Studio Ghibli’s archive is the key to its 4K restoration process

When Princess Mononoke first debuted back in 1997, it marked a major turning point for Studio Ghibli. The studio had already dabbled in computer-generated imagery and digital compositing with films like Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko and Yoshifumi Kondō’s Whisper of the Heart. But Mononoke was the first instance of Ghibli really embracing CGI as a tool to enhance one of its hand-drawn animated projects — something that writer / director Hayao Miyazaki had staunchly opposed in the past.

The original prints of Mononoke that screened in theaters were already a gorgeous showcase of how seamlessly Ghibli could incorporate cutting edge technology into its traditional production workflow. But the studio plans for its upcoming Mononoke 4K restoration to be an even more visually-stunning example of how newer innovations can revitalize classic art. When I recently sat down with Ghibli’s vice president Atsushi Okui, who previously served as the studio’s director of photography for animation and worked on films like Porco Rosso and Howl’s Moving Castle, he told me that the process of restoring Mononoke in 4K actually began about a decade ago when the standard was first starting to becom …

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