Time Contributor | London Bridge
The quacks will not forget.
This year's Spring Festival stall is particularly lively.
From today, Time Jun will send a series of [2023 Spring Festival Files] original planning articles.
"Deep Sea", which arrived as scheduled, can be called a big surprise at the beginning of the year.
As a new work by Tian Xiaopeng, the director of "The Return of the Great Sage", which took 7 years, an original animated film that completely bid farewell to mythology, it is difficult not to attract attention and curiosity from all walks of life.
Now, it's time to meet - on January 19, it will open 100 IMAX screenings across the country.
"The Deep"
A dream
The story of "Deep Sea" originated from a dream of director Tian Xiaopeng.
In the dream, the girl faced the monster in the deep sea alone and bravely, and that scene completely fascinated him.
Early concept poster
He wants to make his dream into an animated movie, but reality obviously won't allow it.
You must know that more than ten years ago, it was when domestic animation was the most popular, and in the market at that time, only Pleasant Goat movies would not lose money.
Therefore, Tian Xiaopeng, who has not been in business for a long time, can only turn to "The Return of the Great Sage", which is more acceptable to the audience.
As soon as it was done, it was 7 years.
Thanks to this "sacrifice", in 2015, "The Return of the Great Saint" exceeded everyone's expectations and sold nearly 1 billion at the box office along the way.
At the same time, it also officially opened a new era of "the rise of national comics".
Since then, "Big Fish and Begonia" and "The Great Protector" have appeared, "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" has broken the box office ceiling, and the chasing animation has also begun to catch up, vowing to divide the world with the color stripe house...
With the efforts of all parties, the audience's attention and love for national comics has reached an unprecedented height.
"Color Stripe House" even formed its own national comic universe
It can be said that without the appearance of "The Return of the Great Saint", there would be no domestic animated films now.
After "Great Saint", industry insiders and countless tap water fans are looking forward to seeing its sequel as soon as possible.
Unexpectedly, Tian Xiaopeng gave up the ready-made dividends and traffic, chose to hide, and continued to dream.
This hiding is another 7 years.
This dream, of course, is "The Deep Sea".
The first official appearance of "Deep Sea" was as an Easter egg, appearing at the end of "Ginger Ziya".
The traditional ink painting style, combined with the brilliant use of color, only took more than 1 minute to amaze everyone.
However, it was only 2020, and there were still 2 years left before the original release plan.
For the entire animation team, this means that there is still room for improvement and polishing.
If you're like Time Lord, if you compare the first trailer of "Deep Sea" with the Easter egg at the time, you will soon see the changes.
It is clearly a similar scene, but the texture of the picture has been significantly improved by several levels.
How much effort has been put into the back, and the relevant production footage of "Deep Sea" has also revealed one or two -
Just getting a concept map moving took them 2 years.
For seven years
Most of the scenes in "Deep Sea" are concentrated underwater.
In animation special effects, hair and water are two major technical difficulties.
The former is extremely demanding for rendering, while the latter is difficult, not only to express the shape and force of its flow, but also to take into account the reflection and change of light.
Just like in "Avatar: The Way of Water", in order to restore the underwater world, Kashen and Hollywood's top special effects team also have to use more than ten years.
The difference is that what Kashen wants is the ultimate reality of water.
Tian Xiaopeng has sharpened a sword for seven years, but he is pursuing, the infinite freehand of water.
Therefore, the final presentation method chosen for "Deep Sea" is the first ink animation created with 3D special effects.
A unique technology has also been developed for this -
"Particle ink".
Behind this is an absolutely bold innovation experiment.
First of all, the 3D special effects create a realistic sense of objectivity, but they are destined to contradict the flowing ink painting style.
At the beginning, in order to restore the fluidity of ink, the team used dozens of liquid combinations such as "propylene", "water + milk", "water + dish soap" and other dozens of liquid combinations to carry out countless dynamic simulations.
Finally, it took two years for the concept map to move, however, the edges of the special effects jellyfish were quite stiff and smooth, and the feeling of ink and ink was 108,000 miles worse.
Later, by observing the dust surging under the light, Tian Xiaopeng and his team thought of the breakthrough of "particles", trying to use graininess to accumulate and restore ink.
However, no one has ever animated with particles.
Technology and systems needed to be restarted and developed, and it took seven years for animation to be made.
In the finished film of "Deep Sea", special effects account for 70%, and a flash of a shot may contain 2 billion+ particles.
The degree of completion is also visible to the naked eye, and for the audience, it is definitely an unprecedented visual experience.
As for why did you choose to do ink animation?
This goes back to the early days of the preparation of the film, when Tian Xiaopeng referred to many early works of Shanghai Art Film Studio.
Among them, ink animations such as "Landscape Love" and "Little Tadpole Looking for Mother" not only allowed him to discover the tradition and uniqueness of ink painting, but also determined that it was the painting style that best represented Chinese culture.
In the early days, ink animation, as a representative of domestic animation, went abroad and won numerous awards and successfully conquered overseas audiences.
And now, it's almost extinct.
When Tian Xiaopeng made "Deep Sea", he had an ambition to regain this "cultural treasure" and continue to push it to the world stage.
The team members worked hard together for seven years, in addition to the spirit of the animators to be encouraged, they also secretly held their breath to make animations that only Chinese can make.
Now that "The Deep" can be completed, it is a successful first step.
Next, look forward to whether it can really lead domestic animation to the world.
Science fiction? Fantasy?
What kind of story does "The Deep" tell?
Its worldview and general plot direction remain absolutely mysterious.
At the beginning, Tian Xiaopeng announced that it would be a sci-fi suspense film.
The relevant shooting records do show that the story is set in the year 2045, and the main story is the war between humans and deep-sea monsters.
However, judging from the various materials released now, it seems that it has become a fantasy adventure film.
The protagonist of the story is Betelgeuse, a 9-year-old girl, and Nanhe, a middle-aged man with a mysterious identity.
Somewhat similar to the combination of Jiang Liu'er and the middle-aged Great Saint, Nanhe plays the role of helping and even redeeming Betelgeuse.
In order to find the secret that his mother left in the sea, Betelgeuse boarded the "Deep Sea Hotel" in the South River.
It has the exterior of a huge submarine that can take guests on a tour of the deep sea, and inside it is a large canteen where you can cook a variety of creative dishes.
Interestingly, the crew on board are not humans, but a group of super cute little sea otters, as well as capable and reliable seals, and the power of the submarine comes from countless electric eels...
As for what "magic" does the boss Nanhe have, he can build a deep-sea hotel and let a group of marine animals work for him? Who are the real guests of the hotel?
What is Betelgeuse's secret and why is it hidden in the deep sea?
What has become of the human world in the deep sea, and there will be unpredictable adventures and dangers under the deep sea?
These are the suspense left by the movie for the audience to explore.
Returning to the title, the reference to the image of the "deep sea" almost symbolizes some kind of fear of the dark unknown.
In the turmoil encountered by the film before, it was rumored that its worldview may involve Cthulhu.
No matter whether the rumors are true or not, and no matter how childlike Tian Xiaopeng uses to depict the underwater world, no matter how bright and colorful the brushstrokes are, it cannot hide that this will be a story of fighting against "fear".
The film will conduct an in-depth discussion of the "meaning of life" from the perspective of an ordinary little girl.
In the final trailer, the fear incarnate nightmare tracks Betelgeuse all the way, which still looks quite scary and sensual.
The way it eventually opens may break expectations more and carry more complex themes.
In addition, "The Deep" does not adapt any existing IP, but is an outright original story.
For a long time, many people, including fans, will criticize -
Why do national comics only adapt myths and legends?
Is it so hard to create a story?
In fact, it is not difficult, but I did not dare before.
Yi Qiao, CEO of Color Stripe House, responded to this question precisely because of the story adapted from the myth, and the communication cost with the audience is extremely low.
When domestic animation has not yet matured, it can only choose to take this more secure "shortcut".
However, in the seven years from "Great Saint" to "Deep Sea", the entire industry has undergone earth-shaking changes.
Our domestic animation should also reach the stage where we can polish our original ability.
The year before last's "Lion Boy" has begun to touch realism, and the protagonist of "Deep Sea", Betelgeuse, is an ordinary little girl this time.
She is obviously not likable from the beginning, but the process of turning "unpleasant" into "like" is the biggest test of the original ability of animators.
Whether the original test of "Deep Sea" can be successful this time, and whether it can find a new creative direction for domestic animation.
Let's not rush to deny and question, let's save it to the cinema to test it for yourself.