After watching "Tianshu Qitan 4k Commemorative Edition" in the theater, there is a feeling that the fragments of childhood memories scattered everywhere are patched together. "Tianshu Qitan 4k Commemorative Edition" was released nationwide on November 5, this animated film directed by Wang Shuchen and Qian Yunda, dubbed by Ding Jianhua and Bi Ke, came out in 1983, because it has not been screened nationwide, many viewers have seen it on TELEVISION. The animators who were busy creating at that time did not know the audience feedback of this cartoon.
An animated film that began with a Co-production concept between China and foreign countries failed to gain enough attention and honor on the big screen and became a pearl in the history of world animation.
Is "Heavenly Book" filmed in the end? What is the significance of the release after 38 years? Today, the answer is finally revealed.
It almost became the first co-production animation
Almost, "Tianshu Qitan" became the earliest Sino-foreign co-production animation film after the founding of New China.
In 1980, bbc, through a Chinese film company, wanted to work with the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio to produce an animation. At that time, BBC asked sinologists to find some passages from classical Chinese literature to create a script and give it to the Meiying Studio to produce it, but after the Meiying Studio read the script, it found that there were many cultural barriers, so it proposed to write its own story, hoping that it would be liked by foreigners and accepted by Chinese audiences.
"Heavenly Book Qitan" draws inspiration from the "Biography of Ping Demon" compiled by Luo Guanzhong and Feng Menglong, and is also one of the many script materials provided by BBC. The story is the director Wang Shuchen and the screenwriter Bao Lei two chat together, they expanded the original book about the egg monk and the three fox spirits of a few lines of text into a rich plot, worried that the role of the egg monk as an adult is not interesting enough, so they changed him to a small egg.
Wang Shuchen
Screenwriter Bao Lei
Why did bbc propose to cooperate with Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio? The story also begins with the classic animation "Nezha Noisy Sea" released in 1979.
In May 1980, Wang Shuchen, director of Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio, led a Chinese film delegation to the 33rd Cannes Film Festival, and his color widescreen animation film "Nezha Noisy Sea" was specially screened at the film festival with great success. Some viewers praised, "This time I appreciate the art of the East. ”
Wang Shuchen once wrote in the "Liberation Daily", "We have many beautiful and moving stories, but there are so many themes on the screen of art films, but unfortunately we have done too little, and too few have been shown in foreign markets." ”
Perhaps it was the stunning debut of "Nezha Noisy Sea" in Cannes that made the West pay attention to the creation of Chinese animation and the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio. Wang Shuchen's son Wang Yiqian recalled that Wang Shuchen began to write the first draft of the script of "Tianshu Qitan" in December 1980, which shows that BBC contacted and negotiated with the American Film Studio within half a year after the Cannes Film Festival. "In Cannes, my father watched many foreign movies and communicated with some foreign filmmakers, and he deeply experienced it. After he returned, he said that Western films are very entertaining, and we will cooperate more with foreign countries in the future to make films that entertain the public and all ages. It just so happened that "Heavenly Book" gave him the opportunity to play a handful of entertainment films. ”
"Heavenly Book" focuses on the style of strangeness, fun and beauty. In the movie, the stupid fox Ah Quan jumps around on one foot, the greedy county grandfather pulls out multiple fathers from the cornucopia, and Fu Yin, whose eyes cannot stop for a moment, switches repeatedly between eye and out of focus. These images are revisited in the theater and still make today's audience laugh.
After the script was completed that year, it was recognized by the BBC, but after producing about one-third of the content, the other party said that due to financial difficulties, the cooperation was terminated, and the film was independently completed by the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio. At that time, it was inconvenient to contact with foreign countries, and after the film was produced, BBC did not ask about it. "Heavenly Book" has not been released abroad.
Composer Wu Yingju
However, the film has been broadcast on domestic television screens many times and is deeply loved by the audience. The cunning and eerie fox mother has become the childhood shadow of many people, and the charming and beautiful fox girl is the "dream lover" that many people have been.
The "unfinished" ending is left to the audience to make up
At the end of "Heavenly Book Qitan", Yuan Gong was arrested and returned to the Heavenly Court for leaking the Heavenly Machine. At that time, many viewers found it difficult to accept and silently thought that there would be a next episode.
The long time has led to various blurred memories, and even triggered many "urban legends". Some people think that "Tianshu Qitan" has broadcast the next episode of Yuan Gong being rescued by Egg Sheng. Some people also "heard" that the next episode was burned by a fire during production, and the artist was sad and never redid it...
"At the time, there was no idea to make a series like '007.'" Huang Wei, the art designer of "Tianshu Qitan", recalled that the last shot created that year was that Yuan Gong was arrested, as for how the heavens punished him, whether The Egg Sheng could save him out, it was left to the audience to think. "We also asked the two screenwriters if there was a sequel to the story. They all said that the story in their heads was finished. Bao Lei said that such an ending is to leave everyone with sufficient imagination. Wang Shuchen said that if the egg grows up and goes to avenge Yuan Gong, it is called Baolian Lantern, which is another story. ”
Huang Wei
Leaving a faintly sad ending to a story full of strong comedic style is a deliberate film aesthetic for the creators. But for generations of audiences who love this work, "Tianshu Qitan" seems to have become an animation of "Dream of the Red Chamber", and whenever it is talked about, it is always regrettable that it is "unfinished".
As early as a decade ago, a close friend of Wang Shuchen's who worked at the Guangxi Film Studio had planned to create a script to continue "Tianshu Qitan", but later failed to do so.
SuDa, director of shanghai fine arts film studio, said that at present, Shangmei Film has no plans to shoot the sequel to "Tianshu Qitan", "We dare not continue to write the classic at will, because many of the masters who participated in this film are no longer there, and without their control, it may be difficult to make the film continue the aesthetic height of that year." ”
Qian Yunda (right) and Ke Ming study character modeling
The characters stand out more than the story
Although "Tianshu Qitan" was created 38 years ago, it is not outdated at all, and the character shaping and picture expression even far exceed many 3D animation blockbusters.
"The characters in this film are the most impressive, and even the characters are more prominent than the story." In the many years since the production of "Tianshu Qitan", Huang Wei's memory of this story has gradually blurred, but those vivid and interesting characters always jump out of his mind from time to time, and he still remembers how they were designed in the first place.
At that time, Qian Yunda, co-director of "Tianshu Qitan", invited Ke Ming, art editor of Xinhua Daily, to serve as a styling designer in order to make a breakthrough in character modeling, and the two had previously collaborated on the paper-cut film "Red Army Bridge". Ke Ming has a deep study of Chinese folk art, and he integrates many elements such as wooden board new year paintings, sculptures, folk toys, and opera faces into the character modeling, but such a design is somewhat complicated to put in the movie. Huang Wei and the art designer Mark Xuan cooperated to refine Ke Ming's modeling elements, cut off the decorative ornaments, reduced them to lines that are convenient for "moving", and made different angles of the characters such as the front, side, and half sides.
"Tianshu Qitan" crew style from left: Qian Yunda, Wang Shuchen, Ma Xuan
"'Tianshu Qitan' makes an article on 'Qi', and the gait of each character must reflect the personality of the character and make people impressed, in order to become a flexible character." Huang Wei introduced that the walking posture of the characters is based on the characteristics of the modeling, and is discussed by the creative team together. For example, when the egg is born, he must be majestic and exuberant; the silly fox A jumps on one leg to highlight his stupidity; the little emperor is like an upside-down gyro, walking like a gyroscope is clumsy and interesting; Yuan Gonggeng is straight and flowing, and even his body does not move when he is tied to the heavens... The director often brings the original artist and the art designer to chat and talk about the characters, and everyone brainstorms. The egg students sat on the ground and cried, and the exaggerated design of tears flowing out of both sides like a sprinkler was what they talked about, and this "crying method" was also borrowed from later foreign animations.
Back row from right: Wang Shuchen, Huang Wei, Xiong Nanqing, Qin Yizhen, Ma Xuan, Li Rongzhong, Zhang Jiping. Front row from right: Qian Yunda, Fang Pengnian.
"The biggest difference between 'Heavenly Book' and now is the animation performance. Today's animation often relies on live-action motion capture to design character movements, but in "Heavenly Book", you can see a lot of the embodiment of animation's own characteristics. According to Suda, the original artists of the former film studio basically had a large mirror and a small mirror, the large mirror looked at the shape, and the small mirror looked at the expression, so as to assist the animation design. Today, there is still a small mirror on the desk of the original artist of the studio, and after everyone has painted the work, the habit of getting together to discuss has also been passed down.
Mark Xuan was in the crew of "Heavenly Book"
In 2018, Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio fully launched the restoration project of "Tianshu Qitan", the basic restoration work was completed by Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio and Shanghai Film Technology Factory, and the 4k restoration work was handed over to Migu Company, a subsidiary of China Mobile. "Compared with the 2k version, the 4k version has clearer lines, and the saturation and vividness are greatly improved." According to Suda, after cleaning and digitizing the original film at that time, it was found that the peach red was particularly dazzling, and the fox girl's skirt, Yuan Gong's hair and other parts would have some fluorescence, which was optimized in the 4K repair. The 1983 version of "Tianshu Qitan" uses a single track of 5.1 channels, which is thin in the current theater screening, and in the sound restoration, some ambient sounds in line with the original creative ideas have been added, so that the thin places can be "heavy", which is more in line with the audience's appreciation habits.
The art design Qin Yizhen is mainly responsible for the background part
It's a shame not to see how successful this animation is
"'Heavenly Book' is one of the most entertaining works in the film studio, it breaks through the traditional concept of animation for children, suitable for all ages, and is also in line with the preferences of today's young audiences." According to Suda, the release of the 4K restored version of "Tianshu Qitan" is a response to the audience's long-term call, and it is also a good learning material for the current creators, whether it is the depth of thought or aesthetic taste, it has places worth learning from today's animation.
For the creators of the year, this official national release was a belated consolation. On October 27, Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio held a premiere ceremony for "38 Years Late" for "Tianshu Qitan" at Shanghai Cinema. Qian Yunda, a 93-year-old director, appeared in a wheelchair, and although his hearing was already poor and it was difficult to communicate with the audience, he felt the warm atmosphere of the scene. His passion for animation for decades also moved the audience.
Shanghai premiere
Another director of "Tianshu Qitan", Wang Shuchen, who also played a central role in the entire film, has been dead for 30 years. Wang Shuchen's son Wang Yiqian came to the premiere scene, and after watching the movie, he couldn't help but sigh, "Long gone, whether it is a story or character modeling, it is not inferior to any current work." A friend said, "Listening to what you said so well, I also want to see", Wang Yiqian said proudly, "You go to see, it is not good, I will give you a refund."
Thinking that his father had not been able to see today's picture, Wang Yiqian couldn't help but choke.
In fact, regarding the "Heavenly Book Of Wonders", Wang Shuchen rarely talked about it before his death. "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" and "Nezha Noisy Sea" have all been screened nationwide, and at that time, the cinema had a length requirement for the film, and the length usually reached an hour and a half to arrange the number of performances. Some animated short films were also shown in theaters as patches for feature films. After the production of "Tianshu Qitan" was completed, Huang Wei was immediately arranged to go to another creative group, and he had no time to pay attention to the film screening, but he knew in his heart that the director was most concerned about the audience's feedback, and "Tianshu Qitan" had not been able to wait for the opportunity to be released on a large scale, nor had it won important awards at home and abroad.
"There was no opportunity to communicate with the audience before, and my father could only see the evaluation of the work in the newspaper. After the completion of "Heavenly Book", he did not receive any feedback, which made him sullen and unhappy. Wang Yiqian still remembers wang Shuchen's appearance when he returned from Cannes, foreign audiences expressed their love for "Nezha Noisy Sea" to him in person, and a well-known Japanese filmmaker gave him a thumbs up.
In 1989, Wang Shuchen's physical condition was not very good, from the "Reference News" to read the French re-screening of "Nezha Noisy Sea" was warmly welcomed by the audience, he was happy like a child, specially cut the newspaper, pasted it, and showed it to his son. The newspaper clippings remain at home today.
"What my father wants most is for the audience to like his film. We saw at the premiere that day, and after all these years, this film is still so popular. Wang Yiqian said.
In recent years, many young animation directors have invariably mentioned that "Nezha Noisy Sea" is their original intention to embark on the road of animation creation. Perhaps with the re-release of "Tianshu Qitan", it will affect a new generation of animators in more than a decade. "'Tianshu Qitan' is a completely national aesthetic style, and this style is still the same." Chang Guangxi, former director of Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio, believes that "Tianshu Qitan" is a case worth exploring, and its nationality, entertainment and modern consciousness are all worth analyzing and learning in the animation industry. "China's animation successors should pay more attention to China's own art style and tell more Chinese stories." As an excellent animated film, the impact of "Heavenly Book" will be very far-reaching. ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Shi Chenlu
Source: Author: Zhong Han