One of the craziest and toughest projects to handle are the manga or anime series turned live-action series or movies. Although the recent success of Netflix’s One Piece is a thoroughly studied project that gave out the best results, it wasn’t easy for the directors at all. Marc Jobst, who is one of the directors of One Piece has shared in his recent interview how his previous experience with Marvel and The Witcher made him understand the angle for the adventures of the Straw Hat Pirates.
Marc Jobst is a well-known director who has been associated with various top-notch projects. His works with Hannibal, Jupiter’s Legacy, Daredevil, The Punisher, and more have gained him a better understanding of how to approach the unimaginable.
What influence did Marvel have on One Piece?
The multi-genre director, Marc Jobst recently had an interview with Digital Spy where he disclosed how his previous experiences have helped him design a better picture for One Piece. Thinking of the anime series that is still running, the live-action series had many challenges that had to be faced by the directors but The Berlin Station director had it all sorted out.
During his interview, the One Piece director spoke of how the Daredevil and The Punisher series developed his instincts to make a bunch of other superhero and fantasy world sequences. He said:
“I think it really helped me trust my instincts of grounding things in truth, in these worlds, and to not come at it as a fantasy director who’s creating mad, fantastical characters, but as a director who comes in and tries to find the truth of the relationships, and the truth of the characters”.
Further explaining, The Punisher director told about an interaction he had with a Marvel fan, who expressed her views about the Daredevil series, saying she skips the action sequences as she “just loves the drama of it.” Hearing her words, Jobst thought “Well, OK, we’ve got to make the action count.”
Jobst further stated:
“It’s like a song. In a musical, if a song can be taken out, and you can just remove the song and it all still works – get rid of the song. It’s the same with action sequences. If you can take the action sequence out and the drama still works, it’s the wrong piece of action.”
Explaining more about his thoughts on the action sequences, the director who worked on two of the most appreciated episodes of Luke Cage said:
“Your action has got to tell some kind of character story, or some kind of storyline, so that, at the end of the action sequence, we’re somewhere different to where we began. That way, you’ve got to go back, and you’ve got to watch the action to understand how you got there.”
Jobst isn’t just associated with Daredevil, he has worked on multiple series and movies. From Sleep with Me, Waking The Dead, Case Histories, and Upstairs Downstairs, he even has got his hands on The Witcher, for which he directed 2 episodes.
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Marc Jobst‘s The Witcher experience he used for One Piece
When speaking of The Witcher series, Jobst said he had learned the best ways to shoot choreography. And, this experience especially came in handy for shooting Mackenyu Arata’s Zoro. Mackenyu has had some of the best sword sequences which were almost impossible to shoot.
Talking about these sword sequences, the Jupiter’s Legacy director said:
“Henry Cavill is an extraordinary swordsman and I didn’t want to cut the bugger out of these fights. I wanted to see him fight! I wanted to see the dance of it all, you know?”
But how did this help exactly with One Piece’s direction? Jobst further stated:
“I wanted the fight sequences to have a real, individual, unique feel. So if the Marvel shows and The Witcher were all about the punch, and getting that punch and the slow motion and the blood and the sweat and the grit and the dirt and all that – One Piece was much more playful, and One Piece was all about the journey to the punch.”
It is not because of the fortune that this popular Netflix series has gained so much in less time, it’s the decisions that had to be made by both the production and the directors. One Piece has got the most praising reviews from both fans as well as critics, as the show did justice to the actual material written by Eiichiro Oda. And as the news has spread, we might soon watch a new season of this pirate adventure-based series.
