A few years ago, Weng Jie and his wife Zhao Jingyan rented a small villa and turned it into a "factory".
The house is in Zhuantang, close to the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts where they graduated, surrounded by green trees.
This is not Weng Jie's house, it is the scenery in the stop-motion animation movie "Ghost Mother"...
Counting the two of them, there were twelve people in the "factory", all young people.
They often come and go, but most of the time, they still work in a number of separate "workshops".
This house has also received many big people who can't do it, but unfortunately most people don't know them. For example, Dan Crall, the animator of "Ghost Mother", such as Mike Johnson, the director of the Oscar for Best Feature Animation "Zombie Bride"...
Mike Johnson and his zombie bride
The main product of this "factory" is something called "stop motion animation". A large number of cartoons we are familiar with actually belong to this sequence - including the above-mentioned "Ghost Mother", "Psychic Boy", "Box Monster", as well as "Zombie Bride", "Chicken Run", "Invincible Boss Dog"... Of course, it also includes the Avanti that Chinese are most familiar with.
Maybe you've heard of some other names. For example, two short films with a strong Chinese martial arts style - one called "The Prequel to the Assassin Nie Yinniang", which is the pilot propaganda short film of Hou Xiaoxian's big movie; the other is called "The Temple of the Wind and Snow Mountain", which was born from "Water Margin".
"Wind and Snow Mountain Temple"
Their total length is less than 20 minutes, but the cumulative number of clicks on various video websites in China is about tens of millions.
These two films are masterpieces of this "factory". Branded with the label of "Runwu Stop Motion Animation".
Stop-motion animation is a way of shooting objects frame by frame and then projecting them continuously, resulting in what appears to be a living character or any bizarre character you can imagine. The stop-motion animations commonly referred to are generally performed by clay puppets, puppets, or mixed-material characters. The history of this form of animation is as long as the history of cel animation in the traditional sense, and perhaps even older.
The characteristics of stop-motion animation are destined to be a very "time-consuming" art. A few seconds of action you see, the freeze-motion animator may have to shoot a whole day - this is not counting the massive time of pre-production props and post-production films, it is said that "Ghost Mother" took three years to shoot alone, and the preparation behind it took ten years...
So, the stories related to stop-motion animation are basically long long stories, but what you end up presenting is only a short essence - equivalent to a long time, encapsulated in a small jar, waiting for someone to open.
Weng Jie is showing off a puppet model he made
In 1984, Weng Jie was born into an artistic family, and his father was the famous oil painter Weng Dingxian. Since the age of 4, Weng Jie grew up in the Dean of the Academy of Fine Arts on the West Lake in Hangzhou. Later, he also entered the Academy of Fine Arts, and when he went to study in the United States, his neighbor was Dan Crall. Dan told Weng Jie that your little non-mainstream sculpture works are too suitable for stop-motion animation, and you should give it a try.
Weng Jie is best at making this kind of small sculpture
In 2011, Weng Jie made his master's degree graduation work "Tower in the Wind". There were tons of gunfights, sci-fi, action scenes, and that was all he liked.
Tower in the Wind
This work became a hit and helped him win the scholarships of the three top domestic art academies of China Academy of Art, the Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts - "Zeng Zhushao Scholarship", "Luo Neutral Scholarship" and "Lin Fengmian Scholarship". He also stayed in the Animation Department of the China Academy of Fine Arts as a teacher.
Bonuses are important, but the moral encouragement is even greater. Subsequently, Weng Jie used the money he had saved and took a few students to shoot "The Temple of the Wind and Snow Mountain" together.
This 12-minute short film took them about eight months to complete.
As soon as it was put on the Internet, it exploded.
Exquisite dolls and props, especially gorgeous and smooth fights, made many netizens exclaim. Some people say that they see the conscience of domestic animation, some people say that they see the creativity of domestic animation, and some people say that they see the future of domestic animation. And the barrage on the b station is more direct: "To kneel, to kneel!" ”
Weng Jie's "Runwu Stop Motion Animation" was established on the basis of the success of "Wind and Snow Mountain Temple".
Walk to their "factory" and push the door in, and you'll find that the villa's original living room has been converted into a studio dedicated to stop-motion animation – they're working on a brand new film, Rarity and His Friends. In the middle of a room full of sets, props, lamps and cameras, a young guy is concentrating on adjusting the movements of the puppets. When he sees you come in, he will stop nervously: "Be careful, don't touch anything." "Whether it's the set or the camera, the slightest unplanned displacement can make their days of hard work in vain."
Ong Jie and "Rarity and Her Friends" set
"Rarity" is their latest work. This is a clumsy, hairy character who loves adventure, is always facing problems, and loves to solve them.
Before the Spring Festival this year, Weng Jie, Zhao Jingyan and the children in the "factory" just had a period of free time and wanted to make a group of short and fast children's films. They made eight demos in 21 days, each about a minute — which is already very fast for stop-motion animation.
They put small samples into stations a and b, and the response was unexpectedly enthusiastic. So they decided to sink their hearts and do a good job of him in a series.
"We want to make something different for our kids to see. Not the impatient, yelling stuff that's in a lot of cartoons right now. Zhao Jingyan said that they hope that Ruirui can make parents feel safe, healthy, and have a good aesthetic, "to provide a warm and safe family model, just like Peppa Pig." ”
They had hoped to make thirty episodes this year, but from the beginning of the year to the present, only a few minutes in total...
"I wanted to make it easier, but they all came hard and said no, you walk away, you have to come carefully." Weng Jie sighed and said that he could not stop the young people in the "factory" at all, and as soon as the artist's momentum came up, the eight horses could not be pulled back.
He also figured it out: "We can't do anything too simple." ”
Every prop is an exquisite work of art
However, artists also have to eat.
At present, Weng Jie and his "Runwu Freeze-Frame Animation" have to undertake various business cases from time to time to support their artistic pursuits.
For example, the previous "Nie Yinniang" and the "Qi Jiguang" that is now being produced are all such projects - of course, the artistic standards of these works are still very high.
Screenshot of "The Prequel to the Assassin Nie Yinniang"
Character action test of Qi Jiguang
Stop motion animation is a complex project.
Weng Jie's "factory" is also divided into many different "workshops", 12 small partners, almost everyone has several jobs, from creativity to split-shot scripts, puppet props production, shooting, editing, dubbing... Even many people have not found that the "Epitaph" at the end of "The Temple of the Wind and Snow Mountain" was sung by Weng Jie himself holding a guitar. And even fewer people know that in order to capture more accurate martial arts movements, Weng Jie, who looks gentle and elegant, has been practicing Muay Thai for more than half a year...
Ong Jie who plays Muay Thai
A split-shot script for Rarity
Painting is the lingua franca of the team and a must-have skill. Unlike the usual filmmaking, Weng Jie and his friends usually do not have a literary script and are directly represented by a split-lens picture. They draw characters, actions and scenes on iPads at any time and share them with each other.
Weng Jie is sketching Rarity's split-shot screen on the iPad pro
A split-lens schematic is born on the iPad Pro
Weng Jie said that doing stop-motion animation has taught him a lot. In addition to the once unfamiliar areas of lens language and shooting skills, you must always pay attention to new materials and new technologies. "For example, the new 3D printing technology, 3D animation technology, we have tried." "Some people think that stop-motion animation should be more pure, with less new technology, but my point is that you can not use it, but you must, and you will, which is different from yours." ”
As we said earlier, this small "stop-motion animation factory" in Zhuantang has come to many international top celebrities. The second left in the picture is Xu Ning, an animator at Laika Animation Studio in the United States, who participated in the production of "Kubo and the Second String" (Magic String Legend).
The big man on the sixth right with Weng Jie in his hand is Mike Johnson, the animation director of "Zombie Bride"
Cross over... It was the young Weng Jie who went to Warner Bros. to visit Dan Crall
Weng Jie said that stop-motion animation used to be China's strong point, with the world's top level. "We've been able to see so many excellent cartoons that have accompanied us growing up in childhood. Like "Avanti", how did it not work later? Because we haven't improved. ”
He gave an example, why are Avanti's characters not precise? Mainly because of problems with the material and craftsmanship of the dolls. The top foreign institutions are now using precise CNC machine tools to carve very precise joints.
Weng Jie's homemade horse skeleton model
Nowadays, in Weng Jie's "workshop", there are many "skeletons" they made by themselves - materials and joints, using new technologies from abroad. This also makes his puppet move more naturally.
These smooth motion demonstrations have also been praised by the world's top stop-motion masters
For the future of stop-motion animation, Weng Jie is certainly very optimistic.
"Freeze frame is a unique animation language full of charm, and his sense of material and temperature is difficult to replace with three-dimensional animation." He made an analogy that people are used to eating meat and vegetables, but maybe one day you will want to eat salmon - freeze frame is very different, it has a great significance.
At present, there are many people doing stop-motion animation in China, but not many people study stop-motion animation as a technology and art. "We have such a good tradition, so I think we should re-systematize Chinese stop-motion animation, which is what we're doing right now."
For these, no matter how much time you invest, it is worth it.
Text/linus
Photography / Dahe (some images and video footage provided by respondents)