On January 7, the new animation work of the Chinese choir series "Wing Mei" was launched on Station B, and has been played by Station B for more than 30 million times. It tells the story of Zhou Hao, a bamboo man in Jiading, who pursues the "world's most beautiful" with a beautiful painting full of ancient style and ancient charm:
Because of the protection of childhood, Mei Niang, who had transformed from a plum tree, came to Zhou Hao's side, and they spent countless beautiful times together. In order to carve the "most beautiful thing in the world" into the Xiangfei bamboo material left by his master, Zhou Hao left his hometown to bid farewell to Mei Niang. However, after stepping through the mountains and rivers until his life was in danger, he found that Mei Niang's eyes were rivers, eyebrows were green bamboo, ears were mountains and rivers, lips were red plums, and she was the most beautiful in the world.
Stills from "Wing Mei". The stills and videos in this article are from the producer of "Wing Mei" (Beijing Tianqing Culture Development Co., Ltd. after rain).
Open the video, bullet screens such as "Lifetime", "Grandpa Qinghui", "Living Long See" and other moments brush the screen... "Wing Mei" is the sixth part of the Chinese choir series, and for the audience who loves this series, this new work has made them wait for three years.
Originally recorded by Yi Fenglin, a composer in Shanghai's Jiading District and published in 2010, China Choir contains 16 works from the Book of Poetry, intended to allow primary and secondary schools to learn ancient poetry with the help of "chanting". In the 2015 "Shanghai Jiading 800 Years" government cultural promotion activities, "China Choir" was adapted into a series of animations to tell the historical allusions of Jiading's celebrities. In the past seven years, as the only pure hand-drawn original animation with traditional ancient poems as the background of the story, the series has been deeply loved by netizens, among which the hottest "Acacia", less than a week after its release, broke the 50 million hits on the whole network, and entered the top five in Weibo hot search, which was called "Jiading version of "Your Name" by netizens" and "a short film that only Chinese girls understand".
"Wing Mei" B station barrage
This time, "Wing Mei" also surprised netizens. "Wing Mei" was born out of a passage in Qian Daxin's "Biography of Zhou Shanren" quoted in the "Bamboo Man's Record": "When I was young, I tasted sick sores, returned drunk one night, and when the old man was dressed very differently, he gave out a pill of medicine, and the five organs were burned, and the place where he was suddenly lost, there was a strange fragrance in the evening, and he was exhausted by the disease, and there was no ash for life." Because of this passage, coupled with the fact that Zhou Hao, a bamboo man in Jiading, has never carved a lady and a plum blossom in his life, the screenwriter adapted a legendary story between a person and a plum tree.
Stills from "Wing Mei"
"This "Wing Mei" is not much different from the previous five films, although the main creative team is still the original team, but as the last part of the Chinese choir series, we also hope that it can leave a particularly good impression on everyone." On January 13, Peng Qingzheng, the general director of the Chinese choir series, told the surging news reporter, "All the characters in the previous Chinese choir series have really existed in history, but this time we have fabricated a heroine - Mei Niang, who is not yet a human, but a demon." Because Zhou Hao has never carved a lady and a plum blossom in his life, we have derived this role. Moreover Chinese said that green plum bamboo horses, plum blossoms and bamboo have a natural relationship with Chinese. ”
At first glance, this is a bit like a story of "Liaozhai", but Peng Qingzheng specifically said that the main creative members have a consensus, that is, they hope to make "Yong Mei", which does not have a sense of strangeness and strangeness in the traditional sense, but maintains the realistic temperament of the choir series, as if it has indeed happened.
"You see, whether Mei Niang appears or disappears, she is not transformed into a wisp of green smoke, but through the language of the lens, let the audience feel." Some viewers feel that everything may be Zhou Hao's fantasy, and some viewers feel that Mei Niang may have changed her master. We want to use some euphemistic and implicit ways to carry the emotions we want to express Chinese. In a more beautiful way, make up such a story, so that more people know about Zhou Hao, and also know Jiading bamboo carving. ”
In terms of scene picture, the main creative team also tries to pursue reality as much as possible. The Jiading bamboo carving that appears in the story has a long history of more than 400 years, and the Jiading bamboo people use the knife as a tool and the bamboo as the carrier to integrate the art of books, paintings, poems, texts and printing into one, giving bamboo a new life. Some netizens also deliberately found out the origin of Master Zhou Hao.
In addition, the famous plum-viewing place "Xiangxue'an" in Jiading appeared in the "Wing Mei", and the addition of this element has also undergone a lot of research. Before the animation production began, the main creative team searched through the Jiading County Chronicle from the Kangxi Period to the Republic of China Era and found that the name "Xiangxue'an" was not recorded, but during the Qianlong period, the Nanxiang literati Zhang Chengxian compiled the "Nanxiang Zhenzhi" Volume 10 "Nunnery", which recorded "Xiangxue'an, at the foot of Hecha Mountain". Another circumstantial evidence is that the name "Xiangxue'an" appeared mostly in the late Ming Dynasty. Li Liufang, one of the four gentlemen of Jiading, has an article entitled "Rebuilding the Xiangxue Nunnery", which records his participation in the reconstruction of the local Xiangxue Nunnery in Wuxian County, Suzhou. For this reason, they speculated that the Xiangxue Nunnery in Nanxiang probably existed in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
"Our screenwriter is now in Tianjin, working in the Beijing News, and is a historian in his own right, and our producer is in Shanghai, a real-life advertising director. I'm in Beijing. Our main creative members are basically post-80s and post-90s. Peng Qingzheng said that they are a group of people who are "standing at a turning point of an era", and Chinese style animation is rare when they are in college, or a little green and yellow, "We are equivalent to being the first batch of animators to rediscover Chinese style, including we made "Peking Opera Cat", and now there are fans who have come to look for it, which belongs to the reinterpretation and display of Chinese style, or Chinese culture." ”
Peng Qingzheng was admitted to the Animation Department of Beijing Film Academy with the first professional result, and his graduation short film "Promise" won the Best Short Film Award, the Best Director Award, and the BEST Animated Short Film of ASIFA China at the 8th Academy Awards. "Peking Opera Cat", which he co-created with his team members, is the first domestic original animation IP in China that combines the elements of Peking Opera in traditional culture with animation, and has won the national children's ratings championship for many times. Peng Qingzheng stressed that what they want to do is pure Chinese animation. Chinese, Chinese history, Chinese scenes... All of these are Chinese elements.
"I hope more people like Chinese animation and like Chinese culture, this is a mission of ours." Peng Qingzheng also revealed that although the Chinese choir series will come to an end, their team will still try more Chinese-style animation creation, not limited to the form of short films, but also to a wider region and face more diversified Chinese culture.