The Paper's reporter Chen Chen
Born in 1983, "Tianshu Qitan" is a classic animation film of Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio and a childhood memory of generations of audiences. Adhering to the aesthetic of "Strange Fun Beauty" and concentrating on the achievements of China's excellent traditional culture, this film is of landmark significance in the history of Chinese animation feature films.
On November 5th, the carefully restored 4k restored version of "Tianshu Qitan" landed in theaters nationwide and met new and old audiences again.
Poster of "Heavenly Book" and egg birth
The new version of "Tianshu Qitan" has a clearer and brighter color and a richer and more stereoscopic sound. In addition to the comprehensive upgrade of audio-visual, there is also an Easter egg about the creation behind the scenes at the end of the film, and the creators behind the scenes who participated in the creation of "Tianshu Qitan" are now white-haired, but when it comes to this creative experience of that year, they still look bright and colorful.
Before the release of the film, the surging news reporter also interviewed several heroes behind the 4K version of "Tianshu Qitan", about the story of reconstructing the past and present lives of this "Tianshu" and the secret of why the classics are not tired of watching.
Stills from "The Strange Book of Heaven"
Animation design: let go of the hand, dare to break in
Xue Meijun is the animation designer of "Tianshu Qitan", when she was mainly responsible for the actions of several characters such as Egg Sheng, Yuan Gong and Kidnapper.
Almost everyone who has experienced the studio will talk about the spirit of the beautiful film that has been passed down from generation to generation, "do not imitate others, do not repeat yourself", and the same is true for every participant in this animation.
Speaking of the creation of that year, Xue Meijun was most impressed by the fact that there were many characters in the film, but the director required that everyone must have their own personality and action style. Therefore, everyone who gets their assigned role will rack their brains to give it the most unique personality.
Poster of "Heavenly Book Qitan", Yuan Gong
"Tianshu Qitan" was considered an outlier in the domestic animation of the 1980s, when most art films still emphasized the theme and educational significance, and this animation had a strong comedic color. And these comedic elements often need to be achieved by the exaggerated movements and performances of the characters.
In the art workshop of the Film Studio, there was a huge full-length mirror, in order to depict the vivid character dynamics, the painters would make various movements in front of the mirror as a reference, fully observe, speculate, decompose the movements, and finally fall on the drawing paper. At the same time, the painters have a small mirror at hand to compare expressions.
"At that time, the scenes given to me were relatively scattered, there was no whole drama, and many times it was about where the character walked, or where the character sat down and said something. But even these very simple movements, you also have to consider its distance and proximity perspective relationship, or people of different ages, the rhythm of sitting is different. Xue Meijun also revealed that when painting, they will pay attention to the dynamics of looking up, looking down, rotating, twisting and twisting, presenting a 360-degree all-round sense of perspective, bringing a delicate and realistic visual experience to the audience. You can imagine the bustle in the workshop at that time - not only are they racking their brains for their roles, but colleagues working together will also help each other to refer to each other.
"So the animation that was made at that time was the crystallization of everyone's collective wisdom, and now the animation is subcontracted out, and many teams are even scattered in different places, each doing its own thing, and there will no longer be the same atmosphere as before." Xue Meijun said.
The creation of "Tianshu Qitan" lasted 3 years, the design stage alone was more than one year, and more than 120,000 original hand-painted paintings were painted.
Xue Meijun
Xue Meijun remembered that there were more than 20 people in her group at that time, crowded with a workshop, painting one by one, she finished painting one, handed it over to the people after her to transcribe, color, shoot, one painting after another relay, frame by frame, is a huge workload.
Huang Wei, an art designer, recalled, "40 years ago, when we first arrived at the film crew, directors Wang Shuchen and Qian Yunda asked us to take the road of nationalization and folk in terms of modeling, and asked us to let go of our hands, dare to break through, and dare to draw different shapes from previous cartoons. ”
Sound restoration: traditional and pioneering, reflecting the creative explosion after the reform and opening up
In 2011, when the Us Film Studio repaired "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", the technology at that time could not strip the soundtrack of the film, so the sound of "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" was re-dubbed. This time, "Tianshu Qitan" has made a further breakthrough in sound restoration, and the development of technology has successfully separated the music, dialogue and sound effects in this movie. On the basis of retaining the original flavor, the sound of the film has been made into a 5.1-channel surround sound that is more suitable for the current cinema environment and more suitable for the current audience's appreciation habits.
Zhang Yang, the film's sound restoration art director, was deeply impressed by the classic picture of "Heavenly Book" as a child. When Zhang Yang became a restorer and took charge of the sound restoration work of "Tianshu Qitan", he asked the restoration team to uphold the restoration purpose of not destroying the true appearance of the original film, to preserve the precious performance and music as the premise, and then to expand the surround sound effects such as mountain air, enhance the atmosphere of the film, and make up for the realistic elements.
Zhang Yang
At the same time, he also rediscovered more bizarre codes hidden in this animation from the perspective of a sound worker.
"Because I had to remix it, I found that the music inside, as well as some of the sound effects made in the 80s, used the most fashionable thinking and the most advanced technology of the year. It also has brass pipes, wooden pipes, and folk music. And it is played by the older generation of artists with great charm. I guess today's famous artists may not be able to play the same momentum as they were then. At the same time, as a legendary story with an ancient background, the film also uses a lot of electronic sounds, "including the feeling of "Blade Runner", the music of the three foxes is written very modern, there is some rock and roll feeling in it, many categories have encountered a new musical language, there is no way to classify, you can really feel the vitality and explosiveness of the creative thinking of a group of creators after China's reform and opening up at that time, and it is also a peak period that can represent the creative talents in China at that time, especially in Shanghai. ”
In addition to music, the use of sound effects in the film at that time also amazed Zhang Yang, "In that era, many sound effects, the creators could use a very simple way, relying on very clever thinking, to outline the character of the characters in this or help the narrative of the animation, or to bring out emotions in a very freehand way." ”
This style has also become a challenge for Zhang Yang in repairing the sound. Because there is still a part of the soundtrack that cannot be completely separated in the sound stripping technology, it needs to be rearranged, and there are actually many "big scenes" in the film that need sound assistance to create a greater sense of space, so this version of the sound also has many parts that need to be recreated. Most of the sound effects of today's movies strive to restore the scene realistically, and when making the sound of "Tianshu Qitan", Zhang Yang first considered "what sound can be reflected in the original kind of thinking".
Poster of "Heavenly Book Of Strange Tan", Little Emperor
Director of Meiying Studio: Restoration and remake inherits the spirit of Meiying
"This film is the most popular American film classic that audiences hope to see on the big screen." Suda, who is now the director of the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio, has been planning to bring the film back to the big screen. The 2k restored version of the film was unveiled at the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2019, and then due to repeated delays due to the epidemic, it finally met the audience in a 4k appearance today.
In Suda's view, the classic and popularity of this film is not only that its integration of traditional culture is quite representative in the old animation of The American Film, but also put it to today," It is also a film that is extremely in line with the current audience's preferences, and its breakthrough in entertainment is unique in the entire American Film animation." ”
Speed
In 1954, Mr. Te Wei, the old director of the American Film Studio, clearly put forward the creative direction of "exploring the road of national style and knocking on the door of comedy style" when directing the animation film "The Proud General". "Heavenly Book" is undoubtedly an excellent practice of this pursuit. The reason why it can play with the styles of fun, grotesque, humor, and satire in a movie is also related to the background of the film's creation.
Speaking of which, "Tianshu Qitan" almost became the first Chinese-foreign co-production animation in New China.
In the late 1970s, BBC proposed to cooperate with Shanghai Mei film studio on an animated film. They also provided a script, but the Chinese creatives cried and laughed when they saw it. The British hardly understand what is going on in China, starting with Nüwa Patching Heaven, and stringing together Chinese myths and historical stories. But in China's view, such a story is really unclear. After that, the US film studio proposed to rewrite the script, and the British side said that as long as it was a Chinese theme, it could be. Then, Wang Shuchen, one of the writers and directors of "Nezha Noisy Sea", began to organize script creation, and found such a story from the classical work "The Legend of Ping Demon". In fact, in the first long divine and demonic novel in the history of Chinese novels compiled by Luo Guanzhong and Feng Menglong, "The Legend of pingyou", the content that was really used for "Heavenly Book Qitan" was only a few lines, and the fragments of the egg monk and the fox spirit had undergone drastic changes.
"At that time, there was a wave of Chinese animation fever in the world, and the Chinese animation school at that time caused a lot of repercussions and shocks in the West, and they felt that the Chinese flavor was very interesting, so they wanted to cooperate." Suda introduced the background of the cooperation at that time. However, after completing the script, the British side did not continue to cooperate because of financial problems, coupled with the fact that the information was not developed at that time, the correspondence relied on mailing letters, communication was inconvenient, and the US film studio did not force cooperation anymore, and made this story itself.
But it is precisely because there is such a "foreign capital" background at the beginning of creation, which gives creators more room for imagination. "At that time, we wanted to do Chinese-foreign co-productions, unlike in the past, when we made some films that were very rigorous and co-produced with foreign countries, we could be funny, we could write boldly, and we could boldly engage in it." As a result, the cartoon-style exaggeration, civilian carnival, and the laughter and anger in the film are very bold and advanced today.
In addition to the background of the co-production, Suda also said, "At that time, the Studio had a group of artists with particularly open minds and particularly pioneering ideas, and the leaders themselves had a high artistic accomplishment, knowing what kind of environment the creators should work in, giving everyone a particularly relaxed creative environment, plus there was no market-oriented requirement at that time, everyone just thought about how to do a good job in the film, how to break through innovation, which was the happiness of that generation." ”
At the same time, the film's styling design Ke Ming was a master of arts and crafts at that time, and its concise and distinctive artistic shape laid an unforgettable foundation for this animation. "In the past, in order to pursue different styles, we could go to the entire art world to find the artists we liked to cooperate with, which is why so many flowers and flowers were produced." Suda remembers that many artists at that time felt that it was a great honor to be able to work with the Studio to create films, but now that we have entered the era of commercialization, "there are very few real masters, and the production of animation is too troublesome, and they can sell a lot of money by painting a painting." So there won't be so many opportunities to really work together. ”
In the interview, the reporter found that the older generation of Artists in the Studio called their works art films rather than animation films, and this concept may be the reason why the creation of American Films is unique. "We in Meiying especially emphasize the concept of 'art films', and we emphasize the use of 'beauty' and 'art' to present new creations in animation films. Paintings, paper-cutting, and puppets are also collectively referred to as fine art films. ”
Because it is an aesthetic and technical pursuit, the creation of art films of that year also broke through the restriction of "for children to see", "the director has his own humorous taste and pursuit, not wanting to only show children, but also want to show adults, so the positioning of this film is suitable for all ages at the beginning." Compared with the animation market that is becoming more and more segmented at present, "an animation film can be suitable for all ages, in fact, it is already very rare." ”
As an animation director who created the "Big Ears Tutu" series, when watching "Tianshu Qitan", she will also find many refreshing places, "Its animation performance is very prominent, full of imagination. For example, eggs eat raw cakes, eat from the middle, eat and eat to the head; for example, a chicken stealing, starting from the chicken butt, you have never seen such a chicken; including a lot of dads jumping out of the water tank, saying 'I'm his dad' Kind of very magical dialogue; including the design of the fox dancing in electronic music, which is very advanced. ”
Screenshot of "Heavenly Book", fathers in the water tank
The restoration of animation is more complicated than its live-action films, and in the process of restoration, Qian Yunda and other artists of the older generation have been invited to the Shanghai Film Technology Factory to guide the work, and almost all the young people of the Studio have participated. Zhu Yuping, former deputy director of the art factory in charge of the film's color grading work, introduced, "The repair of animation is more difficult than that of feature films, because each grid is hand-drawn, and it is inevitable that there will be deviations, and the automatic detection of the machine often mistakenly removes the eyebrows and beards of the characters as dirty points." Therefore, it is all up to people to work by hand. ”
Therefore, the whole restoration process has become a creation that Teacher Qian led our descendants to do together. Throughout the restoration process, everyone constantly revisited and learned how the classics were created, and at the same time, we dug up a lot of past stories in the process of publicity. In Suda's view, the process of re-sending "Tianshu Qitan" to the big screen is a good education for the Us Film Studio at present, and "several generations of animators have participated in this project together, and it is also a inheritance and practice of the spirit of Meiying".
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang