China's first original picture book animation film "Toward the Bright Side" will meet the audience in the near future. This film, which is supervised by Zhu Yantong, still brings people familiar warmth and emotion, which is also another masterpiece launched by her after the award of the animated short film "The Calf in the Cup".
Zhu Yantong, independent animation director, children's picture book writer, one of the founders of Fenach Beijing Animation Week, whose work "Calf in the Cup" has won 24 international awards
"Toward the Bright Side" will meet the audience in the near future, which is Zhu Yantong's first "electrocution". She never thought she would make theatrical films, before she was just an independent animation director and picture book author, making movies "purely accidental". But there is also inevitability in chance, since the successful establishment of Fenach Beijing Animation Week in 2019, excellent animation works and directors and other resources have been effectively integrated, and she has quickly gathered a group of energetic animation practitioners around her, those works and directors who originally stayed in the "small circle" have been seen and recognized by the public, favored by cultural capital, and have the opportunity to break the cocoon into butterflies, so entering the world of movies has changed from "unplanned" to "logical".
The warmth of "love and beauty" reaches the heart
After the success of fenache Beijing Animation Week, people saw the charm of animated short films, so the film company wanted to make an animated film about "love and beauty" for children, so they approached Zhu Yantong and asked her to help contact the director and be responsible for the film's supervision. "I love animation and I'm happy to try it out."
"Toward the Bright Side" is composed of 7 picture book stories, although the plot is independent, but it focuses on family and emotional stories such as parent-child relationship, intergenerational companionship, brotherhood, good neighborliness, homeland love, etc., and the main line of "love" is consistent. Picture books and screens, a two-dimensional plane, a multi-dimensional three-dimensional, how to use the flexible film and television language to enrich the two-dimensional world of picture books? How to adapt without losing the timeless emotion and far-reaching intention of the picture book? How do you make a standalone story a unified creative theme? All kinds of exploration, Zhu Yantong and her little friend dared to be the first to eat crabs.
The film abandons the conventional standards of commercial animation best-selling, functionality, and well-known IP, and instead excavates the love and emotions of ordinary people from the perspective of originality and reality, and insists on "flying close to the ground". The bland characters, the imperfect life situation, make everyone feel empathy. The subtle, gentle love of still water is deep, which is in line with the expression of emotions Chinese. "After watching this movie, the hands of the child and the mother will be pulled tighter."
When the film was test screened in the circle, "sincere and touching" was the first evaluation of the viewer, "This is a quiet, healing, and ingenious work worth savoring." ”
Many of the details of the film are restorations of people's childhood experiences, thus evoking people's memories and resonance of childhood. Zhu Yantong said that in recent years, China's animation industry has taken mostly Hollywood-style business routes, and most of the themes are popular IP or monster fights, although the production is well-made, but there are not many realistic themes that really trigger the heart and are suitable for children to watch. "Toward the Bright Side" is based on the ordinary life around us, seemingly simple and plain, but in fact it hides details, "It does not win with the plot, but with the details of the touching, see the micro- knowledge, can let you watch repeatedly, chew repeatedly, especially suitable for parents and children to see together." "The idyllic presentation and true interpretation of children's growth and life experience leave a beautiful and kind warm background for children's lives."
Draw the time with dad
In the independent animation industry, Zhu Yantong is an iconic character. In 2014, she became a hit with the animated short film "The Calf in the Cup", which made people know this girl with a shy smile and a young temperament.
"The Calf in the Cup" is her graduation work from the Graduate School of Tokyo University of the Arts, which took two years to hand-paint. The story is based on memories of her father as a child. The father in the film has thick eyebrows, curly hair, a slightly fat figure, and is simple and thick. Dad told his 4-year-old daughter, "There's a calf under your milk cup." "Really?" She believed her father, but she drank all the milk in the cup and did not find the calf. "Didn't find it? It may have been drunk into your stomach by you. ”
The painting style of the work is rough, the plot is simple, the language is simple, but every detail is full of love and warmth. The hand-drawn picture is delicate and vivid, making the story more touched. "When I was a child, the person who influenced me the most was my father, and if I had the opportunity to sink my heart and make a work of my own, I wanted to paint the time with my father."
Her mentor, Mr. Koji Yamamura, admired the work and encouraged her to take it to the competition. At that time, when Russia held the KROK International Animation Film Festival, Zhu Yantong made "The Calf in the Cup" into a CD and sent it to the organizers, "I was afraid of losing the disc, and I thought that if I really lost it, I would forget it." Who knew that the works were not only successfully shortlisted, but she was also invited to Moscow as a shortlisted author to participate in the animation festival, exchange ideas with animation masters from all over the world, and watch the film festival works together.
At the closing ceremony, when the organizers announced that "Calf in the Cup" won the highest award of this year's animation festival, Zhu Yantong was "suddenly confused", she thought she had heard it wrong, until people applauded her and believed it was true. "I'm so excited, I can't speak when I go on stage to receive the award."
As if she had caught the key to success, she went all the way with "The Calf in the Cup", and won 24 awards such as the Newcomer Award of the Animation Department of the Media Arts Festival of the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan, the Youth Animation Award of the Stuttgart International Animation Festival in Germany, and the Best Creative Award for Student Short Films at the Shanghai International Film Festival.
When "The Calf in the Cup" was screened at the Bucheon International Animation Film Festival in South Korea, a huge poster was hung on the streets of Seoul, and Zhu Yantong under the poster had a brilliant face, "Maybe from a professional point of view, my paintings are not accurate enough, even a little rough, but I don't want to show off, I just want to do sincere expression, which has formed my own style." I'm happy that this style can be accepted and liked by the audience. So far, this short film still maintains a high score of 8.3 in Douban.
Do "nutritious" animations
Zhu Yantong grew up in the ancient town of Jiangnan. The small bridges and flowing water of the ancient town, the green bricks and the falling drizzle are the most beautiful memories of her childhood. Dad, like in the short film, has thick eyebrows, gentle curls, "In the eyes of others, he may not be so successful, but for children, he is a warm and lovely father." 」 "Dad used to take her around on a bicycle, let her little hand hold the handlebars and turn left and right, and hide her in a big raincoat when it rained... For Zhu Yantong, such a childhood is like a prose poem. In her poetic childhood, she fell in love with animation. "I first liked Disney's Tom and Jerry, then I liked Miyazaki in Japan, and then I watched some commercial animation, but commercial animation generally has routines, and I get tired of watching more."
When she was in college, she studied advertising, and the teacher would show students excellent foreign advertising cases during class, some of which were not real-time, using animation creative techniques, which were very novel, which made her interest in animation double. At the time, she watched many of the works nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film online and felt "very good, very personal, with what the author himself wants to express." ”
And Japanese animation director Koji Yamamura's work "Touyama" shocked her even more. The plot of "Toushan" is absurd, but there is no lack of realistic details, funny and real. "In the past, I always felt that animation is narrative and storytelling, but "Toushan" is by no means as simple as telling a story, in fact, it has a deep philosophical rationality, very intriguing, and at the same time, with the exaggeration of animation, it brings a visual impact to people, for the viewer, it is a new experience, even a spiritual baptism." She described her feelings at that time: "It is like reading a book of poems, there are collisions and resonances of ideas, but they are more three-dimensional and vivid than words." ”
It turns out that animations can do the same! Such works subvert her original understanding of animation and refresh her previous artistic concepts. What's more: she found what she wanted to do and enjoyed!
After graduating from university, she gave up her career in advertising and enrolled in the graduate school of animation at Tokyo University of the Arts in Japan, where she became a student of Koji Yamamura. In the course of study, she understands more and more: art works must have independent expression of thought, can provide nutrition to people, and the content of pure pursuit of commercial output will be like candy, although it is very sweet and beautiful, but eating too much will cause tooth decay.
With the concept of "nutritious art", Zhu Yantong carefully created "The Calf in the Cup". After the short film was screened in Japan, she was approached by the Japan Gospel House Press and asked her to make a picture book about Chinese stories for Japanese children, so she created and published the children's picture book "The Black Canopy Boat and Reading Glasses" in 2015. This work, which pays tribute to childhood, is also known for its emotions and vividly shows the quiet and beautiful life of Jiangnan Water Town. "In fact, the proposition based on Chinese stories is very broad, but I don't want to talk about it in general, I hope to capture inspiration through personal perspective and real experience, and resonate with readers."
Artistic creation should empower society
In 2016, Zhu Yantong finished studying abroad and returned to China to become a freelance creator. "At first, I was very confused, and I felt that it was difficult to create, after all, it was not easy to support myself with art." Later, she participated in an animated film project, but was disbursed by a funder and the project was stranded. Surrounded by friends who do art, including many excellent authors and directors, but everyone's situation is similar, they have always been in a state of wandering, "If you continue to wear it down like this for a long time, your artistic talent will slowly be wasted." ”
As he wandered, there was a turn of opportunity. In 2018, Zhu Yantong was invited to serve as the curator of the 7th China Independent Animation Film Forum on "Metaphors of Deformation". "At that time, there were very few resources, so I had to find my own venue, find films, contact authors, solve technical problems, and so on." But after the event, she found that curation is a process of resource integration, bringing everyone's works and energy together, with the opportunity to face the public, the meaning is different, the author is no longer alone, and the work is no longer entertaining. She believes that if everyone works together, they will be able to open up the situation and do something together!
With the experience and inspiration of curating, in 2019, she and several artist friends founded fenache Beijing Animation Week. "The audience for cartoons is usually children, but the audience of Fenache is more adults." Animation Week also set up a competition unit, the purpose is to build a platform for the display of excellent works, so that the talents of young animation authors can be seen by more people. The event successfully attracted the attention of cultural capital, and "Toward the Bright Side" was the first work jointly created by the platform and capital.
"I used to think that animation was just a tool for storytelling, but I gradually discovered that animation is a container that can accommodate feelings, an extreme and rich way of expression." In Zhu Yantong's eyes, every child has the ability to think independently, so she opposes the design of the audience, "The creator and the audience should be an equal relationship, especially for the child audience." When you treat your child as a truly independent individual, what you want to convey is sincere. ”
Speaking of success, Zhu Yantong smiled and waved his hand repeatedly: "I never think of myself as a successful person, everything is just beginning, I am still on the road of exploration." Of course, winning awards is important, but making your own satisfactory work is far more important than winning, and I hope that I can go further down this road. ”
After several years of experience, animation is no longer a simple interest for her, but a career worth paying and pursuing. "Artistic creation begins with the expression of ideas and finally the empowerment of society. If I can use animation to bring about even the slightest change in society, I am very content. This is also my original intention and motivation to insist on doing animation. ”