DISCOVERING THE VOICE OF BELLE IN THE VIRTUAL WORLD OF U By TREVOR HOGG
Images courtesy of Studio Chizu and GKIDS. TOP: Jin Kim reinterpreted the freckles on Suzu as a facial tattoo on her avatar Belle. OPPOSITE TOP TO BOTTOM: Belle witnesses the destructive side of U inhabitants. A major inspiration for Belle is Beauty and the Beast. The crescent-shaped moon creates a ‘u’ within the virtual realm.
Exploring the impact of the Internet has been an ongoing fascination for Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda, beginning with the Digimon franchise onto Summer Wars and now Belle, which transposes the story of Beauty and the Beast into a virtual reality populated by avatars created from the biometrics of their users. Suzu Naito is a 17-year-old high school student traumatized by the childhood drowning of her mother, who rediscovers her singing voice in the virtual realm of U. “I’ve been making movies that deal with themes of the Internet for 20 years,” notes Mamoru Hosoda through a translator while attending the Animation is Film Festival in Los Angeles. “When I was making films like Digimon, I had this sense that this Internet was a brand-new world or space where the younger generation could smash the old world and create something new for themselves. Fast forward to today, and the Internet has become a necessity for all of us to live, and because of that, our reality and what exists inside the Internet have become much closer.” Unlike in America, where dialogue serves as the basis of the animation, in Japan the voice tracks are recorded afterwards, even with singing playing a major role in the narrative. “I wrote all of the storyboards first, from which the composers were able to create the music,” reveals Hosoda. “Then we animated, tried to lip sync and added the choreography to it.” By having the story unfold in reality and the virtual world of U, Hosoda was able to make use of 3D animation for the first time in order to contrast the environments. “It’s interesting that you bring up the three different animation styles,” notes Hosoda. “There is the 2D reality, 3D-generated U and the third one, which is the abstract labyrinth done by a company in Ireland called Cartoon Saloon and directed under the guidance of Tomm Moore [Wolfwalkers].” U was treated as a global melting pot of various cultures. “It’s a megacity and has this vitality where people can come express themselves. In contrast, the rural areas where Suzu comes from are losing their position in this globalized economy.”
78 • VFXVOICE.COM SPRING 2022
PG 78-83 BELLE.indd 78
2/28/22 2:31 PM
