Director's Research - Akira Kurosawa

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             Known as an absolute perfectionist, Kurosawa insisted and strived for authenticity in all of his films; He believed that absolute authenticity not only enables audiences to be more engaged, but also it really is to make a statement of his fanatical devotion to details. This meant that Kurosawa produced sets, costumes, and props to the absolute bottom in terms of details, in which would've been recorded as if it is real for the viewers. The examples for this varies as all his films are carefully crafted: In Throne of Blood, a scene included the main character Mifune, being betrayed and attacked by his own men that shot arrows at him; Kurosawa requested his archers to shoot real arrows, only to be hollowed out with wires of around ten feet running along it, while Mifune ran upon chalk marks carefully placed to avoid being hit. Even though there were no injuries, the actor later on admitted that he had nightmares afterwards.
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             Another example can be drawn from the production of Ran, in which Kurosawa strictly supervised the art director Yishiro Muraki. During the construction of "third castle ", Kurosawa ordered the castle's stone blocks to be painted as Styrofoam blocks based off the photographs he took of actual stones; Kurosawa then ordered the stones to be glued to the castle wall, also known as the "rough-stone piling " process. This enabled great amounts of details when shooting the castle, ultimately creating the famous scene in which the castle is under attack and set on fire. To prevent the melting of the Styrofoam, Kurosawa requested the art department to coat the surface with four extra layers of cement, painted with ancient stones on the surface. .
             To furthermore connect this example to the work of Kurosawa, Kurosawa received training in painting at an early age, which he used in his films. Painting allowed Kurosawa to have a strong sense of visual composition, for he filmed often in telephoto lens that had abilities of compressed depth optics, enabling the Japanese Scroll style (two-dimensional flatness).