With the upcoming Studio TRIGGER original movie, Promare, premiering across theaters nationwide this week, GKIDS gave TheOASG’s Justin and Helen the opportunity to ask questions to the creative staff. Hiroyuki Imaishi (Director), Hiromi Wakabayashi (Creative Producer), Shigeto Koyama (Character and Merch Designer), and Tatsuru Tatemoto (PR) were all made available for interviews about the movie. Helen and Justin both contributed questions to this interview after having the opportunity to watch a screener copy of the film. Answers to these questions should be understood to be the answers of Studio TRIGGER as a whole. Images provided by Brigade Marketing.
Questions were sent via email.
Justin: In watching Promare there’s certainly callbacks and references to different works — can you share some of the inspirations for this film?
Studio TRIGGER: When I first heard that “fire” was going to be the theme, what came to mind was Tobe Hooper’s Spontaneous Combustion. I was inspired by how the fire spews out from the arm or how a human body would be completely burned.
Justin: After the battle between Burning Rescue and Mad Burnish, the story explains how the mutants, Burnish, are viewed in society, the rules in place for them, and how they can live in a world that doesn’t like them. What led to this type of storyline?
Studio TRIGGER: I think it’s the theme that Mr. Nakashima has.
Justin: Did the personalities of any of the following four change as Promare was being developed: Galo, Lio, Aina, and Kray. Like were they intended to be one way, but you felt it was better, for example, for Galo to be a firefighter that needs to have the firefighter’s spirit in him to perform?
Studio TRIGGER: For the four main characters, maybe their position or settings may have changed but their personalities remained pretty constant.
Helen: There are a number of visual elements in Promare, such as the constantly moving camera, which would have been much more difficult to animate without the integration of CGI tools and techniques. Was Promare a case where you came up with the initial concept, a movie about firefighters, and decided to make the CGI a major part of it as planning on the project progressed or was this a case of creating a project specifically to show off what you could do with CGI?
Studio TRIGGER: We wanted to make an action film, so CG was necessary. With the theme of “fire” we came up with ideas on how to incorporate CG. It’s not like we made a film for CG.
Justin: While the Burning Rescue team was eating pizza, the area they were at felt totally like a version of Times Square in New York. Can you discuss some of the places chosen for Promare?
Studio TRIGGER: It was close to what we imagined, so we chose New York in the United States as a location we scouted. But it’s not like the film is set in New York.
Justin: What were some of the challenges of creating this film?
Studio TRIGGER: The process of making color trace scenes. The time it takes to finish the hand-drawn parts is three times as much, toward the end it was a lot of work.
Helen: Studio Trigger already has many well-known collaborators attached to it, including yourselves, but who are some of the new and upcoming talent that you think fans should pay more attention to?
Studio TRIGGER: All the staff who were involved with Promare are very talented, so I would like fans to pay attention to all of them.
Justin: How would you say TRIGGER has evolved from when it started in 2011?
Studio TRIGGER: We’ve made many original TV series, and now we can make an original feature film. We don’t know exactly know how our studio will shape to be, but we believe we’ll continue to evolve.
In addition, there was one question which was not acknowledged in their responses. The question was:
Helen: Stories of overwork and worse in the anime industry are becoming common-place and the level of detail in Promare’s animation makes it clear that this project required hundreds if not thousands of man-hours to complete. What concrete, measurable steps is Studio Trigger taking to make sure that their projects are not burning out the very staff that created them?
Promare will be in U.S. movie theaters dubbed on September 17th and subtitled on September 19th.