing things people had brought for him.

He was wearing a black leather jacket, which appears to be his preferred
style of dress.

There were a couple of questions before he chose me to ask the next
question, which was Rodney's (he didn't let people ask more than one
question, and my question about his reaction to the Internet hype wasn't
really appropriate for the mood of the crowd):

Q. [Paraphrased:] Was it you, or the artists, who decided to include the
   visual Miyazaki references in your works?

The simple answer to this was that it was the artists' (Charles Vess, and
one other) decision, because they were the Miyazaki fans.

But he didn't leave it at that.  He knew there were a lot of people in the
audience who did not understand the reference, so he launched into a
passionate explanation about _Mononoke Hime_, his work on the script, and
how Miramax was only using about 40% of what he had written.  However, he
also explained that when the script was brought to the Studio Ghibli
representative (Mr. Steven Alpert), he did say that for some sequences in
which Mr. Gaiman tried to make the dialog more contemporary and easier to
recite, Studio Ghibli preferred a closer translation.

For example (which may or may not be part of the final script):

  "Don't touch [my wounded arm] - there's something evil about it!"

he was told that the translation was closer to

  "Do not touch that; it is no ordinary wound."

Granted, this may sound awkward to us (I haven't seen the film, nor read a
translation), but Studio Ghibli insisted that the translation be worded
more closely to the original.

[To stop the rumor mill, let me say right now that I am not implying that
Neil Gaiman's translation was poor or overly colloquial, relative to the
original.  I couldn't verify that anyway, because I have not read Mr.
Gaiman's script, nor do I understand enough Japanese to compare the two at
that level of detail.  I am only saying that the script drafts Mr. Gaiman
wrote went through an approval process involving Studio Ghibli, and
changes were made to the script such that 40% of his original wording was
left intact.]

Mr. Gaiman continued to talk about the film, calling it very beautiful,
among other nice things, and the famous actors lending their voices.  He
then took two more questions from others in the audience.

Afterwards, before he began signing, I introduced myself to him as the
owner of the Miyazaki ML, some members of whom helped him with some
background information.  (You know who you are. ^_^)

He reacted very favorably, talking about the test screenings of the film,
which used something called a "pure vanilla" script, which he described as
the most literal translation.  That did not go over as well as it could
have, because the audience would have been lost during the last half hour
of the film, in with a lot of people are running around doing things
without enough apparent motivation, and a number of whom weren't
named/identified very well earlier in the film.  So the script has been
undergoing more revisions, more approvals from Ghibli, and a number of
scenes are being rerecorded to take into account the new dialog.

I think that's a great sign - that Miramax is keeping Ghibli's wishes in
mind, while also using Mr. Gaiman's script - and a great challenge for Mr.
Gaiman, in that he is trying to reconcile Ghibli's wishes with Miramax's
need to make the script approachable by the audience.

He said that the more recent versions of the script solve some of those
problems -- not with voice-overs, but with dialog.  He also wasn't sure
when the film would be released, but predicted it would be this year
(within about six months, he guessed).

...


There's some things here and there which I left out (like crowd reaction,
some minor humorous accidents), and probably one or two things I got
wrong, but my memory is too poor to recall them.  I think I got the major
points across:

* Gaiman isn't the decision maker behind the appearance of Miyazaki
  characters in the art for his stories
* Gaiman is happy with the film and the voice actors
* Gaiman is excited about the film
* Gaiman cannot say enough good things about the film
* The changes or objections to the script that Ghibli suggested were not
  about large, glaring errors in the translation; they were about
  subtleties in the wording; the kind of changes which do not alter the
  overall meaning of the dialog, but simply convey a slightly different
  tone to the dialog
* The original scripts he drafted underwent many revisions under the
  supervision of Studio Ghibli
* The script closest to the literal translation failed in the test
  screenings, and therefore had to be carefully rewritten in places to
  more closely meet everyone's demands


If I ever doubted the quality of the English script for MH, I have no
doubts now.  I have every confidence in Mr. Gaiman's control of the
English language as a storyteller, and definitely look forward to seeing
the final version, *whenever* Studio Ghibli, Mr. Gaiman, and Miramax
decide it is ready.

--
Michael S. Johnson   Miyazaki Web and Mailing List Owner
michj@nausicaa.net   www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mailing-list

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