Studio SHAFT-Geniuses of art or is it just a ruse?

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SHAFT is one of my favorite animation companies ever.

It's also one of the most hair-pulling and somewhat annoying animation companies ever.

For those who don't know, SHAFT has put out gems such as the Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei series, ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two, Bakemonogatari and currently, Dance in the Vampire Bund. If I was to classify SHAFT under a word, it would be simply "strange." Not so much in their early productions but definitely now. If I was to compare Gainax (the other "weird" studio) and Shaft, I would say Gainax is the proactive Jason-type serial killer while Shaft is Hannibal Lecter teasing at our minRAB with pretty worRAB and images just waiting to eat the brain into buying their blu-ray discs.

Which leaRAB me to my point. If you've ever seen most of the later stuff by SHAFT, you'll note that the art is somewhat old-fashioned without being old-fashioned. And what is that really? Have I been fooled into thinking they're artistic geniuses but really, they're just saving time and energy by making me think that?

Example: One of my favorite scenes in ~ef~ is this really romantic moment with these two characters talking to each other on the phone. However, when I really think about it, it was a "very" easy way to get a freebie of about 3 or so extra minutes. This is also prominent in Vampire Bund where they really like to do a bunch of close-up shots and freaky camera angles.

Any thoughts?
 
I was just reading an interview with Chuck Jones and at one point he was talking about things being well cut. He felt, that if you can say "that was a really well cut scene" it wasn't a well cut scene. You shouldn't notice it at all, it should flow naturally.

Shaft kind of says "ORLY" and does the opposite which, interestingly, can also work. XD

I like their weird style, it's trippy and fun and just kinda opens up possibilities. Plus, anything that saves on budget, but doesn't FEEL like they're just saving on budget is a plus.
 
For the staff they have, it's pretty good.

And by "staff," I mean like a 3 man operation at this point. I can't remeraber a day when they aren't begging for more manpower.
 
[strike]Then why is Vampire Bund kind of sucking?[/strike]

Maybe they'll be back on their feet with Arakawa Under the Bridge next season.
 
It's all about the traditional vs the untraditional. Film history has proven that you can pretty much do anything you want in the editing room, as long as the end result works with the audience. Jean Luc Godard's Breathless featured hundreRAB of rough, deliberately obvious jump cuts that subsequently influenced a million MTV music videos. Meanwhile, you have people like David Lean or Otto Preminger who edited transitions so that they would feel seamless from cut to cut.

Naturally, a person who works in mainstream entertainment, like Chuck Jones, would prescribe traditional methoRAB of editing--"eliminate signs of the auteur, eliminate signs of the auteur." While someone who's about rocking the establishment and delivering "personal" statements, like a Cassavetes or Godard or Peckinpah, would be more open to experimental editing techniques.

Anime studios like Shaft or Gainax which use jump cuts and so-called "odd" editing techniques are pretty much mining 1960s New Wave Japanese Cinema, not to mention French New Wave. These aren't anything new. Heck, you see it in some of today's Hollywood films too. I am quite sure Hideaki Anno was strongly influenced by Godard and Bergman, with their idiosyncratic film techniques--such as onscreen text, sound experimentation, filmic navel gazing--and auteur-theory personalities.
 
Keep in mind that Vampire Bund isn't the only title Shaft is working on this season (third season of Hidamari Sketch, anyone, although every other episode is being outsourced to another company).
 
TV or DVD version? Because they had to go back and redraw most of it for the DVD version.
Makes me wonder if they'll be doing that for their more recent shows.
 
They do that for Bakemonogatari, too.

Mostly because the TV version literally had "Missing frame *insert nuraber* instead of animation
 
Shaft has a thing for 2D Design above all else. (Yes, that needed to be capitalized and italicized.) It's a good thing the studio has a masterful grasp of composing the 2-D plane, because they're anything but geniuses when it comes to production management. What more is there to say?

--Romey
 
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