Fullmetal Alchemist The Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa - Production

Production

Production of the film began shortly after the television series finishing its original broadcasting on Japanese channels, although pre-production started during the show's run in March 2004. The film's production was led by director Seiji Mizushima, who also had directed the series as well. Mizushima allowed a camera crew and interviewers into the show's conference room at the Bones studios where he described how production went, as seen in a special feature on the DVD release of the film. The conference room was filled with every cut and drawing created for the show and movie, but it was eventually cleared out to make room for other projects.

The original draft of the film's script was written by Sho Aikawa at a hundred pages long, making the film over three hours long. Mizushima and others had to cut a third of the script's scenes out in order to make the film an appropriate length. Some scenes and characters were removed from the final cut, including a character named Steiner who could see auras, having a role similar to Noah's. A scene which was cut involved characters Roy Mustang and Winry Rockbell meeting in front of the late Maes Hughes' grave. It was a highly awaited scene from the perspective of the fans. By October 2004, the script was completed and the pre-check storyboards were produced. The pre-check storyboards showed the movements of objects and characters in each shot along with the characters' lines. Production on the proper storyboards began in November of the same year, but the schedule in producing the film was immensely busy, so the directors of the film split the storyboards into six sections, one for each of the directors to create.

The opening and ending scenes were drawn by Mizushima; the scene involving the debut of the film's villain was drawn by Soichi Masui; the middle section of the film was drawn by Shingo Kaneko; Edward Elric's return to his homeworld was drawn by Masahiro Ando; action scenes were drawn by Shinji Aramaki; and the battle between Wrath and Gluttony was drawn by Yutaka Nakamura. Mizushima was repeatedly harassed by the head employees at Aniplex to speed up work on the storyboards. The artwork for the film was produced once Kaneko was finished and cel-animation was used to produce several characters or items in the film. Seven hundred of the film's animated frames had to be redone with only two weeks to the film's release.

A trailer was produced for the film in December 2004 with Romi Park, the voice actor for Edward Elric, narrating it. Three posters were produced for the film, two teaser posters and a third for the release of the film. A "Fullmetal Festival" was held on December 26, 2004 to celebrate the show and film. Most of the directors finished their assigned storyboards by February 2005 except Shingo Kaneko, who was taking longest due to the general slow process, but his storyboards were nevertheless impressive.