【Baidao Editor's Note】The animated movie "Toward the Bright Side" is about to be released, and Baidao Network interviewed Liu Maoning, one of the directors, and asked him to tell us the creation story of the short film "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair" that was selected for the film, as well as his childhood memories.
Liu Maoning is an animation director, picture book and comic book author, graduated from the School of Animation of communication university of China, and his animation works have won many international awards. In 2019, his animated short film "Me and the Magnet and a Dead Friend" was shortlisted for the student unit of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, known as the "Oscar of animation". "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair" is Liu Maoning's record of rural life in his childhood, the story takes place in his hometown of Henan countryside, the picture has many elements and scenes that reflect the labor of farmers, children playing persimmons, craftsmen walking in the streets and alleys, snacks and crisp sticks when they were young, etc., which are very rural life. The highly saturated colors in the picture show Liu Maoning's unique personal aesthetic style, which is not only the author's portrayal of the characters' hearts, but also a true portrayal of the Chinese countryside.
The story tells that the little boy takes care of his elderly and weak grandmother at the request of his mother, but the little boy often disobeys his mother's orders and secretly takes the money that his grandmother hid in the blue tin cabinet. When the little boy falls into the abyss between the fear of stealing money and being discovered by his grandmother and the hope of being blamed by his grandmother, he is saved by a word from his grandmother, a scene that shows the selfless love and understanding of his grandparents for his children and grandchildren. Then the boy spontaneously did something he could think of for his grandmother, in order to reduce his inner shame for his grandmother, but more in response to his grandmother's love. This story is Liu Maoning's reconciliation with his childhood self, and will also make readers with similar experience of "stealing money" feel relieved and get the salvation of their hearts.
This book borrows the growth of the protagonist little boy, what kind of spirit and life concept do you want to express to the reader? What were the biggest difficulties and challenges in creating this picture book? The story of the picture book was selected for the upcoming animated film "Toward the Bright Side", what are the main changes in the plot of the picture book to the movie? With these questions in mind, Baidao Network interviewed the author Liu Maoning, asking him to open the door of that leisurely and free childhood for us, giving us a glimpse of the world view behind the work and the touching life experience.
Liu Maoning
<h3>Childhood was boring, but I wanted to return to that simple, pure, carefree life</h3>
<b>Baidao.com:</b> It's not the first time that you've used real childhood experiences as the subject of your work, for example, the previous animation work "Me and The Magnet and a Dead Friend" is very moving. Can you talk about what your childhood was like and how would you describe it?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> "Me and the Iron Absorbing Stone and a Dead Friend" and "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair" are all closely linked to my childhood. Childhood is really important for a creator, but I don't want to exaggerate its role in life. I think childhood is a complete state of life in a person's life, it really exists, we can't change it, we can't forget it. Now childhood is far away from me, I look back at childhood and it is difficult to directly equate it with myself, it is like another life, I rarely feel uncertainty when I deconstruct it, when I think about it. But there is a lot of uncertainty in my own life now, my future is uncertain, and the relationship between work and life is also in a state of uncertainty, and putting the present and childhood together presents a sharp contrast.
The strongest feeling that childhood gave me was that it belonged to a very aimless state, and many times I was at a loss. For example, when I made friends when I was a child, I did not realize that it was friends, but when I grew up, with the development of cognition, I built up the concept of friends, including the word hometown is also a concept that I realized in adulthood. Most of my childhood was spent alone, disorderly, dazed, and bored. There's a memorable picture that impresses me and sums up my childhood — one big noon, I was lying on a cool mat watching TV, and the electric fan was creaking overhead. There are only eight local stations on the TV, some stations are still not clear, there is no good program, I take the remote control and keep changing stations, and the afternoon has passed.
And our life after growing up seems to have a lot of purpose, if there is no purpose in doing things, there is no sense of security, because we can't stand boredom and ordinary efforts, but let people ignore life itself, life is busier, more boring. And although my childhood life was very aimless, it did not plunge me into a huge logic of life, but it was easier for me to observe the details that make up our lives. "Iron absorbing stones" and "Grandma's tin cabinet wheelchair" are actually very ordinary things, but these things attach people's emotions and memories, condensed into my childhood.
<b>Baidao.com:</b> When you were a child, you spent your childhood in the countryside of Henan, did you live with your grandmother? Do you often feel nostalgic for your past life?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> When I was a child, I lived with my parents and father. In the countryside, the elderly are generally supported by their children in turn, and when my grandfather died relatively early, my uncle, second uncle and my mother would take turns to support my grandmother and live in each family for a period of time. My grandmother's legs and feet were inconvenient, and my mother was busy with farm work all day and didn't have time, so she often asked me to take care of my grandmother, such as helping her pour a urinal pot, serving food, and helping her go out to bask in the sun. When I was a child, I felt that taking care of the elderly was very hard, very troublesome, and I didn't want to do it, so the relationship with my grandmother was not particularly close, and I communicated with my grandmother relatively little, but she was very kind to me, and now that I think about it, she gave me a lot of emotional support in my growth.
I certainly miss my childhood. When people grow up, there are many things that need to be thought and done, and they will encounter many problems that they do not want to face, and they will have to take on many things and deal with many emotions. What happens to me or to myself often makes me feel like I'm having trouble growing up, I don't want to grow up, I want to go back to the simple, pure, carefree state of my childhood, and how good it is to lie in bed and watch TV every day, although TV shows are not good.
<h3>I hope that through this work, people with similar guilt will be relieved</h3>
<b>Baidao Network:</b> When did you think of moving the story of "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair" into the book and sharing it with everyone? Why did you want to write this story?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> In "Me and the Magnet and a Dead Friend", there is the image of a deceased grandmother, and when I created that role, I integrated my feelings for my grandmother. In reality, my grandmother is still quite healthy. There's a line in the anime that goes like this: "I always don't want to go near grandma because I think she has lice on her." Until Grandma went into the fire, she didn't find the lice on her body. In fact, the emotions in "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair" are also contradictory, that is, "I" took Grandma's money and wanted to get close to her, and because of the guilt, I did not dare to approach. When I was writing "Absorbing Stone", I thought about writing a story about my grandmother, but that work mainly showed the relationship with my childhood friends, so I gave up.
In the second half of 2019, Xiaoyu, the children's book editor of Houlang, chatted with me and asked me if I had any stories I wanted to write, so I told my grandmother's story, and she encouraged me to make picture books after listening. Later, I chatted with a friend of the same age and found that he had also stolen money as a child, and it was larger than the amount I stole. He stole something from the store and was caught, the boss was scared to take him to the public security bureau, and finally his parents took him home. His psychology at that time was very close to my psychology of stealing my grandmother's money, and he felt that stealing money made his parents ashamed and sorry for his parents, and this sense of guilt was something we all had. It was then that I realized that many people probably resonate with this kind of thing, and it's not a problem I've had alone.
During the Spring Festival, I went home to chat with my mother, and for the first time I told my mother about stealing my grandmother's money when I was a child, although I had not mentioned it before, I felt that she should know. I asked my mother if she had found out that I had stolen my grandmother's money at that time, and my mother, who was packing my luggage back to Beijing, was stunned, and then smiled, and after a while said: "At that time, the winter was very cold, it was difficult for your grandmother to stay in bed all year round, it was difficult to keep warm, I always wanted to buy your grandmother an electric blanket to spread on the bed, but I was always too busy to forget, and now I feel sorry every time I think about it." "Listening to my mother's words, I was very touched in my heart, and when my mother told her regrets, to some extent, she also released my regrets and made me more determined to make this story."
<b>Baidao Network:</b> In this book, you borrow the growth of the protagonist little boy and borrow this personal experience of your own, what kind of spiritual and life concept do you most want to express to the reader?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> In the story of "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair", the little boy experiences a complete emotional process, and no one interrupts him. From the beginning, he felt annoyed because he took care of his grandmother, and then found his grandmother's money, stole money to buy good food, and then wanted to apologize and did not know how to open his mouth, in the entanglement began to observe and care about the outside world, only to find that he had never cared about his grandmother, and he was ashamed inside... In the end, grandma died, and this matter became a secret in the hearts of both of them. It is only after a complete emotional experience that the boy really grows.
Some time ago, there was a news that a child stole 200 yuan from his family and was sent to the public security bureau by his family. I think that sending the child directly to the Public Security Bureau and making things beyond the scope of his own age may cause trauma to his heart, and the parents' behavior is not very rational. My parents did little intervention in my upbringing, of course, I don't think it was good, a good way of education should be through moderate communication, so that children spontaneously understand things. I think if I stole my grandmother's money, I would have the opportunity to communicate with my grandmother, if I had the opportunity to apologize to my grandmother, maybe my relationship with my grandmother would be different, and my handling of my emotions would be different.
I think guilt is a neutral word, it's neither bad nor good, it's a complex emotion that we all encounter growing up with. I hope that after making this work, I can let go of my own inner feelings, and I also hope that some people can also release some of their past unspeakable emotions after seeing the work. I'm sure my mom will love this picture book.
"Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair" is a real experience of my childhood, I did not really want to convey any spirit or life concept when I created it, now I think that I may hope that every child has a space for spontaneous growth, communication is very important to everyone in the family.
<h3>The difference between picture books and animation creation is the biggest challenge, thanks to the editor's careful help</h3>
<b>Baidao.com:</b> What was your state when you created this picture book? Have you been in a state of inspiration, or have you also encountered some bottlenecks and difficulties?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> When I was drawing picture books, I was actually in a very bad state, and I didn't enjoy the creative process at all, because it was boring, tedious and hard, which made me very entangled. I've been doing animation before, and the audiovisual language of animation is still not the same as the expression of picture book language. If you choose to tell a story in another form, you have to adapt to this form of expression. For example, in the animation of "Toward the Bright Side", the little boy stole his grandmother's money and went to buy glass marbles, and when the sunlight came through the glass marbles, the light on the marbles was very dynamic, and when the little boy rolled the marbles, the light would turn in circles. But it is difficult for me to show this dynamic sense of light and shadow in the picture book, the dynamics of the picture book is completed by the change of the action of turning the page, and the little boy in the picture book uses the money to buy a snack called a scorched crisp stick, and he will break it and insert it on his finger to eat. Of course, the glass marbles in the animation were changed by me later, but this made me realize that the creation logic of picture books and animation is actually very different, and I have a lot to learn about picture book creation.
This kind of situation that needs to be handled differently has been encountered many times when creating picture books. I often follow the animation thinking that I have been accustomed to before, hoping that the actions of the characters on the upper and lower pages are more coherent, but the amount of information in each spread of the picture book is very large, so I constantly communicate with the editor, and the editor also let me delete a lot of things.
<b>Baidao Network:</b> In the process of publishing this book, what help and support did the planner Houlang Publishing Company give you? Is your editor-in-charge experienced in picture book creation?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> My editor Xiaoyu has been making picture books, she has some experience with original picture books, and she has helped me smooth out the story logic from the perspective of children. When I was animating "Me and the Magnet and a Dead Friend" and "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair", I was telling stories through the perspective of an adult, and this narrative style and tone would be problematic in the picture book, and the traces of adult thinking were too heavy. When children look at picture books, they bring themselves into the story, so the picture books should tell the story of the little boy's experience in the first person. In this regard, the editor kept communicating and communicating with me, and slowly we processed the text and storyboard closer to what the picture book should be, which is the place where the editor helped me the most.
<h3>My understanding of the countryside is different from others, and I look forward to the audience's response to the film</h3>
<b>Baidao Network:</b> Why is the name of this story called "Grandma's Blue Tin Cabinet Wheelchair"?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> In the story, the mother let the child serve food to the grandmother, and the grandmother went to find a tin cabinet wheelchair, and there was no direct communication with the grandmother, but at the end of the story, the little boy and his mother were on their way home from the grandmother's funeral, and the mother opened the tin cabinet and found that the small cabinet contained so many things that the grandmother had miscellaneous things - combs, handkerchiefs, photos, and my grandfather's watch, all stuffed in the cabinet, and at that moment, my mother could not help but be moved. This should be the most emotional time in the story, when she spies on her grandmother's life through the blue tin cabinet that is filled.
It may be a difference between the north and the south, or it may be a difference between urban and rural areas, many people do not know what a tin cabinet wheelchair is, but in the countryside it is a very common thing, in order to strengthen the reader's impression, I will put it directly in the name of the picture book. The tin cabinet wheelchair is an object that condenses Grandma's life, just like each of us has a box that contains all our memories. The tin cabinet wheelchair has both a practical and symbolic role, it carries my grandmother's life, but also carries the memory of my grandmother's guilt, which has a lot of meaning.
Liu Maoning's old iron cabinet wheelchair
<b>Baidao Network:</b> Please talk about your main work in the process of filming and televisioning your work. What changes have been made to "Toward the Bright Side" compared to the original picture book? What are your expectations for this movie?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> My job is to direct, storyboard and art, as a director I need to re-film the script, that is, to adapt the animation according to the script logic of the animation. Turning the picture book into a video, the amount of content required for the story becomes larger, and it is necessary to add a lot of content that is not in the picture book, such as I added some branch content including my second sister and uncle. My second sister grew up in my grandmother's parents, and her relationship with my grandmother formed a small contrast with the relationship between "me" and my grandmother. Grandma and Grandpa used to make pickled radish vegetables, which represents the very important taste of "me" memories of Grandma, and at the end of the animated story, the uncle inherited Grandma's craft and sent some pickled radish vegetables to our family every year. In addition, the little boy I mentioned earlier stole money and bought glass marbles, which can materialize the light in the animation, and the audience can see the sunlight penetrate through the marbles like water, which is a beautiful visual effect. At the end of the film, after the death of his grandmother, the little boy carries the secret in his heart, walks to a tree, and after the rain has passed, the sun shines on the little boy through the gaps in the leaves, and he is like bathed in the sun, and his heart has also been soothed. These are all effects that can only be achieved by transforming the picture into an audiovisual language.
I myself grew up in the countryside, my understanding of the countryside may not be the same as other people's, I don't think it's a very shabby place. The countryside is full of strong colors in my memory, full of emerald trees, fields, and low houses. In terms of art, I also need to set this tone for this work.
At present, the commercial animation category on the market is relatively single, but "Toward the Bright Side" is a work different from traditional animation films, this animation is realistic, and the theme is also biased towards family problems. These features make me look forward to how the audience will react to it.
<b>Baidao.com:</b> You graduated from the Communication University of China and have been in Beijing ever since. What are your future creative plans? Will you continue to do the theme of your hometown, or will you put the inspiration after leaving your hometown into your works?
<b>Liu Maoning:</b> The farther away from home, the stronger the sense of existence of the hometown that you feel psychologically will be. I am now working on the last part of my childhood trilogy, "The Country Bus Takes Away the Fools and The Immortals," which is also based on the childhood experiences of teenagers and the folk customs and habits of the countryside. I shouldn't be making short films for a long time after this work, but in addition to it, our studio is still preparing for a long animation story. For now, my animation work still focuses on real-life emotional themes.
There is a strong uncertainty in my life now, it is difficult for me to stabilize the creative psychology to deal with it, this kind of subject matter is not easy to deal with as an animation, so I will not do related animation for the time being, but it is possible to make it into other forms of works such as comics.
(Editor-in-charge: Xiao Ge)