Artist Research - Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is a retired animator from Japan, he has created feature length films such as Castle in the Sky, Ponyo and Princess Mononoke. 

He takes a leading role when creating his films, in his early films he would personally review every individual frame but due to health issues he now delegates work to other animators.

Miyazaki uses traditional animation in majority in his films, he introduced computer graphics first into Princess Mononoke. In a interview he explained his use of computer graphics "it's very important to me to retain the right ratio between working by hand and computer. I have learnt that balance now, how to use both and still be able to call my films 2D"

Shadow Puppet Animation

Silhouette animation is animation in which the characters are only visible as black silhouettes. This is usually accomplished by backlighting articulated cardboard cut-outs, though other methods exist.
One of the main and first pioneers of this technique was Lotte Reiniger, she created feature length films using this technique such as Cinderella, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, Dr. Dolittle and His Animals and The Chinese Nightingale.


Silhouette animation is most often created in black and white, with either a black paper or cardboard silhouette on a white backdrop, or a white silhouette on a black backdrop. In many ways this style of animation requires more finesse and skill, because it relies solely on motion, shape, pacing, timing, and music to convey emotion without the benefit of things like facial expressions.