Hayao Miyazaki’s New Film Will Be Hand Drawn And Is Still Years Away

Previously, it was announced that Hayao Miyazaki would be using computer animation to finish his upcoming film How Do You Live? But now, Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki has revealed that the movie will, in fact, be drawn by hand.

The movie is based on a 1937 short by Yoshino Genzaburo about a young boy who goes to live with his uncle after his father dies. 

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Suzuki said that while the novel coronavirus pandemic has halted production on projects around the world, it has not impacted Miyazaki’s upcoming feature. 

“We are still hand-drawing everything, but it takes us more time to complete a film because we’re drawing more frames,” Suzuki said. “So, there are more drawings to draw than before. Back when we were making My Neighbor Totoro, we only had eight animators. Totoro we made in eight months. [For] the current film that Hayao Miyazaki is working on, we have 60 animators, but we are only able to come up with one minute of animation in a month. That means 12 months a year, you get 12 minutes worth of movie. Actually, we’ve been working on this film for three years, so that means we have 36 minutes completed so far. We’re hoping it will finish in the next three years.”

Miyazaki’s son, Goro, is also working on a new feature—his, though, will be computer animated. Previously, the younger Miyazaki helmed From Up on Poppy Hill.

Last December, Suzuki announced that How Do You Live? was 15 percent finished. “With the production of this new film, we’re experimenting with having no established deadline,” the producer said earlier that year in March.