January 31, 2023 issue | Issue 3133
Although the Spring Festival holiday has ended, several new films in the Spring Festival file have shown a long-term selling trend with a good reputation. According to Maoyan Professional Edition statistics, "Deep Sea", which has a cumulative box office of only 361 million in 6 days during the Spring Festival, has quietly come to nearly 500 million. The predicted total box office given by Maoyan Professional has been adjusted to 860 million.
If the film's final cumulative box office can reach more than 800 million, then its return pressure is not as severe as fans fear. The seven years of dedication of the main creative team have not been disappointed by the market.
In 2015, "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" directed by Tian Xiaopeng greatly set the box office record of domestic animated films with a score of 954 million. The voice of "The Rise of National Comics" resounded throughout the Internet.
Since then, domestic animated films are no longer accessories of TV animation. The follow-up works of "Big Character Generation", "Big Fish and Begonia" and "Great Protector", are completely out of the category of young age, and are completely in line with the adult mind in terms of emotional construction and story metaphor.
In 2019, "Nezha: The Devil Child Descends" topped the annual crown with a box office of 5.035 billion. Domestic animated films have the strength to wrestle with first-line live-action films, and also have the confidence to compete with imported foreign animated films.
Although the reputation of "Deep Sea" in this year's Spring Festival file is polarized due to deletion and revision, the schedule is not compatible, etc., it has taken a big step forward in terms of technology, aesthetics, originality, film language, theme discussion, etc., and is a veritable landmark work.
Most of the bad reviews moved out of the pinnacle of film history such as "Spirited Away" and "Coco", which shows that compared with second-tier works, "Deep Sea" is more inclined to the quasi-first-line.
At the Berlin Film Festival, which will open on February 16 this year, "The Deep Sea" was shortlisted for the new generation unit. Domestic animated films, competing with international excellent films.
The courage to innovate aesthetically
The reason why Japan and the United States are animated film powerhouses is because they have a classic aesthetic system.
The Japanese aesthetic representative is Ghibli's two-dimensional hand-painting, and the American aesthetic representative is Pixar's three-dimensional CG. The former relies on the artist's painting skills and craftsmanship to achieve the ultimate fine two-dimensional animation, and the latter makes three-dimensional animation extremely smooth with the continuous progress of computer technology.
As a latecomer, domestic animation had to choose between these two aesthetic styles for a long time. For those who choose to do two-dimensional animation like "Big Fish and Begonia", it is difficult to get rid of the shadow of Ghibli; For those who choose to do three-dimensional animation like the "Bear Haunted" movie, the audience can see the gap with Pixar at a glance.
Due to the limitations of the underlying hardware and software, domestic animated films can only make differences in painting style as much as possible in the use of color, modeling and scene design, but they have not been able to create their own aesthetics. It is obviously a Chinese story and characters, but it is always like a foreign shell.
Animated films are precisely a genre that relies on aesthetics. For example, Ireland's Cartoon Saloon Studio, with its aesthetic uniqueness, has successively created classic animated films such as "The Secret of the Book of Kells", "Song of the Ocean" and "The Breadwinner" that can compete with Ghibli and Pixar.
Shanghai Art Film Studio, which recently became popular again because of "Chinese Wonders", has explored many animation aesthetics based on traditional Chinese culture, such as puppets, paper cutting, origami, ink painting, etc. Puppets and origami are also commonly used in stop motion animation abroad, with limited originality. Paper cutting and ink are aesthetic styles that are unique when looking at the world.
The technology developed by the Deep Sea team is not necessarily the perfect form of ink aesthetics, but it is definitely an original set of solutions. It absorbs the technical advantages of two-dimensional hand-drawing and three-dimensional CG, but the finished product has a completely different freehand aesthetic.
Whether it is static screenshots, action scenes, or scene scenes, "particle ink" has truly brought a unique visual experience to the audience. The Berlinale Organizing Committee described the images as "a unique and dizzying aesthetic, a visual experience never seen before".
When participating in the live broadcast of Douyin, Tian Xiaopeng said that the research results of "Deep Sea" will be "all shared", "including the exploration of process simplification and cost reduction, which can be shared by any domestic company team." The development of Chinese animation does not need these barriers. ”
Judging from the concept poster, Tian Xiaopeng's next work "Great Saint Troubles the Heavenly Palace" is likely to continue to use and continue to optimize the "particle ink" technology.
The aesthetic breakthrough brought about by the technological innovation of the bottom layer, this problem that domestic animated films must solve, has already been done.
The courage of an original story
Domestic animated films are too afraid to do original stories, and for a long time only dared to take material from the two public IPs of "Journey to the West" and "Romance of the Gods". The stories of "New God List: Nezha Reborn" and "White Snake 2: Green Snake Robbery" of Chasing Light Animation are completely original, but they still have to forcibly add names familiar to the audience to the characters.
Yi Qiao, CEO of Color Stripe House, once responded to the question of netizens "why do national comics only adapt myths and legends". He said that the story adapted from the myth has an extremely low cost of communication with the audience. When domestic animated films have not yet matured, they can only choose to take this more secure "shortcut".
When the connection between domestic animated films and mythological original stories becomes weaker and weaker, and deconstruction becomes more and more successful, the time for originality becomes more and more ripe.
2021's "Lion Boy" not only completely detached from mythological characters, but even began to touch realism. The story of the teenager's growth combined with the traditional Chinese lion dance culture aroused strong empathy from many audiences.
"The Deep" once again proves that original stories adapted from myths can also reach the audience. Not only do they buy tickets to get in, but they also actively participate in social media discussions. What I understood, what I didn't understand, and what I didn't understand half-understood all showed a strong desire for expression in this big discussion.
As long as the story is grounded, the original can also be very powerful. Although Tian Xiaopeng's next film will return to the mythological adaptation, the original story should no longer be avoided by domestic animated films.
The courage of cinematic expression
The core of animated films is not animation, but cinema. Although many audiences who bring their children to the theater really want to be family-friendly, from the perspective of industry development, we must encourage the creators of animated films to express themselves.
The narrative, characters, ideas, composition, mirror movement, lighting, scenery, etc. of "Deep Sea" all follow the traditional creative laws of film. Because it is a non-live-action animation, some of the film language, such as the blurring of the vista and the entry of light, must be simulated by computer technology. Cinematic picture processing can make the audience more immersed in the story and characters.
If the audience is familiar with the metaphor, mapping, symbolism, allusion and other techniques commonly used in the movie, they will capture a lot of detailed information in advance (such as the words on the gatehouse, the second appearance of the same word, the name of the protagonist, the gradient of the character image, etc.) in the process of watching "Deep Sea", so as to see through the essence of the fantasy journey of the Deep Sea Hotel and Betelgeuse earlier.
Many viewers like to see unexpected reversals at the end of the film. However, a reversal without foreshadowing is meaningless. The real film pursues the reversal of reason, the integrity of the structure of the whole film, and the strict correspondence of detailed information.
Excellent movies, when I brush it, I feel that there are many surprises, and when I brush it, I find that everything is reasonable. The Deep does just that. It goes to the Berlin International Film Festival, not on behalf of Chinese animation, but on behalf of Chinese films.
The courage to explore serious subjects
"The Deep" "annoyed" some audiences this time, because it dared to wrap a serious, heavy subject with brilliant colors. After all, there is still a large proportion of the audience who cannot accept to perceive depression as a mental illness in the Spring Festival stall.
In fact, animated films have produced many classic works that care for developmental disorders and psychiatric disorders because they are more free in expression. For example, "Mary and Marx", which has a Douban score of 8.9 points, tells the heartwarming story of autistic people who establish friendship through penpal communication.
The famous screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman wrote and directed an animated film "Disorder" in 2015, which specifically explores Fregley's delusional syndrome. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival and was the first R-rated animated film in Oscar history to be nominated for Best Animated Feature Film.
It can be seen that animated films explore serious themes, not impossible. "The Deep" not only shows courage, but also shows a sense of social responsibility.
According to the data in the 2022 Digital Mental Health Service Industry Blue Book, the lifetime prevalence of depression in mainland China is about 6.8%. People's Daily Weibo also released a data: the detection rate of depression among mainland adolescents in 2020 was 24.6%. Depression is no longer a niche phenomenon.
"The Deep" does not superficially show depression, but incorporates some characteristics of its pathology, such as outliers, unhappy, suicidal tendencies, polite smiles, and the need for medication. Even if you look at live-action movies, there are very few works in the Chinese-speaking circle that can present depression so accurately.
It is said that after the Spring Festival holiday, many people choose to go to the theater alone to watch "Deep Sea". Some people even go together, but deliberately separate their seats.
This is a very typical "shadow" behavior.
Domestic animated films can not only produce joyful or bloody family fun, but also produce this kind of tear gas that pierces people's heartache and can nail empathetic audiences to the chair seat, which is the real "rise".
The twists and turns before the release of "Deep Sea" and the controversy after its release are all grinds that domestic anime movies must endure. The creative dilemma is like Betelgeuse's depression, you may not be able to completely overcome it, but you can have the courage to face it.
In the future, domestic animated films, we may also see the second animated feature film "Heavy Rain" directed by "The Great Protector", the sci-fi theme "Illusion of Divorce" directed by Hong Kong cartoonist Jiang Kangquan, steampunk combined with Chinese style "Mountains and Seas" and other works with different styles.
I hope that these works can continue the courage of "Deep Sea", let domestic animated films go to all ages, and let people see more forms of domestic animated films.
【Text/Full Hoard】