Sentimental Journey

Barb, I was very deeply touched while reading this.
If I don't say so often enough, I want to thank you again for keeping this community alive. Aeon Flux fansites have come and gone over the years, but this forum has always been my favorite. I love the formal purity and stark simplicity of this place.

I can say that as of now, I am talking with MTV about doing new animated Aeon Flux episodes. She is coming back, and better than ever. Stay tuned.

Peter, it has been an honor for us to be your 'home'. It has been an incredible experience here on this forum. Incredible.

But to "She's coming back", Ohmygod!

Congratulations!

Finally!!!

Wow.

Peter Chung, congratulations!

Thanks for sticking around yourself, Peter (and Mark, and anyone else who has worked on the show and made an appearance here). I think this thing might have collapsed years ago if you guys hadn't spiced things up now and then with a comment that gave us hope about Aeon's future, or at least hope that she's still alive out there in the minds of her creators. I know that reading this site (or the previous one) over the years has sparked and re-sparked my interest in my own art, not to mention looking at the Flux episodes and even life in new ways sometimes. So thank you, too, Peter.

It amazes me that even here in Tokyo, in this big, busy city miles and miles from everything that's familiar to me, I'm seeing glimpses of Aeon peeking at me in speedy television clips or staring at me from the trainstation walls. I'm seeing the Herodotus File in comic shops here. Here I am, feeling very alone sometimes in this completely unfamiliar place, and Aeon Flux, who I never thought would visit us again, is running loose. Who knows if she'll catch on here, but I'm hopeful. They seem more interested in Charlize's Harajuku hairdo than in animated Aeon (I have yet to see the DVD set here), but I have hope. After all, they sought you out for Alexander, didn't they Peter?

Anyway, I never could have imagined, five years ago, seeing her all the way out here, much less anywhere.

I've just done a couple of interviews for the Japanese press. While my work has been seen in Japan in Alexander and Animatrix, Aeon Flux had so far never been released there in any form. That's about to change. Of course, there's so much animation for adults over there that it will barely make a blip, I'm sure.

I liked the piece for the Paramount Home Entertainment website in Japan. The interviewer's questions were unusual and strangely specific. I'll post a link soon.

The animated DVD collection should be hitting Japanese stores by the end of March.

Thanks for the info, Peter! Yeah, I'd imagine Japan would be a difficult market for Aeon. But there does seem to be a vouge for Western animation lately...

Paramount's Japanese Aeon Flux site:

http://www.paramount.jp/aeonflux/

The interview:

http://www.paramount.jp/aeonflux/news/interview_en.html

Thanks Peter! I was happy to see some new questions in this one. And I'm glad they asked you what you liked about the movie... I'm all for the criticism, but it was nice to hear what you did find interesting about it.

I was finally able to see the DVD set, and I'm very happy with it. The commentary seemed sparse sometimes, but that's natural I guess, as the time for each episode passed quickly. I especially liked the moments when Aeon's creators didn't take her as seriously as we're used to (during Chronophasia, for example: "Where's all the blood?"). I also really appreciate the added effects, the subtle lighting gradations really add something to each shot.

I watched the movie again on a plane... they cut the tongue shot in the beginning. Do censors really have that much of a problem with the inside of a mouth?

The interview on Paramount Japan's site left out a few of the questions and answers which I guess they thought were inappropriately frank. Since I took the time to respond to all the questions, I think I'll go ahead and post the stuff that was cut.

Q: I felt a bit disappointed to see both Aeon and Trevor in the movie Aeon Flux being totally different from the original characters. But, Charlize Theron’s physical resemblance was incredible. Even then, I felt more CGI should have been used for the characters’ movements. What are your thoughts on the movie?

A: The alteration of the characters Aeon and Trevor and their relationship was also my biggest source of dissatisfaction with the movie. I suppose that viewers who haven't seen the animated series may not care about that. I do feel that the opportunity to show viewers a unique kind of relationship between antagonists was lost. So much of the animated series was the exploration of the way how two people who opposed each other in every political and philosophical way could still be madly in love with each other. Nonetheless, I think Charlize Theron embodies the character very well physically, and I enjoyed a good deal of the production design and cinematography.

Q: In Japan, one of the most popular animation directors is Mamoru Oshii of Ghost in the Shell and Innocence. Do you like his works? I suppose your styles are a bit different since majority of his works are very dialogue-driven.

A: I find Oshii-san's works more admirable than enjoyable, though I do find myself studying them nonetheless. Perhaps I'm interested in them because they are done in the exact opposite approach to my own. I'd never imagine doing anything in the way his films are made. To me, they are very much in the tradition of Kenji Mizoguchi, who is perhaps the most "Japanese" of the classical Japanese filmmakers. They are based on a disjointed structure, in which abstract ideas or principles are discussed, then flurries of action occur which seem to have a very tenuous connection to those concepts. In that way, they remind me of Kabuki, which portrays the violent gesture as a decisive moment unmoored of rational control, yet elaborately mounted and fully conscious of its inherent absurdity. By Western narrative standards, the exposition in "Innocence" is utterly uninvolving emotionally. There is a value to allowing the viewer to directly infer the emotional dimension of a crime-- to "feel" why that crime is wrong. To me, it isn't enough to state that a crime has occurred to make me care about seeing an injustice set right.

Q: How about another popular animation director, Hayao Miyazaki of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away? Did you know that his son (Goro Miyazaki) will direct the cinematic Tales from Earthsea of Ursula K. Le Guin?

A: I have truly enjoyed Miyazaki-san's work over the years and have looked forward to each of his films. I met him a couple of times when I was a young animator just starting out. He was in L.A. at the time Tokyo Movie Shinsha's Little Nemo was being developed. He rejected the offer to direct in the Hollywood model, which was the intent of that project, and followed his own path. I'm very glad to know that he has achieved so much success by sticking to his own principles and vision. Yes, I heard that his son is directing the new Ghibli feature.

Q: Would you tell us some of your favorite filmmakers, either animation or not?

A: My favorite contemporary fimmaker, whose films I rush to see upon release, is David Lynch. My all-time favorite movie is Jacques Tati's "Playtime". I love the films of Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Alain Resnais, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa. In general, I'm not a fan of Hollywood filmmaking, or Disney animated features. However, I loved Pixar's films A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. Lee Changdong's Oasis is the film I saw most recently which impressed me greatly.

Q: Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller’s movie Sin City was a picture that is neither live-action nor fully animated. What do you think about this kind of filmmaking?

A: Even though it is less apparent, I think the recent Star Wars movies are far closer to being animated films than Sin City. In Sin City, at least all the characters were portrayed by live actors. I see a great potential in this new technology. We will see if filmmakers are able to apply it to a revolutionary way of telling stories, or if it will continue to be applied to simply alter the appearance of conventional narratives in a superficial way.

Q: Rather than Japanese animations, your animation styles look more influenced by French bande dessinees such as Moebius’.  What is your idea?

A: Moebius has always been one of my favorite artists. I had the opportunity to work with him on a short film project early in my career. Of all the artists I've ever worked with, he impressed me the most-- not just by his skill, but by his imagination and discipline. What I appreciate about Moebius' work is that he gives equal attention to all the visual elements in his images. He conveys a strong sense of the environment, the supporting characters, the incidental details. Moebius' images have a descriptive clarity that emphasizes the content of events rather than atmosphere and mood. He calls it striving for neutrality. He doesn't glamorize his main characters, which is a trait I often find in Japanese animation. I try to derive positive points from all types of art, and I've always been a big fan of Japanese animation, though more for its directorial sophistication than for its drawing style.

Q: Aeon Flux avoids explanatory lines and descriptions on purpose.  Does this mean that you want to let the audience to imagine the rest?
 
A: I believe that works of art must stimulate the imagination of the audience to discover the meaning of the work themselves. When the viewer realizes the meaning of a film through his own observation, it delivers a deeper emotional experience than when the meaning is explained or discussed directly. I believe the value of art is precisely to promote independent thinking and to provoke the mind to explore original modes of thought. I am not interested in getting viewers absorbed into a fictional scenario and becoming curious about the outcome of artificial events.

 Q: Main soundtracks have oriental impressions.  Were there purposes for making them oriental?
 
A: There was a deliberate effort to contrast various styles of music to suggest the conflict between cultures. I think there are also "occidental" impressions, although perhaps these aren't noticed so much, as they are more generally accepted and expected.
 
Q: 10 years have passed since Aeon Flux was released on TV, and now it’s cinematized.  Does it mean that Aeon Flux had been too much ahead of the curve?
 
A: The plan to produce a live-action movie version of Aeon Flux has been discussed since the animated series was still on TV. It's unfortunate that it took so long for the studio to develop and make the movie, as other movies have been seen since then which presented similar characters and imagery. The studio finally gained the confidence that an audience existed for this type of movie, but the movie version of the character has been considerably altered from the animated version.
It has been gratifying to see that the response from reviewers to the recently released 10-year old animated series on DVD has been overwhelmingly positive. That was not the case at the time the series was first seen on TV.

Q: If you are offered to direct the sequel of the movie Aeon Flux, would you accept it?  If so, what kind of movie do you want to make?

A: I'm not sure that the live-action movie's story really allows for a sequel. If a movie sequel were to be made, I think it would need to be a completely unrelated story to the first one.
I was always hoping to make an animated feature movie of Aeon Flux rather than in live-action. In fact, I am currently working on writing the story for a proposed animated Aeon Flux feature which is much closer to the original animated series than the movie.

As long as I'm on a posting roll--
One more recent interview for Japan:
(Mostly more of the same)

To Mr. Peter Chung

Hello, we are from "Web Anime Style" in Japan. And we would like to ask you some questions.

Q1. We've heard that you had been influenced by Japanese animations. Specifically, who and what films influenced you? And what do you think about the Japanese animations?

As a child, I enjoyed all types of animation, including Disney films, Warner Brothers films as well as the Japanese animation I saw on T.V. The first Japanese animation I saw was Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atom) on American television. Later, while living in Korea, I saw for the first time programs such as Ohgon Bat, Tiger Mask, Cyborg 009. Those characters appealed to me more at that age than the typical funny talking animals in American animation. When watching Japanese animation, I'm more aware of the technique, as it usually is clear that it is composed of a series of still images. I was able, even at a young age, to understand how it was made, therefore, to imagine doing it myself. With "classical" Disney animation, the individual drawings are blended seamlessly into an illusion of continuous motion. The technique is less apparent, therefore harder to grasp for a young mind. I think I gained a greater appreciation for "classical" technique only later in my career. A truly great piece of animation should not seem to have been animated at all, but simply to move as if motivated by itself. The character must appear to be truly alive.

What I appreciate so much in contemporary Japanese animated films is that they are so much freer to present the personal traits of their directors than what you see in animation from Hollywood. In Japan, animation is truly a director's medium, whereas in the U.S., I think it is an animator's medium. Most American animated features are directed in the same manner regardless of who the director is. They are focused more on the variety of character performance. I think there are traits in each approach that are valuable, and are worth studying. I've learned a lot about camerawork, editing and storyboarding from Japanese animation. Among those directors who have influenced me, I would name Dezaki Osamu, Rin Taro, Kawajiri Yoshiaki, and Miyazaki Hayao. I would also mention the films End of Evangelion by Anno Hideaki and the Adolescence of Utena by Ikuhara Kunihiko, both highly personal films which managed also to be produced as commercial projects for mainstream audiences. It's unimaginable that such experimental works could be produced by the American animation industry.

Q2. We, the Japanese Anime buffs, think your works were affected by Yoshinori Kanada's animation very much. Is that correct? And what do you think about the animation style of Kanada's descent?

Yes, Kanada-san's animation had a tremendous effect on me as I was starting in my career. Watching and studying his work taught me a lot about the potential of non-naturalistic timing to evoke feeling. I also learned from his work a way to make limited animation interesting by mixing up the number of frames within an action. It's a valuable idea when you are working on a TV series where the number of drawings must be minimized. His animation moves in a way that exists only on film, not in reality. He is an expressionist animator-- he invents movement that expresses an inner feeling rather than trying to mimick reality. I believe animation is best used to portray things in a way which live-action cannot, in the same way that I believe drawing and painting is more powerful when it is not trying to imitate photography. However, I also believe it is limiting to copy the style of another animator. In Kanada's case, he was inventing rather than copying, therefore there is a spontaneity which is missing from someone who is animating in the "Kanada style". Individual style must arise out of the artist's own natural instincts and not from a conscious effort to imitate someone else.

There are many Western animators whose work inspired me as well, who may not be familiar to Japanese animation fans: Bill Tytla, Rod Scribner, Milt Kahl, and many others.

Q3. Except animation or movies, do you have any other arts or events that influenced you?

I try to draw inspiration from as many sources as possible. Music has been a very strong influence on how I think of filmmaking. Music has a strong emotional effect simply by its structure. Purely instrumental music can also have narrative content without lyrics. This inspired me to try telling stories on film without words. I was exposed to a lot of modern dance while at CalArts, where I studied animation. I think of my characters as dancers, who must use their bodies and movements to express their inner states. I've learned a lot about storytelling and character psychology from reading novels, which I've tried to apply to my work. My favorite writers are Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, Alain Robbe-Grillet and Vladimir Nabokov. Most importantly, I try to take as many ideas as I can from direct personal experience, rather than from other creative works. Many of the episodes of Aeon Flux are based on my own observations about society, relationships, moral and political problems. I try to avoid using stereotypical definitions of character types, such as heroes and villains, or limiting myself by the rules of a particular established genre of film.

Q3. What was your managerial position and job in "The Transformers: The Movie"? That was an exciting film.

I first worked on the original Transformers TV series as a storyboard artist. At the time, in the mid-eighties, U.S. TV animation work was beginning to be sent overseas for production in Japanese and Korean studios. American artists had no experience drawing realistic robots like the Transformers, which were based on Japanese toys. I had been a fan of Japanese robot animation, so I wanted to work on the project. A producer at Marvel Productions decided it would be better to have Korean artists who had done a lot of Japanese animation work to draw the storyboards, so I was sent to Korea as a storyboard supervisor, to aid in the communication between the American studio and the Korean artists. Later, when the TV series was a success, I worked with these same artists and I drew storyboards for the movie. I'd estimate that I storyboarded the first 15 minutes of the movie, plus one sequence towards the end. Originally, I'd done more, but a lot of my scenes were cut because I don't think the director understood them. The movie is almost nonstop action, so it was a challenge to keep the visuals fresh, and not be stuck repeating the same things.

Q4. Could you tell us which the most important work in your filmography is? And why is that?

Aeon Flux is the work I'm most known for, and it certainly is the project closest to my heart for many reasons. It is the only series I worked on which I created, wrote, designed, and directed. I tried to convey through it a lot of my most personal thoughts and feelings about a wide range of subjects which I hadn't seen presented in previously made animation. I tried to create a main character that had physical agility and sex appeal, and would be simply enjoyable to watch, but at the same time had a complicated personality and an intelligent mind. The greatest challenge in animation is not the drawing or the movement, but the creation of a character with well-defined individuality, a unique way of thinking and behaving. Those are the aspects that motivate me.

Q6. In "Aeon Flux" especially 22 minutes series, there are full of surreal set-up, film-noirish indirect dialogues and complicated man-woman relationships. And also the characters often change their mind during one episode. Do you like making an intricate film better than a simple one?

Yes, because I prefer, as a viewer, to watch films with unpredictable stories. I like to be startled, to discover unexpected dimensions to a situation. I'm bored by films with formulaic plots, no matter how well produced they are. I'm especially tired of stories that resolve conflicts between characters by having them fight each other, in the end showing the hero win against the villain in a battle. I had conflicts with MTV, when the series was originally broadcast, because the network worried that the stories were hard to understand. They would have preferred a simpler relationship between Aeon and Trevor, in which Aeon is the heroine and Trevor is the villain. MTV complained that my stories were non linear and morally ambiguous. But that is exactly what I was trying to convey, because life is not linear and not usually morally clear. In particular, I think when you are making animation for adults, the point is to portray situations in a more sophisticated way, not simply to increase the levels of sex and violence.

Q7. I think "Aeon Flux" includes a lot of twisted-eroticism not only bizarre but also very funny that is kind of sick joke. Does "Aeon" series have been affected by your own philosophy about sex?

I don't exactly believe in a systematic interpretation, or philosophy of sex, such as what you find in Freudian psychoanalysis, or in the writings of the Marquis de Sade and Georges Bataille.
Sexual desire is such a strong instinct, yet it is so often suppressed or denied in the case of animated characters, at least in the U.S. (Certainly Japanese films like Evangelion and Utena have explored the sexuality of their characters in detail.) There is a need, when making a film, to provide physical manifestations of the characters' inner feelings and drives. Sex is used in films to signify love and desire because it is the corresponding physical act. In the same way, violence is used to signify opposition and conflict, even though most of our real-life conflicts may never approach physical violence and be of a more abstract kind. In the case of Aeon Flux, I often used sexual behavior as a means of gaining closer intimacy with the characters, by entering into their private worlds. Usually, we erect certain social barriers by which we maintain order. That helps to define our relationships with others. We want to know there is a certain level of control we can expect in our day to day social interactions. Aeon's role in her world, which is largely controlled by Trevor, is to break down some of those artificial rules as a means of promoting freedom, especially by drawing out Trevor's own private desires. In other words, to get him to relinquish his own drive for self-control.

Q8. What do you think the most important thing of animation is? (Color, movement, story, etc.)

For me, it is not any one thing, but rather the proper relationship of all aspects to effectively express an idea. I am talking about the perfect integration of form and content. The content is foremost in my mind when I set out to make a film, and I believe it is the most important thing a viewer takes away after watching it. However, the purpose of making a film, whether it is animated or live-action, is to communicate the subjective thought process of the author, which is an internal experience, through a public medium using images and sound which are perceived by the external sense organs. The language of film is visual, physical and concrete. This is in contrast to literature, which is a language of words, and is abstract. For me, the best films are the ones in which it is impossible to separate the form from the content. By this, I mean that one cannot imagine the story being told in any other way than its existence on the film. Often, I am left feeling that a film missed an opportunity to go deeper, or the director focused on the wrong aspects of the story. I can imagine doing it better, or at least differently. This reaction often occurs when you see film adaptations of well-known stories, such as myths, fairy tales, or historical events. When the viewer can imagine a better alternative film, then the filmmaker has failed to use the correct method to convey his ideas.

Q9. In other interview, you said you like David Lynch. What fascinates you in his films? And which is your favorite piece?

He is a director who understands that a film does not need to restrict itself to external physical reality, or naturalism, to tell a story. In Lynch's films, the inner states of the characters are allowed to blend with the outer world. There is no clear boundary between events occuring inside the mind and outside. In literature, it is easily accepted that the writer can describe the inner thoughts of characters, and that is regarded as the advantage of books over films as a narrative medium. However, there is no reason why the same approach cannot occur in films, yet most viewers reject the occurrence of physically impossible events, unless they are justified in some literal way, such as the establishment of a fantasy world. Lynch's films do not explain their logic, but they require you as a viewer to shift your own consciousness in order to understand them. They cannot be enjoyed by hanging onto your everyday state of mind. Of his films, Eraserhead, Fire Walk with Me (the Twin Peaks movie), Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive have affected me most strongly. I also enjoy Dune and Blue Velvet.

Q10. At last, please give us a message for Japanese audience.

I've watched and enjoyed animation from Japan for a long time. I would say that my exposure to Japanese animation has been my biggest inspiration to pursue a career in animation myself. It is my great pleasure to finally see my most personal creation, Aeon Flux, released in Japan in the remastered, complete version on DVD. I think DVD is the ideal mode for viewing this animated series, as it allows all the episodes to be seen together.

Peter,

I recently saw a silent film called Sunrise, directed by FW Murnau. I only caught the last 30 or 40 minutes but they were impressive. No dialog at all in that stretch and I was caught up as it pulled me along to emotionally powerful reactions to situations of infidelity, anxiety and death.

I've seen multiple old silent films, many not well known to the general public, and been surprised at the depth of the content in them. Have any of these older films played any part in your outlook?

In film school, I saw silent films regularly, though I can't say I'd call them an influence.

In the early 80s, before fansubbing, I used to watch untranslated Japanese animated films, including entire TV series. I found I enjoyed trying to understand them more than watching animation produced in English. That probably affected my approach as much as anything.

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