The archive, put together by Kurosawa’s estate and Ryukoku University Digital Archives Research Center, is an amazing digital collection of over twenty thousand pages of Kurosawa’s screenplays, photos, storyboards, drawings, notes, newspaper clippings, personal scribblings and other materials. Among the high quality scans you can find unfilmed screenplays, screenplay drafts that were later revised, production memos and notes, continuity drawings, and much much more. While most of it is in Japanese, there are also some English documents, and of course plenty of pictures to check out.
Akira Kurosawa Digital Archive
Guide How to use Akira Kurosawa Digital Archives (in English)
Few filmmakers are held in higher regard than acclaimed Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa learned his craft as an apprentice of the legendary Toho studios in the years leading up to World War II. His first few films were made during the war itself, in the early 1940s, under the strict guidelines of government censors. Over the course of his 30-film career, Kurosawa explored issues of individualism and human nature, advanced the language of the film medium and pioneered key techniques of cinematography and editing - particularly those of the action film genre - used by today's director's. Kurosawa's films have inspired and been referenced by scores of filmmakers including George Lucas, Quentin Tarantino, Takeshi Kitano, Francis Ford Coppola and many more.
