The animated short film "Wing Mei" recreates the elegant world of Jiading bamboo carving, full of feelings for Shanghai culture and sincerity for traditional culture.
The distant mountains are thick, the birds are thrown into the forest, and the ink painting seems to be "alive". The animated short film "Wing Mei", created against the background of the national intangible cultural heritage Jiading bamboo carving, was exclusively launched on Station B a few days ago, and has now exceeded 32.76 million views, with a rating of 9.9 points. The exquisite beauty of pure handmade Chinese style animation has made netizens hesitate to praise the words, "lifetime series", "beautiful, Chinese style", "the correct way to open the national comic" and other bullet screens have been brushed.
"Wing Mei" is the sixth part of the "Chinese Ancient Poetry Animation Series" launched by Shanghai Jiading in 2015. Previously, works such as "Night Thoughts", "Acacia", "Yuan Day", "Drinking on the Lake After the First Sunny Day" and other works have continuously opened people's understanding and understanding of the ancient city of Jiading, this time, the new work "Yongmei" reproduces the elegant world of Jiading bamboo carving, full of feelings for Shanghai culture and sincerity for traditional culture.
Combining rigorous research and aesthetic imagination, hongo's local historical celebrities "Magnificent" came
There were several plums in the corner of the wall, and Ling Han opened alone. Haruka is not snow, for there is dark incense to come. At the beginning of the animation, a sea of bamboo is pulled out, and a plum tree is revealed in the depths. Zhou Hao in the story is a teenager who is as straight as a bamboo, and also a Jiading person who has carved bamboo as his life's work.
The national intangible cultural heritage Jiading bamboo carving has a long history of more than 400 years. 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. The animation "Wing Mei" uses the romantic method of combining virtual and real to tell the story of Zhou Hao, a celebrity in Jiading, who used bamboo as a canvas to find the world's most beautiful carved on bamboo.
Unlike other story themes, the creative team has to face the characters from the local history of Jiading Hongxiang. They did a lot of historical research work: the selection of "weeping plum" as the original body of Mei Niang, after research, jiading area does have this variety; for example, the place where master Zhou Hao xian placed the spiritual seat after the death of Xiangxue Nunnery, the screenwriter turned through the Jiading county chronicle and found that the name mostly appeared in the late Ming Dynasty, which is consistent with the age in the play. The rigorous and meticulous academic attitude coupled with the aesthetic and reasonable artistic imagination make this anime stand out.
In the anime, because of a love affair when they were young, Zhou Hao and Plum Blossom Fairy Meiniang became acquainted, and they spent many good times together. But Zhou Hao's ideal is to find the most beautiful things in the world carved on bamboo, and the two are separated. When Zhou Hao's life was in danger during the journey, Mei Niang finally chose to use her life to repay the kindness of "protecting the tree" and turned into a wisp of dark incense. And Zhou Hao stepped all over the mountains and rivers, and when they were separated, they found that Mei Niang's eyes were rivers, eyebrows were green bamboo, ears were mountains, lips were red plums, and the beauty of the world was in her eyebrows...
"In his lifetime, Zhou Hao never carved a lady and a plum, which became the entrance to the creative imagination." Project leader Wu Dan said that after a lot of literature work, the team also unearthed an anecdote and adapted it appropriately. Originally, in the "Bamboo People's Record" quoted in Qian Daxin's "Biography of Zhou Shanren", there is such a description: (Zhou Hao) tasted sick sores when he was young, returned drunk overnight, and when the old man was dressed in a very different clothes, he gave out a pill to eat it, all the internal organs were burned, and suddenly lost the place of the Sorcerer, there was a strange fragrance in the evening, and he was exhausted by the disease, and there was no ash for life. Originally a "immortal medicine" type story, the screenwriter adapted it into a love legend between adults and plum trees, "reading thousands of trees, may the king remember this one", interpreting the truth that "the most beautiful thing is actually the belonging and yearning in the heart", adding a poignant and magnificent color.
"Every frame is a Chinese ink painting", and the classicism and elegance of traditional culture are endlessly evocative
With poetry as the center, historical and humanistic stories as the content, and cultural dissemination through animation carriers, the "Chinese Ancient Poetry Animation Series" has created six in seven years. "Acacia" takes "red beans" as a clue, and depicts the love story of Jiading celebrity Wang Chutong and Fa Xiao Liu Niang Qingmei Bamboo Horse, hongdou who are determined to be in love but have no chance to stay together. Based on the experience of The Qing historian and scribe Wang Mingsheng, "Wandering Ziyin" subverts people's emotional cognition that "Wandering Ziyin" is accustomed to, and becomes very romanticized and legendary. And "Night Thoughts", which tells the anecdotes of the famous Chinese diplomat Gu Weijun, and the Tang Dynasty literary hero Li Bai's "Quiet Night Thoughts" launched an emotional dialogue across the era.
Behind the "Chinese Ancient Poetry Animation Series" is a young post-80s and post-90s production team. Because there is no reference, at the beginning, these young people also crossed the river by feeling the stones and explored this national style animation road together. The first episode of "First Day" did not cause much waves when it was launched. Until the launch of the second episode of "Acacia" in 2017, it suddenly became a hit. Since then, the anime has quickly gained a stable audience and fan base. Although each episode has to wait for more than a year, the audience is still looking forward to it, which also gives the team motivation and responsibility, and tries their best to make each episode more refined, better watchable, and more enduring.
The 23-minute yongmei surpassed any previous work and took three years to produce. Whether it is the picture, the soundtrack, or the story, they all tell the classical and elegant style of traditional Chinese culture, not only with light and elegant ink paintings, but also with exquisite brush strokes and magnificent landscape paintings. "The animation deliberately uses some ink techniques and the composition and color of Chinese paintings, and strives to find the charm of ancient Chinese famous paintings." Director Peng Qingzheng said that for example, the dragon that appeared in the scene of "Wind and Snow Finally South Mountain" in the film was based on the Southern Song Dynasty Chen Rongkuang's famous works "Six Dragon Diagram" and "Nine Dragon Diagram".
Whether it is the interesting farmhouse cottage, the ancient wood cold forest with distant vicissitudes, the beautiful colors of the West Lake with many scenes, or the water droplets and moody anger on Mei Niang's eyelashes, compared with the previous ones, the animation performance of "Wing Mei" is more rich and delicate, and the scene is more grand. The sophisticated production won the recognition of the audience, and netizens praised: "Every frame is a Chinese ink painting." (Reporter Tong Weijing)
Source: Wen Wei Po