The digital cel work included both original illustrations , compositions and manipulation with traditional cel animation to create a sense of depth and evoke emotion and feelings . Utilized as background , filters like a lens effect was used to create a sense of depth and motion , by distorting the front background and making the far background out of focus throughout the shot . Ghost in the Shell used a unique lighting system in which light and darkness was integrated into the cels with attention to light and shadow sources instead of using contrast to control the light . Hiromasa Ogura , the art director , described this as " a very unusual lighting technique . "