Movatterモバイル変換

Let me get back to the history.

The first film that made a great box office hit was "Kiki's DeliveryService," directed by Miyazaki and released in 1989. Approximately2.64 million people went to the theater and the film became thenumber one hit among all Japanese films for that year. The pictureoutnumbered all previously released films of GHIBLI both in revenueand box office number. Behind all this success, however, there wasa big concern: what to do with the company GHIBLI and how to run it. In particular, the terms of employment and the recruiting anddevelopment of staff.

In the Japanese animation film industry, it is common to payaccording to how many pieces you drew or painted. This is how GHIBLI was paying its staff. As a result, the staff working on"Kiki's" was severely underpaid, receiving only about half theaverage salary in Japan. Miyazaki made two suggestions:
1. To introduce full time employment term and a fixed salarysystem thereby doubling the salary of staff.
2. To recruit staff on a regular basis and to promote training.

Despite the improving conditions of GHIBLI, the conditionssurrounding the entire animation industry in Japan was declining.To make a quality picture in such an environment, Miyazaki judgedthat it was important to maintain a base headquarters, to establish a solid organization, to materialize full-time employment term,and to implement a training & development system for staff. Itwas clearly a change in management policy, or, so to speak, abeginning of the second phase of GHIBLI. Here, too, there wasa support from our president Tokuma.

Allow me to speak a few about myself. It was at this time thatI joined GHIBLI. Up until then, I was working as the chief editorof an animation magazine called Animage, published by TokumaPublishing Company. I worked on Animage from its firstpublication in 1978, and when Tokuma started the productionof "Nausicaa" in 1983, I became involved in GHIBLI as well.In Japanese, this would be called having "a shoe for twolegs," meaning having two jobs at one time. The days werehectic, but gratifying. When the new management policywas introduced into GHIBLI, my life was changed too. Both GHIBLI and myself had come to a point where there was noturning back.

After "Kiki's Delivery Service," GHIBLI began its productionof "Only Yesterday," directed by Miyazaki. And while the work was going on, in November of 1990, full-time employment termmaterialized, an animation training program was introduced and regular annual recruitment was implemented.

The film "Only Yesterday," released in 1991, became anotherbox-office hit despite staff concern, and just as "Kiki's," this also became number one for the year. But what pleased us most was the accomplishment of two major targets that Miyazakihad proposed: To double the salary and to recruit on a regularbasis. In accomplishing these two items, however, one problememerged: massive increase in production cost. It was somethingwe had anticipated. We were aware that 80% of animationproduction cost came from the cost of manpower, and if salary had doubled, so will the production cost.

The new policy for GHIBLI in its second phase, therefore, madeus look toward further effort in advertising and thereby increasingbox-office revenue. If massive increase in production cost wasunavoidable, then the only choice left was to conscientiously andstrategically plan for increase in box office performance. It isnot that we never thought of it, but it was with this "OnlyYesterday" that we seriously started to work on advertising.

It was about this time that Toru Hara, the chief executive officer of GHIBLI then, described GHIBLI as having the 3Hs, 3Hs meaningHigh Cost, High Risk, and High Return. To produce top quality work, it takes high production cost; and though there may be high risk,or apprehension in the course, the benefit or return will be big. Ithink this is what he had meant. 4 years have passed and this isstill true today. But even if there was high return, because all ofit goes into the next production, nothing remains in our hands.

To employ full-time employees now meant having to pay outmonthly salary. What GHIBLI did was to create a situation whereit had to constantly keep working on a production. GHIBLI, destinednow to continually producing, went ahead to start on "Porco Rosso,"even before finishing "Only Yesterday." This overlapping situationwas the first GHIBLI had experienced. "Only Yesterday" was in thefinal busiest stage before its completion. In a time when everyhelp was needed, how could we bring the staff to start workingon a new film. There certainly was no surplus in manpower. Theresult was Miyazaki having to work alone on "Porco Rosso" at itsstart. Of course Miyazaki was not happy. "What? You mean I have to produce, direct and assist all on my own?", he complained, but there was no choice but tell him to do it.