Hi Musahiro, welcome! I am by no means an expert on Ghibli stuff, but I am willing to offer any help.

Your project sounds really interesting. How good it would be if we also had animation history classes here.

I don't exactly understand what you mean by replicating the cels. Are you going to draw everything by yourself? Or print high-definition character shots on the cels?

Anyway here is what I know on the general production of anime. In the late 80s, the use of computers was not yet popular and there were no suitable talents/softwares, so all anime were produced by traditional (cel) animation.

A cel is a transparent piece of plastic, where animators draw the characters on. In an anime, each piece of cel is unique (but the crew are free to recycle them in different scenes). An illusion of movement can be created by consecutive display of images that are slightly different with each other. The keyframes are the cels that mark the beginning and the end of a certain movement.

Animators refer to the storyboards to create a pencil-drawing of a certain frame. The drawing is printed as powdered ink on a transparent plastic sheet. Then animators paint the back of the sheet by following the printed lines.

Background is another important element of anime. Usually there are only tens of backgrounds in a certain scene, while there can be thousands of cels. Therefore it is possible to have the backgrounds painted at higher qualities. They can be painted by acrylic paint, watercolour, oil paint or crayon on cardboards. I suppose Ghibli uses watercolour like most other studios for its backgrounds.

When all backgrounds and cels are done, and with all the necessary processes completed (eg checking, timing), they are then shot frame by frame by special cameras. A cel is put right on the background to be shot (multi-layer cels can involve more than one cel in each shot). Then another frame with a new cel and probably the same background is shot. Sometimes certain animation techniques, like panning, are employed at this stage.

Screenshots will not suffice for replicating a frame as the cel images have already covered part of the background. It is basically impossible to separate the two unless there is a scene that has several frames with no character or other cel images at all.

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Wow! Thank you Jiji for the very specific reply.

Yes, when I say replicate I'm actually going to draw and paint the frame from scatch.

I'll reference a frame from the film (most likely a screen capture from the DVD) and then extrapolate the separate cel and background elements.

The terms of the project stipulate I produce the cel as it was done by the studio. [Hmm.. how lucky (or unlucky) will be my classmates who choose a film from post-traditional cel & paint? Toy Story for instance... yikes!]So the process will include redrawing the character(s), printing them onto a plastic sheet, then painting it. My question then would be how exactly this print transfer process works. Powdered ink? I might have to fudge it a bit if some sort of special printer is required. Details please!

Also what kind of paints did they use? Acrylics? Special cel paints? I didn't know they painted on the back of the cel. That is VERY helpful to know. Thanks!

As for the background I'm given a bit of latitude in that I can either repaint the background from scratch as it was done by the studio or simply find a frame sans characters as you've suggested and print off a copy large enough for the cel to fit over. I suppose once I select a frame the painting technique will be self-evident. Given that I have two months remaining for this project there's no reason to not at least try and repaint the background. Water colours aren't my forte though so we'll see.

Perhaps a few suggestions on which frame I ought to select would be nice. A classmate has already suggested one where Setsuko is saluting with a bowl on her head. Quite iconic, but I'd like to go through the movie again to see what other treasures are to be found.

Cheers,

Musashiro

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