Pilot films have served an important purpose throughout the history of film and TV, but it’s far rarer that these experiments ever make it into the public eye. They were made for the purpose of seeing if an idea would work on the screen before green lighting the funds needed for full production, particularly with original projects, or they were a chance to give young creators an opportunity to showcase skills. That remains true today, but the availability and purpose of these pilot films has evolved in recent years, particularly in the space of crowdfunded and indie projects.
Late last year, a sold out cinema in the heart of Shibuya played host to the first ever Shibuya Pilot Film Festival, with additional screenings at the recent Niigata International Animation Film Festival earlier this month. At both events, all-new and classic pilot films from upcoming, now-funded original projects like KILLTUBE to well-known pilots from yesteryear such as the 1969 pilot for Lupin III and Hayao Miyazaki’s directorial debut Yuki’s Sun were shown. It wasn’t just animated films showcased, either, with the pilots of Japan Academy Film Prize winner Always Sunset on Third Street and Katsuhiro Otomo’s live-action pilot for an unreleased adaptation of Domu, screened for just the third time ever and only the second on Japanese soil, also shown.
Select creators and industry figures also joined to talk about these films, discussing the realities of funding and production on these unique works.
The circumstances surrounding why each pilot is produced is different. In the late 1960s, anime was defined by Astro Boy: popular, but produced cheaply, and for a broad family audience with an uncontroversial final product. Monkey Punch, the creator of Lupin III, was uncertain his more mature manga could make the jump to animation without butchering his intent for the series in such a sanitized climate. The 1969 pilot was made to convince him it could be done, and test what could be done with the material.
The result is an interesting window into initial ideas for the series’ production. Akechi Kogoro appears as a detective in a 13-minute episode that combines ideas from numerous chapters while introducing the main cast, although this character was entirely cut from the 1971 series. The art style is a vast departure from the refined final look of the broadcast, adhering to the manga in a way that’s certainly striking, but not always suited to the medium. An almost-entirely different voice cast was utilized, although Mine Fujiko’s voice actor did return to voice the character in Part II of the TV series in 1977, a role she reprised for the next 33 years.
It’s a fascinating look at what could have been, and so uncertain were plans at this time that even the format for the project was undecided (the pilot was produced in both CinemaScope and TV broadcast formats). But it was enough to convince Monkey Punch on the potential, and eventually led to the TV series and franchise we know today, with some cuts from the pilot even reworked or re-used in later episodes.
The pilot is a rare example of such a film being released to a general audience, albeit decades later on home video.
Hayao Miyazaki’s pilot film for Yuki’s Sun is a similar showcase and experiment, albeit with the opposite final result. The series never entered full production, with the short only rediscovered later in part due to its director’s high profile. While each film offers fascinating insight into the history of Japanese animation and are wonderful to preserve, they aren’t unique. They exist for the same reason as dozens of similar films the public will never even know existed: testing an idea before expanding or discarding it. Otomo’s live-action Domu pilot was made for similar reasons, with later festival screenings leaving the lucky few who witnessed it merely a glimpse at what could have been.
In recent years, however, the more public utilization of pilot films has changed. Once a creation mostly kept away from the public eye or repurposed without their knowledge into the main series, some indie and smaller studios have used pilots as a means to generate public anticipation for a project, whether for crowdfunding opportunities or to demonstrate public enthusiasm to force meetings with investors needed to turn these ideas into a reality.
HIDARI is a pilot film from Dwarf Studios in partnership with TECARAT and Whatever Co, a stop-motion animation company with a lineage going back decades, whose recent projects include Pokémon Concierge and a Rilakkuma animated series for Netflix and whose founder, Tsuneo Goda, created NHK’s Domu mascot. Their creative and commercial work alike has earned them industry-wide renown, but HIDARI is a far more ambitious project than anything they’ve attempted before - a high-intensity action samurai film made using hand-carved wooden puppets.
At least, it will be when it’s finished. With the need for expensive woodcarving from TECARAT, securing funding for a desired feature has been a challenge, leading the team to release their pilot film publicly while also launching a crowdfunding drive, an additional search for investors, as well as giving the pilot film screenings in theaters and at festivals.
The result? Numerous awards from events inside and outside Japan, and a crowdfunding campaign that raised almost 800% of its initial goal. With this extra funding and excitement from the public, the team have been able to move forward with production, regularly talking at these events about the effectiveness of the pilot’s release in helping make it a reality.
KILLTUBE from Studio Chocolate, a blend of Edo Japan, cyberpunk and modern day streamer culture, as well as Milky Highway, have each also found success in releasing pilot films to the world ahead of release as they continue to seek funding. For the latter, a full series will begin broadcast this summer. Hina is Beautiful by On-Gaku director Kenji Iwasawa was released ahead of an international co-production funding drive in the hope of similar results.
During a talk at Shibuya Pilot Film Festival, KILLTUBE director Kazuaki Kuribayashi talked through the concept of the film and the success of the pilot not just as a proof-of-concept, but for its reception having a tangible impact on the fact a feature film is now in production. This is a film which pushes the boundaries of Japanese animation through its blend of CG and traditional animation, and the success of this pilot suggests a similar path could be possible for teams developing projects that similarly run against the grains of the typical production framework.
Kurayukaba and Kuramerukagiri released in cinemas last year and similarly sought crowdfunding while releasing its pilot film to the public.
The creation of these films is nothing new, but the public is being welcomed into this world via the accessibility of the internet in the hopes that the public will find their work directly, or that their excitement can be used as leverage in negotiations. Particularly in the modern industry of animation and live-action where adaptations are only growing in dominance due to the view that a built-in fan base is a safer bet, it’s an approach that shifts the balance back in favor of creators who can afford the initial investment in producing such films.
Pilot films are a fascinating peek into the past behind the curtain, but the future is more exciting for these films being made open to the public. If we get a second round of the Pilot Film Festival, perhaps it could not just showcase the past, but become a platform for new pilots to take that leap.
