Original title: The 9-minute short animation “The World” won one million hits (quote)
Director Zhu Xiaopeng: Chinese style sci-fi, must have independent spiritual connotation (theme)
Yangcheng Evening News reporter Ai Xiuyu and intern Wu Xichun
A year ago, due to a “don’t give up hope” submission, Zhu Xiaopeng, a young man from Chaoshan, Guangdong, created the one-person hand-painted animation “Yingge” pilot film with the theme of the intangible cultural heritage project Yingge and Dance in his hometown. Although it is only 1 minute, but with the creator’s love for hometown scenery and attention to traditional culture, “Yingge” is out of the circle, and the over 100,000 hits represent the affirmation of netizens, which also enhances Zhu Xiaopeng to do original animation Confidence.
Recently, Zhu Xiaopeng continued his fate with the netizens of station B. The 3D animation short film “Jie” created by him and the Shenzhen Solid Studio team took 14 months as a sub-project under the “Xunguang” support plan for national creative animators at station B. One of the invited works of the “Capsule Project”, which deeply integrates science fiction with traditional cultural elements such as “Book of Changes”, movable type printing, ancient Chinese philosophy, etc., has received more than 1.5 million hits.
In this regard, a reporter from the Yangcheng Evening News had an exclusive interview with Zhu Xiaopeng, listening to him describe his growth from “Yingge” to “Jie”, introducing the behind-the-scenes creation story of “Jie”, and responding to the feedback and interpretation of netizens.
It’s worth it “The charm of animation lies in making dreams come true”
In 9 minutes, “Jie” tells the story of a human being’s moral experiment with artificial intelligence, with the background of the future world, and explores the issue of “where is the moral boundary between artificial intelligence and human nature”. With the support of the team, compared with the pilot film of “Yingge”, “The World” has been greatly improved in terms of the maturity of the story and the production accuracy, and behind this is a full 14 months of hard work.
Yangcheng Evening News: Compared with the solo fight when you wrote “Yingge”, the “Jie” co-created with the team is more challenging or more opportunity for you?
Zhu Xiaopeng: I think the challenge is even greater. When fighting alone, although the individual’s time, energy, and skills are very limited, everything is under his control.
“The World” is mainly 3D. My previous work experience was biased towards 2D animation. The biggest difficulty I encountered in directing this film was that my familiarity with the 3D process was too low, so I faced both team collaboration and time cycle control. challenge. In addition, our team itself is specialized in dynamic design, and a feature film such as “Boundary” is also the first time we have made a crossover, and pressure and workload coexist.
Yangcheng Evening News: How long did it take “Jie” from conception to production?
Zhu Xiaopeng: It took 14 months in total. The script was finalized within a week or two as a suitable source of the story was found. After that, it was to refine the script, do the storyboard, and find a concept artist to do the character setting and scene setting together. In March of this year, I entered the 3D animation production, rendering, synthesis and other work, and the special effects part was driven out after 3 months of hard work from June.
Yangcheng Evening News: It is really hard to do animation. As a creator, what do you think is the charm of animation?
Zhu Xiaopeng: The charm of animation is that, compared with real-life works, it can be more imaginative and free. So the hard work is worth it.
Yangcheng Evening News: From the simple “Yingge” to today’s “Jie”, in just two years, your growth has been surprising. If “Yingge” is like “winning the lottery”, then “Jie” is a bit like “hand-off”.
Zhu Xiaopeng: There is indeed a mentality of “handing in the papers”. Bringing “Yingge” to participate in the “Small Universe” project was a whim, to join in the fun, and after the launch, the response from fellow villagers would also be greater. “The World” is more realistic. When I first received the invitation from the “Capsule Project”, I was quite stressed.
In addition, there are 14 teams participating in the “Capsule Project” together. Although there will be a bit of a comparison mentality, we will take a learning attitude to see what our peers are doing. The talents and beliefs of domestic animation creators still make us very emotional. of.
Ambitious “to find a new way to make sci-fi films with Chinese characteristics”
What netizens talk about most about “Jie” is the combination of “science fiction” and “national style”.
The “Book of Changes” hexagram that constantly flashes in the heroine Li Wei’s mind, the drone “Jin Wu” and the system “Cardinal” surrounding Li Wei… The imprint of traditional culture in the film can be found everywhere.
Zhu Xiaopeng said that as a sci-fi animation that discusses artificial intelligence, it is easy to enter the path of homogenization with foreign works, and fall into the same repetitive creation: “We must do science fiction in China.”
Yangcheng Evening News: Why do you have the inspiration to combine science fiction and traditional culture? In your opinion, what are the similarities between the two?
Zhu Xiaopeng: It is earlier and more mature to make science fiction works abroad. We want to find another way to make science fiction films that can highlight our characteristics. At the beginning of the creation, during the group discussion, the team leader Chen Zhuan said: “We want to do Chinese science fiction”, which resonated with us. Later, we found that traditional culture and future technology do have many points in common. For example, the sixty-four hexagrams in the “Book of Changes” are actually binary, which is consistent with today’s computer language.
Yangcheng Evening News: What kind of homework have you done to integrate traditional cultural elements into your works? Are you worried about misuse or insufficient understanding, which will lead to doubts by professionals or mislead netizens?
Zhu Xiaopeng: There will be worries in the process of creation. After all, we are not experts and scholars, so we will be very careful to do multi-faceted textual research, such as consulting materials, reading monographs, and consulting experts. However, I personally think that even if it is really wrong, it is a good thing if criticism or discussion is raised and everyone pays attention to topics related to traditional culture.
Yangcheng Evening News: In addition to visual elements and picture symbols, “Jie” is also very Chinese in its spiritual core.
Zhu Xiaopeng: Yes, I think to do Chinese-style sci-fi, you can’t just integrate it visually, that’s too superficial. I have been thinking about how to integrate the philosophy of traditional culture from the core of the story. In the film, we discussed the relationship between the development of artificial intelligence technology and human morality. The introduction of Taoist culture is a perfect fit. It advocates obedience to nature, and we also raised this question: “As a part of nature, human beings are Is the artificial intelligence created ‘natural’?”
Hope to communicate “The creator has no standard answer, the audience can give meaning to the work”
After the launch of “Jie”, netizens responded enthusiastically, and various plot reversals and blanks made netizens “broaden their brains” and actively think about and interpret the details of the content in the short film. There are even netizens who have specially launched interpretation videos, so that “Jie” can enjoy the treatment that was only available in the past popular film and television dramas. In this regard, Zhu Xiaopeng said: “I think a work should be like this, not only the creator gives it some meaning, but the audience can also give it some meaning.”
Yangcheng Evening News: After the launch of “Jie”, did netizens give feedback as you wished? How do you view your interpretation and “brain holes”?
Zhu Xiaopeng: We have received various feedbacks, including encouragement and criticism, and various pertinent suggestions. We are looking at and digesting them very seriously.
As for the explanation of netizens’ self-play, it is also quite interesting. My opinion is: after a work comes out, it no longer belongs to the creator, it belongs to the audience. Therefore, I will not use the creator’s point of view as a standard answer to influence the various interpretations of the audience.
Yangcheng Evening News: Do you have any regrets about the final effect of the film?
Zhu Xiaopeng: There are still a lot of regrets. Due to time and space constraints, many details were not perfect, and the overall rhythm was a bit rushed, and the slow place did not slow down. If there is time, the lens performance can be enriched a little more, and the visual setting can be a little more flying, which requires us to continuously improve the aesthetics. However, although there are regrets, it does not prevent the audience from understanding the story and characters.
Yangcheng Evening News: In the future animation creation, will you continue the creative path of “integrating traditional Chinese cultural elements”?
Zhu Xiaopeng: Yes, I think there are many things worth exploring in traditional culture. If it is a personal choice, of course, I would like to express more traditional cultural elements. After all, this is a home-grown thing, which is closer to me. The same is true of our team, which will not resist any style of creation, and will also expand into different types of works.