The result is a film where every scene could have been plucked straight from a beautifully-illustrated picture book.
It too was nominated for an Oscar.
Or such a predominantly Irish audience.
Although its about Irish myths, it still feels really universal.
Paul Young:[To Tomm Moore] You keep coming back to Joseph Campbell.
Theres Greek mythology in Marvel.
The good ones keep getting retold in different ways.
TM:I always come back to Hayao Miyazakis films.
You didnt need to know about Japanese mythology to access them, it just gave it a flavour.
You could feel that there was a whole belief system behind it that they were tapping into.
That was I was going to ask you about, the whole anima thing.
Which is quite a Shinto way of looking at things, isnt it?
And I do think theres something about island mythology that is a bit like that.
I dont know why.
That kind of stuff.
Its a balance, you know?
Because some of it was dangerous superstition as well.
People were trapped in superstition.
Thats why the stories need to be retold for a new audience.
I thought it was an interesting observation that children do view the world in mythological and dreamlike terms.
So they turn everything into symbols.
I thought that was an exciting idea.
Carl Jung and the collective unconscious.
I think Miyazaki was really good at letting adults into that world again through a child protagonist.
There are all the different layers.
It feels like the more you go on his journey, the deeper into his psyche youre going.
TM:Thats it.
And thats the very Campbell or Jungian way to look at it.
Thats when he has to come face to face with his memories.
There are commonalities across all the great hero stories.
Whats he taking with him?
I remember as a teenager going, Wowww!
[Laughs]
All that structure is just naturally there in fairy tales.
PY:There are five co-producers.
Its very normal in European filmmaking maybe not in live-action especially in a small country like Ireland.
Or in France and Denmark, we had funding there we pre-sold the film for distribution there.
So we venture to get pre-sales, take advantage of tax shelters.
We piece it all together.
They paid for Bruno Coulais and the music, the sound and mixing.
In Belgium they did compositing, and in Luxembourg they did background painting, layouts and some animation.
Some of them would stay in our studio for maybe a week or two.
Nothing could move on without his approval.
It sounds very unwieldy, but we were kind of used to it.
TM:We were travelling around a lot.
We had two assistant directors.
Stuart [Shankly] was helping out with the layout and Fabian [Erlinghauser] with the animation.
So I was able to travel between the different studios and keep it working together.
You said that without computers, you probably couldnt have done this film on the budget you had.
TM:You know, I think 2D animations been freed up by computers.
You could only have so many cels before they start to cancel each other out and get really dark.
It had to look like flat colours on a painted background.
Whereas now, were able to use almost any technique we can animate a charcoal line.
PY:We were able to make the clouds, the watercolour layers, actually move.
That would have been incredibly difficult to do [without a computer].
You couldnt put watercolour on a cel.
TM:Yeah, we were able to paint on successive layers of watercolour paper.
TM:They used computers to put it all together, but they still animate on paper.
Im kind of curious about that.
I lovePrincess Kaguya.What I liked aboutPrincess Kaguyawas that they really used the language of line.
The way the drawings are done has an expressiveness to it as well.
Whereas we were trying to making a virtue of the 2D-ness, you know?
We wanted to make a virtue of the fact that it was picture book-like.
InPrincess Kaguya,they were using drawing as another visual language, another layer of storytelling.
Id love to tap into that a bit more.
PY:When shes running from that party…
That whole scene is just stunning.
TM:We had two styles in our film.
We used that to suggest memories, dreams, stories.
Then, when were in the real world, theres more of a richness filled out to the edges.
The characters are flatter.
What was your process for coming up with some of the visual ideas in here?
TM:[Laughs]
The musics playing on the crackly radio.
TM:Oh thanks.
Its an iterative process, right?
And then you have the storyboarding stage, and thats where the editing comes in.
Youre even doing rough sound design and rough voices.
Thats the great thing about animation you’re free to make and remake films several times.
So some of those ideas just filter in.
You start to play with the concepts there.
PY:But the budgie just comes from the observation of your own granny.
Like, youre thinking, What was my grannys house like?
PY:Being tucked up in bed too early really hits with my own memories of being that age.
TM:Its still bright out.
What the hell?!
That thing about not using towels because theyre only for guests.
Thats such a granny-ish thing to say.
TM:It was a hard choice.
We thought wed do this for a bit and then go and maybe get a real job.
Sixteen years later, its turned into our real job.
PY:We had no idea how you actually get a film made or financed.
Even if we hadnt managed to make any meetings.
So we had nice chance meetings, then continuing to meet them so they know youre still around.
We did commercials and stuff, and managed to keep going.
It was just a matter of showing up at these events and pitching ideas.
I read somewhere that Don Bluth was quite an inspiration for you both in your earlier days.
His company was in Ireland, wasnt it?
PY:Hes one of the reasons why there is an animation industry in Ireland.
TM:Jimmy Murakami and Don Bluth put their studios here rather than in America.
They were both American animators who, for different reasons, brought their studios here.
The fact that the studio was there in Dublin made it something I imagined I could do.
Then they set up the college at Ballyfermot.
Because Id visited Don Bluths studio, and I was in love with animation until I went.
Then I thought, God, its very hard work!
[Laughs]
So I ran away and thought, Ill do comics.
But then I got the bug again when I went to Ballyfermot.
So I really got into animation.
During the four years I was at college, those studios were actually petering out, finishing up.
They were finishing onTarzan.
Don Bluths studio had gone back to America to Phoenix.
Tomm Moore and Paul Young, thank you very much.
you’re free to readPart Two of this interview here.
Song Of The Seais out in UK cinemas on the 10th July.
You canread our in-depth feature about the making of the movie here.
