Song Yuefeng (right)
Song Yuefeng, born in Shanghai, studied painting since childhood and graduated from the Department of Visual Communication of China Academy of Art in 2003. Since 1999, he has been creating 3D animation, and his works and texts have been published in awards and authoritative magazines at home and abroad for many times, and he was an active member in the early stage of the development of computer animation in China. In 2014, his first feature film, Valley of the Dragon: Strangers Breaking Dawn, won the Golden Angel Award for Outstanding Film at the 10th Hollywood Sino-American Film Festival and has been released in more than 40 countries.
Song Yuefeng is an uncompromising lover of natural sciences and has collected many fossils.
These strange animal fossils were not ordinary stones for him, but the source that led him to appreciate the mysterious nature and animal divinity.
Song Yuefeng's home collection
As an animation director, Song Yuefeng seems to be able to draw inspiration from these collections, what are the differences and similarities between humans and animals? His work tends to give the viewer the best answer.
An animal adopted by Song Yuefeng
From "Ping Pong Rabbit" and "Crazy Sheep" to "A Cat Named Schrödinger", the protagonist in Song Yuefeng's movies is always an animal. Although the character shapes and stories are different, Song Yuefeng has never stopped exploring, excavating and showing nature through the form of animation.
Song Yuefeng adopts animals
The French naturalist Buffon once said, "If the Bible does not explicitly declare it, we may have to find a common ancestor for man and ape."
This sentence has found a corresponding possibility in the feature films "Mad Sheep" and "A Cat Named Schrödinger" that Song Yuefeng is preparing. The conflict between sheep and wolves shown in "Crazy Sheep", or the origin and development of human nature, Song Yuefeng uses the conflict between the two races to try to show his diverse and vivid and humanistic thinking.
He firmly believes that animal images can better highlight the good and evil of human nature, and he also firmly believes that there are many stories worth expressing under the big soil of China, especially in an era of value shock and cultural reshaping. And this era itself is the most valuable asset of anime directors.
Movies are like open-book exams
"
I found the meaning of my fighting
Let's hear it
To protect everything I love
- "Valley of the Dragons: Dawn Breaker"
On April 17, 2019, the Beijing International Film Festival Beijing Market Venture Capital Conference came to an end, and director Song Yuefeng won a special award for his work "A Cat Named Schrödinger". The film combines the characteristics of stray cats with the uncertain fate of life and death to form a unique creative style. In addition to the film, Song Yuefeng's experience is also very unique.
Song Yuefeng, who was admitted to the China Academy of Art in 2000, only began to be exposed to personal animation and digital graphics (CG) art through his roommate, and perhaps even he did not expect that the rich art form of CG art would make him so obsessed. He gave almost all of his spare time and began to try to go down the creative path.
Since then, this non-film-born man has been honing himself every day. After graduating from university, he set up a production company that produced commercials and special effects while continuing to work on original works. But when his "Kuku Bear" was finally shortlisted for the CCGF Best Short Film and "Silver Storm" won the CCGF Best Visual Effects Award, his team unexpectedly disbanded.
Later, when it came to this matter, Song Yuefeng said that some things are not influenced by creation, everyone has their own ideas, and when contradictions cannot be coordinated, failure is also uncontrollable. After that, Song Yuefeng won many awards large and small, but he never met the requirements of his heart.
It wasn't until 2008 that his film path seemed to take a turn for the better. He shared this experience in a tv series talks: "When a partner called me and asked if I wanted to make a movie, the original director couldn't continue due to heart disease. I agreed without hesitation, and I think it was my turning point. I immediately went to the theater, shot thousands of shots, learned to write a script, and prepared to do a big job. But in the end, when the movie was over, they said goodbye to me, and now the movie bears the name of the owner of the production company. ”
The setback did not hit Song Yuefeng, who said that it was this time that made him know Robert McGee's "Story" and how to write the script.
As Song Yuefeng said, making movies is an "open-book examination", and never be afraid of your new learning, new experiences and new research at any time period. At the same time, he also understood that no matter how many difficulties he encountered in the future, he would not back down, as the Dragon Valley said, this is the meaning of his battle, this is all he loves.
Fanatical cultivation
"Since I was a child, I was attracted to the works of the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio, and I used it as my own animation aesthetic enlightenment, so I always felt that China is a big animation country, an aesthetic creator rather than an imitator."
In Song Yuefeng's heart, he always believed that Chinese animation had its own academic status, or had an overall aesthetic style, just like the animation of the early Shanghai Meiyi Film Studio, which was the work of famous artists at that time who collected traditional Chinese aesthetics, so it had a strong artistic gene.
A large number of excellent animation works such as "Nine Colored Deer", "Black Cat Sheriff", and "Three Monks" can arouse Song Yuefeng's interest. Whenever he re-looks at those cartoons, he can feel the fun and vividness that the directors want to highlight when creating.
In addition to fun and vividness, Song Yuefeng believes that technology and creativity are equally important. He hopes that Chinese animation can one day borrow digital means to truly integrate traditional artistic languages in a unique design way, explore new visual possibilities, and form the overall style of Chinese animation, which may require someone to start from scratch.
The animated feature film "Crazy Sheep", which has been in preparation for many years, is adapted from the work of Mr. Shen Shixi. Whether it is the picture or the dialogue, it is full of strong oriental atmosphere, which can be said to be an epic animation representing China.
The story of Mad Sheep is full of blood and power. In order to avenge the wolf pack's mother-killing, the little sheep cub Blood Top almost used self-harm to polish his sheep's horns in the crevices of the rock cliff every day. Over the years, until the gentle rounded corners became as sharp as a blade. He challenges the wolves in an attempt to change the fate of thousands of years...
The reversal between wolf and sheep nature is like complex human nature. What is rare is that this work no longer shows a single worldview, but allows us to see the death of Oedipus, the dystopian theory of The Lobster, the natural evolution of Boufon, and the curse of Lotreamon about man being a maggot.
At this year's Venture Capital Conference of the North Film Festival, Song Yuefeng's new work "A Cat Named Schrödinger" was finally officially unveiled, an animated film with a watercolor picture book style, which unfolded from the two visions of humans and cats: in the eyes of humans, the world they live in is conformist; and in the eyes of cats, the human world is full of magic, strangeness, and even danger.
The stray cats in these urban areas have been abandoned since childhood, and their lives are uncertain, as if they are living in a box. Like "Schrödinger's cats," young people trapped in cubic seats in office buildings in big cities, like stray cats, are looking for their own paths and "homes."
The three judges of the Beijing Film Festival Venture Capital Conference all praised this work, and Chairman Guan Hu said: "We must do our best to encourage and support such films, Chinese films are too short of such things." New, trendy, cool, close to the contemporary, with a pragmatic creative attitude and stubborn creative belief. ”
Explore and explore
When asked about "the way out of Chinese animation today", Song Yuefeng said:
"Creators who want to create wonderful works on their own, they must go through a difficult road. We (China) have not accumulated well in the past few years, and we have been deeply influenced by the United States and Japan. If you want to pick it up again, it is indeed difficult. Because the previous set is outdated, and now the audience's aesthetic is more inclined to Europe, america, Japan and South Korea. But if you imitate Europe, the United States or Japan and South Korea, and the domestic audience does not pay, it will feel like a copycat. ”
Song Yuefeng also admitted that in the early works "Elf Throne" and "Dragon Valley", he borrowed from Hollywood's production model, although he received praise from some fans, but he did not stop thinking. With the keenness of a cutting-edge director, he realized that American animation and Chinese animation could not copy the successful experience of others because they were in different environments.
"The advancement of American animation lies in the flow of talent and the whole advanced technology. Although Chinese animation directors can also do it, and the domestic technical level is also improving, but this leads to the similarity of everything that everyone makes, and it is not a wise choice to take this similar road. ”
Song Yuefeng believes that making more of his own things is the most important, which is also his summary of the previous two works. He must resolutely draw a line with his previous works and find his own uniqueness.
In 2011, Song Yuefeng introduced the "Invincible Ping Pong Rabbit" project at Golden Horse Venture Capital
In fact, long before his two theatrical works, his original intention was to find the story of contemporary China. As early as 2008, Song Yuefeng began to create his first work, "Invincible Ping Pong Rabbit", which was shortlisted for Golden Horse Film Festival Venture Capital (then called "Super Dish") in 2011.
Limited to the fact that CG animation was in its infancy in terms of capital, technology and his personal experience at that time, the copyright of this work was no longer in his hands in the team's several divisions. Talking about this past, Song Yuefeng expressed his envy like the directors who can push Virgo to the big screen.
The process of exploration is undoubtedly full of hardships, in addition to facing the unexpected events in the production process, but also facing the downturn in the domestic animation industry, as well as the distrust and suspicion of others.
Song Yuefeng said: "Even if venture capital has won slams and awards, received a lot of attention, and has a good development opportunity, but the investment is full of uncertainties, and before signing an agreement, it cannot be too optimistic." Of course, this is only the reason for the outside world, and the biggest confusion is that the creators themselves do not know that this is a road with no shortcuts. ”
The Rose of the Future
It has been pointed out that Chinese animation can only sell well in low-grade genres such as "Pleasant Goat" and "Bear Haunting", which seems too extreme. Because in the context of the world factory, Hollywood animation gradually loses its attractiveness, and domestic animation films gradually become better, which is a trend in the future and a proof of the forward development of Chinese animation films.
As for the development prospects of Chinese animation, Song Yuefeng humorously said: "In fact, most Chinese audiences still have Chinese animation feelings. Watching Chinese animation is similar to watching Chinese football, scolding, but one day I really came up with a good work, and everyone must have rushed into the theater. It's just that everyone's expectations are too high, the requirements are too high, and the difficulty for creators has increased. ”
At the same time, Song Yuefeng also pointed out that China's current animation not only lacks good consciousness, technical talents and artists, but also lacks style and implementation means.
He said that sometimes he feels quite helpless, some people do not understand technology, works can not fall to the ground, for example, every year many colleges have a lot of works, but these works do not become long films, or there is no opportunity to become feature films.
As far as the short film pattern is concerned, it is no problem for the creator to complete 2 to 5 minutes by himself, but the problem of story strategy will occur when the volume reaches 90 minutes. On the other hand, some works do not start from an aesthetic point of view at all, which not only reflects the lack of perception of the author's own creativity, but also reflects the lack of Chinese animation style.
Therefore, during his tenure as a judge in the Hisff animation unit, director Song Yuefeng has been looking for short films that can represent the style of Chinese animation. He also stressed that as an animator, do not blindly cater to the concept of the world, which is not an effective way, but more to explore Chinese elements.
And when he saw the short film "Tong Dong Choking", he was immediately poked by the author's warmth, so much so that he wanted to talk to the director about more about the culture of northern Shaanxi, talk about where the inspiration and color matching originated, and whether it came from real life experience? Is it that the author has already experienced such a happy rural atmosphere as a child, or has some ideas in the later stages, and so on.
Director Song Yuefeng said that the reason why he was curious was because it was completely different from the yellow land he had known before, and this style was fresh and optimistic for him, full of flavor. This kind of thing is the most valuable asset of Chinese animation production, as Song Yuefeng said: "People can accept your shortcomings, but they can't accept your mediocrity."
Today, Song Yuefeng is experiencing an extraordinary period, constantly tossing and turning in himself, he began to embark on a new journey, and the shape of the world was in his hands.
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