There are two interesting directions of artistic creation, one is to simplify the complexity, and the other is to simplify the complexity.
There is such an animation film, the creative process can be described as very interesting, constantly switching back and forth between "simple" and "complex", this animation is the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio in 1981, directed by Xu Jingda and Mak Xuan," the three monks.
Creatively, "The Three Monks" is reduced to complexity.
"One monk carries water to eat, two monks carry water to eat, and three monks have no water to eat", such a familiar proverb was taken by the creators of Shangmei Film Studio, simplified into complexity, and adapted into an eighteen-minute short story.
An animation seems simple, but the animation production, soundtrack, dubbing and other work add up to a big project, such as "Little Tadpole Finds Mother" such ink animation, its production time is often calculated in years, not to mention "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace".
"Three Monks" bravely simplified the complexity in the production, removed the dubbing and lines, only retained the background music, and used the body movements and expressions of the characters to complete the story telling with the music. The character image and background use the simplest lines, retaining a large number of Chinese painting-style blank spaces.
Although the picture perception of "Three Monks" seems very simple, its picture contains a lot of ingenious small details, and this article is going to talk about these lovely details.
First, the shape and color of the characters
If we look at the figures, appearances and colors of the clothes of the three monks, will you find anything?
In terms of stature, tall, short, fat, thin, the four basic human postures are almost all in line.
In terms of color, the little monk wears red monk's robe, the high monk wears dark blue monk's robe, the fat monk wears yellow monk's robe, red, yellow, blue, the three primary colors often said in art, can be called out a variety of colors, the three colors are combined to be black.
Simply put, the three monks, with only three postures and three colors of monks' robes, represent all things in the world and the general public.
The complication is that the three monks are not just "three", but "Dao sheng one, one life two, two birth three, three births all things".
Second, human nature is inherently good
All three monks had a small episode while on their way.
The little monk was tripped by a turtle, and he was not angry and helped the turtle turn over.
The high monk was frequently harassed by a butterfly, and he put the butterfly back on the flower.
When the fat monk crossed the river and found a fish in his boots, he chose to release the small fish.
The three monks are very cute when they appear, and they all have a kind heart, which is a metaphor for "the beginning of man, nature is good".
Three, the personality characteristics of the three monks
The outward appearance of the little monk is more clever, you see, when he and the high monk carry the water, he thinks of measuring the flat burden with a ruler, the first person to eat snacks when meditating is him, the three monks are choked, and the first person to think of drinking the bodhisattva's pure bottle of water is also him.
The little monk's problem is that he is relatively weak, such as when he went to fetch water during a fire and was tripped by a turtle twice.
The outward appearance of the high monk is more capable, especially when there is a fire in the small temple, almost all the high monks carry water and run, and after the little monks are tripped by the turtle twice, it is the high monk who takes over the flat burden.
The appearance of the fat monk is somewhat funny, and his actions and expressions belong to people with some witty feelings, coupled with his rounded figure, his comedic color is even stronger.
Intelligent, competent, funny, different monks with different personalities, as well as clothing colors and body types, all have generalization and labeling effects.
Fourth, the ubiquitous traditional cultural color
Shangmei Film Studio is better at reflecting the traditional culture of our country in animation films, such as the famous ink animation "Mudi", almost every frame of animation can be used as an ink landscape painting.
In "The Three Monks", traditional culture is everywhere. For example, the minimalist painting style, the large blank space, and the freehand scenery are all classics in China's traditional painting.
The monk's robes worn by the three monks are deceptively simple, and they also have the characteristics of the traditional large sleeves of our country.
In addition, it has to be mentioned that the soundtrack of "Three Monks", composed by Mr. Kim Fu-jae, does not have any lines and dialogue in the whole film, and relies on music to set off the plot and atmosphere, which can be called a magical work in the field of animation.
Fifth, embellish the comedic elements in it
"Three Monks" is an art film, which can be aimed at adult audiences, and at the same time, this is an animation film, and the main audience group is of course children, so although "Three Monks" is a fable feature film, it still adds a lot of comedy elements to it.
For example, the fat monk's body color changes, the sun quickly turns red, and then plunges into the small river, even the river boils for it, and the fat monk's body color quickly returns to its original color.
The three monks secretly ate dry food while sitting in meditation in the temple, and interestingly, the shape of each monk's dry food matched his body shape perfectly, small, long and round.
After eating dry food and drinking no water, the three monks were choked and began to burp in turns, and the hiccups were as rhythmic as knocking on the wooden fish, and the sound of their own characteristics pounding their chests added to the fun.
The biggest pleasure in the climactic passage of the film, the high monk on the fire, accidentally threw the little monk out as a bucket, and dragged back in mid-air, the little monk was scared like a piece of wood for a while before waking up, these shots can be called the most interesting segments.
Several changes in the bodhisattva's expression in the film are also quite expressive, at first it is gratifying, then it is impossible to see, in the middle of the surprise and speechlessness when he finds that his bottle was robbed, and finally he smiles. The bodhisattva plays the role of the audience in the film as a bystander, and the bodhisattva's expression is actually our expression.
When the fire is discovered, the three monks have different movements, one covers his mouth, one covers his ears, and the other covers his eyes, which we can also understand as "incivility do not speak, incivility do not listen, incivility do not look"
Sixth, an extremely good ending
We often hear fables that "one monk carries water to drink, two monks carry water to drink, and three monks have no water to drink", it seems that the last "no water to drink" is the end of this fable, and Gan Ping's children's song "Three Monks" also adopts such an ending.
If the cartoon "Three Monks" also arranges the ending in this way, there is actually nothing wrong with it, after all, irony is also a common technique in cartoons.
However, Shangmei Film Studio has arranged a better ending for "The Three Monks".
This ending is divided into two layers, first "broken", how to break the embarrassing atmosphere of "no water to drink", the cartoon let a mouse act as a gamebreaker, which caused a fire, the fire broke the embarrassing atmosphere of the three monks, and the fire fighting process of the same enemy, regardless of you and me, became the glue of their relationship.
The second level is "Standing", which is to solve the problem of drinking water for the three monks. Generally speaking, we will think of a way to pick a day per person, a shift on duty, or a person to pick once, people do not stop the bucket.
"Three Monks" has another high trick, they use pulleys, fat monks draw water, small monks carry water, high monks fill water, the three monks work closely together and use scientific methods to improve labor efficiency.
I have to say that this ending is very good, not only let the children know the spirit of teamwork, but also advocate a main theme of the eighties in advance, "science and technology is the first productive force".
Such an excellent "Three Monks" won the Best Art Film Award at the Golden Rooster Awards of Chinese Cinema in 1980, and then won awards at film festivals in five countries, including West Germany, Portugal and Denmark, and foreigners also praised this animation film with strong traditional Chinese culture, which truly confirmed the saying: the national is also the world.