Miyazaki has quite some sense of people due to his passion for animation being driven by observation of motion and the surroundings.
He is quite the advocate of using experience to form as the foundation for any art.
While he judged the outgoing and old Mr. Creed to be lackadaisical but scheming, the little boy that he is focusing his eyes on now seems to keep a deep secret.
Miyazaki has seen secretive boys back at home. They were mostly quiet and uninteractive due to strict upbringings.
They are mostly the type to bottle up their frustrations and accept the stigma in which their parents hope for them to be.
It was different for this boy though as it wasn't any of those plights but something else.
Miyazaki could tell that it must come naturally to the boy and that calm, collected maturity that his little body exudes couldn't be faked at all.
It was only a glancing eye contact but Miyazaki was intrigued more by the little boy. He liked expressive characters with boisterous flaws in his animations but seeing a little person that opposes all that was quite thought-provoking.
"You are little Mr. Creed, correct?" Miyazaki turned to the boy who just coughed. He didn't need the translator to say that as he was quite drawn into whatever the boy would do.
"That's me." Alexander nodded as a greeting. As someone who has quite a deep respect for Ghibli's work, he was quite conducted when faced with the man who made it all happen. He had no idea of what deep thoughts he was giving to this man he respects.
"Oh... right!" Old Sullivan timely put the spotlight on his grandson now. "This is Alex. My grandson who happens to know more about the animation projects than me."
Mr. Miyazaki was confused at the revelation but could only turn quiet when they found that the old man seems to not be joking.
Calm, collected, and knowledgeable in important company matters. Old Hayao had yet to label such a description to any teen much less a kid. Either way, his animation characterization interest was piqued.
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Given that the podium and spotlight were on him, Alexander simply went on with it.
"We still haven't made a translated version but have you read up on Creed Comics, Mr. Miyazaki?" Alexander asked with inward amusement. The comic book and manga translation scenario just may have been tinkered by him.
Usually, it was manga that was sought after it has been translated but his intervention may have changed that. Still, it is only on the way to that though.
Miyazaki eventually clued himself in and got some gist of the animation direction they were headed for. "Does this mean that you are going for an adaptation type of animation storytelling?"
"Yes. The animation concepts and storyline is already present but it's the competence of our production that is troubling us" There was no denying that. "For now, we're hoping to speed up the adaptation process with your expertise and learn quite a few of your tricks as well."
"Hmm..." Miyazaki was quite satisfied with that arrangement. Since that was what he was in America for, that is what he will do.
Of course, the crew fixation work isn't a simple verbal exchange as that, so the animation veteran went on. "Is there anything else that I should note, Alex-san? Themes, style, duration, film or show, the equipment type, complementary modifications, artist quirks, and the rest."
Alexander simply obliged with whatever animation technical know-hows he could muster from their recently scrapped-up animation building and team.
Thus, the duo engaged in a much-specified discourse on what Creed Animations was going for, and something just clicked.
As someone who had read up on a lot of animation books that he accrued for his past adult life, trading insights with a seasoned man was quite enlightening in itself.
From their discourse alone, Alexander had already made his signature designation to the man. Maybe... Seasoned Hayao would be appropriate enough.
Meanwhile, Miyazaki had a different takeaway from their conversational exchange as a new character type was slowly piecing itself together.
He had animated teens and kids that explore the world with their lenses. He had also encountered unfortunates whose childliness remained the same while their bodies turned to that of an adult's- the man-child.
The unfortunate souls are the ones whose childish plight is brought by natural abnormalities. The most unfortunate to be around with are those adults that lash out and act in childishness.
While the most likable child-adults are those who use their childish sensibilities to better the world. Perhaps the rumored Steven Spielberg and his animation peers are among those childish people that he liked.
Now, he finally had the chance to meet someone who goes against those archetypes... an adult in a child's body.
It wasn't the acting child actors that the film industry was proud about but a true rarity that truly embody even a maturity that most adults can never hope to attain.
What was most surprising is that the rare archetype is actually using that reversed-ness to take on the entertainment and animation fields as well.
It wasn't about the child-like fun and child-oriented perspective that most of his peers are good at but with a technical and calculative approach.
Miyazaki was quite biased to say that their methods would come out as superior in a battle for who can entertain and succeed. However, he wasn't so sure now as the information that was being laid out was systematically more impressive than what he expected.
Overlapping timelines, extensive storyboarding plans, trying to improve on stimulating still motion, background art to character simulatedness, timing musical scores to scene pacing, and even much esoteric theories that he was asked to test the feasibility about.
The more Miyazaki ruminated on those thought-provoking animation questions, the more he found that he wanted to try it out as well.
It was way too progressive than everything that he confidently knows about that he was speculating that the boy might just have a 2D animation handbook from the future.
The boy's calculative methods were so far ahead of its time that Miyazaki was beginning to doubt whether he was needed in Creed Animations in the first place.
If their animation crew was not so disjointed, then this boy might just have taken the animation industry by storm.
Alex-san was way too abnormal that Miyazaki was considering that 'adult-in-a-kid's body' was not the most apt description.
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"You have quite the grandson, Mr. Creed-san." Miyazaki could only turn to the grandpa after Alex-san had other responsibilities to do.
"He is quite the grandson, indeed." Old Sullivan appeared humble but he was inwardly aggrieved. He wasn't jealous that his grandson had quite a good time but that Alex stumped his friendly socializing strategy.
He was proud that he was quite sensible and hooked Mr. Miyazaki with ease. Alex should have learned something from that but the boy just trumped it all with technical seriousness.
This Miyazaki guy was already hooked to his grandson's abilities while he was just that old guy who happen to have an extremely talented kin.
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The designated translator just kept to himself and wanted to do his job well. The quirks of a rich old man, a Japanese animator, and a knowledgeable kid had nothing much to do with him.
Still, he was sweating quite heavily from what he had gone through. Translating all those technical and animation thingy-majigs was hard but grasping the reality of things proved much harder.
The translator had a hard time trying to grasp what, which, and where he was. Little Alex Creed was way too abnormal and scary in his opinion.