Director Kurosawa's handwritten storyboards, scripts released on Net+

KYOTO, May 27 Kyodo -
Photos of nearly 20,000 items related to the legendary filmmaker Akira
Kurosawa, including his handwritten storyboards, scripts and production notes,
were made available in an online archive Tuesday.

Many of the items posted on the Kurosawa Digital Archive were made public for
the first time, according to the film company Kurosawa Production Inc., which
kept the creations. Kurosawa's eldest son Hisao heads the company.
The items shown for free of charge also include photos of scenes of Kurosawa's
masterpieces such as ''Seven Samurai'' and ''Rashomon.''
The nearly 20,000 items are part of some 27,000 materials that Ryukoku
University in Kyoto had helped make into digital files.
Hisao Kurosawa told reporters, ''These materials can help people learn about
the logic of creating something. I hope we will be able to provide this archive
in foreign languages such as English.''
The website is: http://www.afc.ryukoku.ac.jp/Komon/kurosawa/index.html.
==Kyodo
2009-05-27