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There're some Mamoru Oshii book lists on the Internet, but they don't have detailed explanations about the contents. My Mamoru Oshii book collection is far from complete, but I'd like to write some short summaries for each of those books.
I apologize in advance for grammatical errors and misinformation.
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title: Mamoru Oshii's Field Notes
included in: 押井守シネマ・トリロジー 初期実写作品集
(Mamoru Oshii Cinema Trilogy)
release: 02/25/2003
publisher: Tokyo News Service
[contents]
The Red Spectacles
background
proposal document (final version)
unpublished document
script of an early version (extract)
shooting diary
script of "Directing The Red Spectacles"
interview with Kenji Kawai
screen captures
Stray Dog
fake documentary: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Came to Shoot Dog Films
an essay by Ryusuke Hikawa
interview with Yosuke Mamiya
screen captures
Talking Head
anime-production terminology from Talking Head
background
storyboard for proposal
storyboard of the anime part
short interview with Yoshinori Kanada
interview with Shigeru Chiba
<review>
This is an extra item of a DVD collection, which covers Oshii's early live-action films.
To Oshii enthusiasts, this book is very important. I'd like to explain some of the details.
background of The Red Spectacles
Oshii already talked about it in PERSONA, but more detailed information is told in this book.
The Red Spectacles started from a project of Shigeru Chiba's vinyl: Shigeharu Shiba, the sound director of Urusei Yatsura, decided to release some promotional items of Shigeru Chiba (Oshii says in other books that Chiba was pretty popular in those days.) Shiba asked Oshii to write some lyrics for that vinyl.
However, they wanted to make it a bigger project. They decided to shoot a drama with a VTR camera. Somehow it was changed to a feature film with a 16mm film camera. When a camera op called Yosuke Mamiya joined the project, he advised them to shoot it with 35mm film. (Mamiya actually came to stop the project, but he got interested in it.) 16mm film looks cheap in theaters, so Mamiya didn't want to use it. Kazunori Ito joined and said he wanna do tokusatsu. The project became bigger and bigger. Shiba had some budget problems because of that.
Oshii had two ideas for the film. The first one is pretty close to the final version. The second one is a parody of Nikkatsu's Rambling Guitarist series. Oshii talked about the second idea in Panzer Cops Tokyo War.
proposal document
According to a note, the red girl was the "yellow" girl in the first document. It was changed to red in the final version. That fact connects The Red Spectacles with Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai.
unpublished document
Oshii and Ito explain the concept of The Red Spectacles in this document. They mention the decline of Japanese films and the excessive VFX in Western films. Oshii declares that he revives a tradition of entertainment films. A hero of an entertainment film needs some frameworks of the genre, like Nikkatsu's program pictures. However, those kinds of genre frameworks were already lost. And thus, they need to make up a “non-existing genre framework”. The Red Spectacles is "a side story of non-existing sci-fi action series". They tried to conceptualize the non-existing thing by making a sequel. That "non-existing things come to reality by portraying derivatives" philosophy can be seen in many Oshii films.
script
This script is not so different from the film, but it includes a hidden scene where Koichi sings with Muroto, Ao, and Midori at karaoke. According to the book, that scene was shot, but Oshii had to cut it for the screen time issue. Some of the lyrics were reused in a voice play called Waiting for The Red Spectacles, but the melody was changed at that time.
a script of "Directing The Red Spectacles"
This is Oshii's script from Image Forum magazine 1987 March issue. The story takes place at the filming site of The Red Spectacles. It focuses on a conversation between Mamoru Oshii and Kazunori Ito. They talk about a very meta-fictional theme.
Oshii says, he wants to shoot the situation including the shooting staff. Ito points out that they would need unrealistic time and money to do so, but that's not the point of Oshii's argument. Oshii says that, in anime, they have to prepare all the environments and characters from scratch. They usually need so much effort to build realistic fake images.
On the other hand, the true reality should be there in the live-action shooting site. However, if they tried to shoot it, that would just make another fictional situation. At first, Oshii thought that the filming site is real. They were shooting the fiction in the real environment. However, when Oshii imagined shooting the filming site, he realized that even that place is very fictional. The film staff was not shooting the fiction. The staff themselves were playing fictional roles. Oshii realized that fact and got shocked.
Ito says that Oshii is "a drawing artist who is overwhelmed by canvas".
I think "An artist who is overwhelmed by canvas" is a perfect explanation of Oshii's earlier phase.
interview with Kenji Kawai
According to Kawai, Oshii requested a soundtrack like Carmina Burana in The Red Spectacles. Kawai listened to it and made the soundtrack of the trailer. Oshii liked it, so he requested the same type of music. According to Kawai, Oshii said that he did "Godard" style in The Red Spectacles.
As for the soundtracks of Stray Dog, Naoko Asari requested something like Lee Ritenour's Color Rit. It was different from Oshii's initial idea.
In Talking Head, Oshii requested jazz. Kawai decided to add shehnai sound into it. He
