People's Daily article: The bottleneck in the production capacity of domestic animated films is constantly being broken, and the box office of "Chang'an 30000 Miles" has exceeded 1.7 billion yuan. Traditional | Culture | Domestic

Li Bai was drunk, pouring wine into water, and cranes appeared in the water.

Riding on a giant crane with Gao Shi, Du Fu, Cen Fuzi, and Dan Qiusheng, the animated film "Chang'an 30000 Miles", which is currently in full swing, exudes a sense of wildness and romance. With its poetic expression that embodies the genes of Chinese culture, it resonates with the audience. As of now, the box office of the film has exceeded 1.7 billion yuan.

Chinese animation presents a pleasing trend of soaring upwards. In recent years, excellent animated films such as "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage", "The Origin of the White Snake", "Nezha's Demon Child Descends", and "The Deep Sea" have emerged one after another, with a surge of creative vitality and good box office reputation, conveying a clear signal that the Chinese animation market is booming and has enormous potential.

Rooted in the fertile soil of excellent traditional Chinese culture, domestic animation is embarking on a creative transformation and innovative development path that showcases Chinese characteristics, style, and style with extraordinary imagination and steady steps.

Chinese style

Exploring the Path of National Style and Expressing the Genes of Chinese Culture

From the bustling and inclusive Chang'an, to the flowing Jiangnan with small bridges, and to the desolate northern desert, all condensed into 168 minutes and 48 Tang poems. The audience in the cinema couldn't help but read and recite, and comments such as "Chinese culture is the greatest confidence of movies" and "poetic genes surging in the blood" received high praise... This is a vivid reflection of the surge of traditional culture in recent years.

Since the release of the first advertising animation "Shu Zhendong Chinese Typewriter" in 1922, Chinese animation has gone through a hundred years. Amidst the ups and downs, the course remains unchanged, which is to explore the path of national style along the background of excellent traditional Chinese culture.

"In the magnificent group of works of the Chinese animation school, there are traditional culture - literature, opera, architecture, music, and art forms rich in national style - ink painting, Dunhuang murals, New Year paintings, and even the spiritual connotations of the Chinese nation - kindness, perseverance, diligence, courage, etc." recalled Suda, the director of Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio

Throughout the animated films that have emerged in recent years, "national style" and "China-Chic" are still key words. "Nezha's Demon Child Descends to the World" endows traditional characters with new connotations, creating a Nezha image of "my fate is determined by me, not by heaven"; "Three Thousand Miles in Chang'an" uses poetry to cultivate patriotism and convey the cultural core of the Chinese nation, such as strength and inclusiveness; "Big Fish and Begonia" aesthetically displays the world cultural heritage the Earthen Building in Fujian Province

"Traditional culture is a magnificent treasure trove of Chinese animated film creation, and the core of the Chinese animation school is nationalization. Using nationalization to showcase our own literary and artistic images, and creating a set of expressions based on traditional culture to express the genes of Chinese culture," concluded Ma Hua, a professor at the Animation School of Beijing Film Academy.

Creating animations with traditional cultural themes is both a borrowing and a challenge. Famous historical figures and stories lower the threshold for audiences to enter cinemas, but they also test the basic skills of creators.

For this reason, the creative team of "Three Thousand Miles in Chang'an" has traveled to many places to gather inspiration. "We walked into the Shaanxi History Museum to study the layout of Chang'an, stood on the walls of the ancient city of Tongguan to feel Ge Shuhan's tragic mood, wandered through the ancient city of Songpan to seek inspiration for the design of Yunshan City and Lushui Pass..." Director Xie Junwei of "Chang'an 30000 Miles" introduced that each shot meticulously covered the screen wall outside the county magistrate's mansion, the wine raising game played by literati, and the poetry board in the post office temple, referencing nearly a hundred documents and numerous unearthed cultural relics. Li Bai's Complete Collection Chronological Annotations and Gao Shi's Collected Annotations are "frequently available reference books for the team.".

Some directors describe animation as "creating dreams freely". The combination of free and unrestrained artistic expression and traditional cultural stories has led to the release of "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage" in 2015, which has become a phenomenal work in domestic animated films. The enormous potential of mythological themes has been discovered.

In recent years, there has been a significant trend of diversification in domestic animation themes, and realistic animated films have enormous market potential. For example, the recently released "Cha Ah Er Zhong" is a campus themed animated comedy, while the previously released "Deep Sea" focuses on exploring the inner world.

"The way people receive knowledge is changing for generations. The post-95s and post-2000s are accustomed to using videos to interact with new things, and should attract more people to come into contact and learn about traditional culture through artistic forms that are popular among young people. This will lead to a greater love for traditional culture." Yu Zhou, the producer of "Chang'an 30000 Li" and the president of Chasing Light Animation, said, "Young people's recognition of Chinese culture makes us believe that the rise of domestic animated films is not only a slogan, but also the present and future."

Expanding the space for animation creation and providing more opportunities for animators to create diverse works is also what MCA hopes for. "There are many dimensions to evaluate an animated work, which can be artistic level or commercial success, but more importantly, it is to meet the audience's call and expectations." He hopes that the development of animated films will have more "experimental spirit", maintain an open theme, allow young practitioners to innovate boldly and consciously, explore boundaries in different directions, and let more good works be seen by everyone.

Sense of technology

Talent cultivation is increasingly improving, and the bottleneck of animation film production capacity is constantly being broken

"10 years, 7.5 billion frames" - On the day of the release of "Chang'an 30000 Miles", Wang Wei, the founder of Chasing Light Animation, posted this Weibo post. It is not surprising in the world of animation that numbers are often on the scale of billions. Taking the dazzling opening scene of Penglai Wonderland in "New God List: Yang Jian" as an example, in just a few seconds, the single shot model has 14 billion faces, a file size of 5TB, and a total rendering time of 410 million core hours, requiring thousands of servers to work continuously for 24 hours.

The multiplication of a series of numbers may seem somewhat sci-fi, but behind it lies the inevitable logic of the hardcore development of film industry technology.

"To some extent, the history of animation is the history of people's exploration of light and shadow, and the integration of technology and art," said Ma Li, President of the China Animation Society. As an art that blends virtual and reality, with the penetration of key technologies such as next-generation network transmission, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, and motion capture into various levels and links of animation creation, production, dissemination, and consumption, animated films fully integrate and empower the imagination of creators, bringing audiences a higher level of audio-visual enjoyment.

Compared to the production cycle of one or two years for live action movies, an animated movie can take up to three to five years or even longer, and the project is more complex. For example, in "Nezha's Demon Child Descends", special effects shots account for nearly 80%, with over 60 teams and 1600 production personnel distributed around the world. After 5 years of meticulous work, they ultimately achieved a box office miracle of over 5 billion yuan.

In fact, complex production is also a challenge for full process coordination, and this challenge needs to return to industrialization itself. Industry insiders have pointed out that the high degree of dispersion in the production stage, uneven outsourcing quality, and lack of unified special effects standards have once hindered the industrialization level of Chinese animation.

With the gradual maturity of the industrialization process and the improvement of talent cultivation in various aspects, the bottleneck of animation film production capacity is constantly being broken. Industry reports show that in 2017, there were no more than 30 companies capable of fully producing Chinese animation. Today, there are nearly 1000 animation upstream and downstream companies active on the front line in China, of which 120 can produce high-quality animation. It is worth mentioning that industry observers have pointed out that China's position in the global animation industry chain has significantly increased, shifting from the OEM position at the bottom of the industry's "smile curve" to the two ends of the curve with higher returns, and content production is gradually showing a trend of "reverse outsourcing".

A huge group is exploring through different paths, gathering a huge force to improve the level of domestic animation.

Walking in the office building of the ray tracing animation, one can see the orderly distribution and synchronous operation of teams corresponding to each link. Pre design, storyboard, 3D modeling, materials, binding, animation, character effects, scene effects, digital landscape, lighting synthesis, post editing, technology, production... are all integrated into a complete chain of animation creation.

"Almost 100% of the creation of an animated movie can be born from this building," Yu Zhou said. Among the team of over 300 people, the production personnel account for about 90%. "We have established three major series: New Legend, New God List, and New Culture. Since its establishment, we have built a rolling creation process for three works, with each work taking a stable time of three years. Each work continuously iterates and circulates, driving an industrial production line."

How to balance the pursuit of speed in industrial production and the pursuit of quality in aesthetic art expression? On the one hand, stable quality depends on the accumulation of internal skills. "For example, the liquid and hair problems that were overcome in the production of" Cat and Peach Blossom Land "can be directly applied to Shen Gongbao's mount in" New God List: Yang Jian ", and the technology can be accumulated like a" snowball ". On the other hand, it is to optimize the process." Chasing Light has a work tradition, and after each movie project is completed, project summary meetings will be held at each stage to summarize the results and propose future improvement and development goals. Each Chasing Light movie is built on the experience of the previous one. "

Originality and disruptive innovation not only rely on the refinement of tools, but also test the determination of people. Director Tian Xiaopeng spent 7 years brewing an experiment on visual innovation in "The Deep Sea": his unique "particle ink" style combines freehand ink with concrete and realistic 3D innovation, blending traditional Chinese painting colors with Western Impressionist art, creating a dreamy deep sea world.

"During the creative process, in order to restore the elegance and graininess of ink painting, we mixed detergent, acrylic, food coloring, milk, and other ingredients over and over again, repeating them over and over again for more than 100 times." Tian Xiaopeng said that all technological innovations were for content service, dismantling the "splitting the sea" shots in the film, with over 100 layers of single shot particle effects and billions of particles, creating a delicate and realistic scene texture.

How to find a unique Chinese 3D animation style? In Tian Xiaopeng's mind, the combination of two-dimensional and three-dimensional and the exploration of their boundaries may be one of the breakthroughs. "2D animation inherently has subjective expressive power, but in terms of immersion, camera, and light and shadow, 3D animation is more mature. By combining the advantages of each, Chinese animation provides a unique possibility." This idea emerged during the production of the opening credits for "Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage," and accumulated more mature processes and methods in "The Deep Sea.". "Innovation has always been the driving force behind my animation," said Tian Xiaopeng.

impact

Creating more cultural IP carriers to bring Chinese stories to the international stage

Back in 1964, Shanghai Film Studio assembled the "strongest lineup" to create the first color animated feature film "The Heavenly Palace". The film has been exported, distributed, and screened in 44 countries and regions, and has participated in more than 10 international film festivals and won numerous awards. Whether in terms of aesthetic expression or technical level, it is considered world-class. After nearly 60 years, Shanghai Film Studio led the creation and co produced the animated short film collection "Chinese Tales" with Bilibili. The Chinese national spirit and Eastern aesthetic style returned in a "new generation" posture, telling the world the story of China well.

How can the brilliant traditional Chinese cultural IP "go global", further liven up and become popular? "Not imitating others and not repeating oneself" is a consistent creative philosophy of Shanghai Animation Studio, and it is also the key to the internationalization of domestic animation.

"In the past, Hollywood, Disney, and Pixar were the templates for our creations, but the market response was not ideal, and the audience did not buy it." Ma Hua said, "From imitation to partial originality and then to pure originality, it is a necessary path for the growth of Chinese animation." 'Copying' can learn things from the technical and experiential aspects, but the direction of topic selection, aesthetic system, and the spiritual core conveyed by the story are all misplaced. "

Regarding this point, Tian Xiaopeng also has a personal pain: "When I was doing" Journey to the West: The Return of the Great Sage ", I was often asked a question: what is our own Eastern style performance?" Years later, the creator slowly found his own context, "The stories, art, and performance methods created are all Eastern, and the Chinese style naturally flows in the blood of domestic animation."

Under the gaze of the world, exploring the path of national style has become a trend of the Chinese school, and animation works that carry the genes of excellent traditional Chinese culture have once again attracted attention. Behind it are unique Chinese visual arts, constantly improving animation production techniques, and aspiring faces like young Li Bai and Gao Shi.

With the "14th Five Year Plan" for the development of Chinese cinema clearly pointing out the support for animated films that showcase the spirit of the Chinese nation and the style of Eastern aesthetics, the China Writers Association has launched a series of measures to assist in the creation of original Chinese animations, stimulating more and more creative vitality. The recently concluded China Animation Week attracted 71 social institutions and industry companies to participate, showcasing over 500 IP projects and achieving 83 cooperation intentions on site; The 19th China International Anime Festival, held in June, attracted 567 domestic and foreign enterprises and institutions from 67 countries and regions, as well as 2305 exhibitors, merchants, and professionals. The intended signing amount reached 1.485 billion yuan, which plays a positive role in promoting international exchange of animation and promoting excellent domestic animation to go global.

Opening the vast sea of animation, people deeply witness the exploration and progress, trend, and ambition of Chinese animation.

Today's animation is no longer just about artistic styles, but also includes comprehensive trendy toys, gaming and esports, digital entertainment, immersive experience theme parks, and surrounding products, which gives creators a broader space. Data shows that the total output value of China's animation industry has exceeded 220 billion yuan, and animation has become one of the mainstream content categories. Animation+tourism, animation+entertainment, animation+design, animation+games, animation+parent-child education, and other interconnections and integration further stimulate the industrial potential of animation art.

"The vitality of Chinese culture not only relies on the works themselves to promote and inherit, but also comes from the operation of IPs." Suda introduced that in recent years, Shanghai Meiying Factory has continuously strengthened copyright and trademark management, and has registered more than 1500 trademarks around 40 major categories such as clothing, food, and toys, building a new ecosystem for IP transformation.

Looking ahead to the future, Ma Li believes that the two-way empowerment of new technologies, new applications, and the operation of the entire industry chain will become an important way for China's animation to achieve leapfrog development. "Standing at a new historical starting point, the Chinese animation industry should strive to anchor and improve the three major goals of high-quality originality, industrial competitiveness, and international influence, demonstrate a new atmosphere in promoting the high-quality development of Chinese animation, and provide strong support for enhancing the cultural confidence of the Chinese nation."

"Create Chinese animation with ideals and quality, create cohesive Chinese animation, and create Chinese animation that can be passed down." Ma Li's call is also the voice of many animators. By creating exquisite works that extend the historical context and write the magnificent chapter of the times, the great Peng rises high and crosses the sky of the Chinese land, carrying a wind that is enough to stir and continue.

——"As long as there is poetry and books, Chang'an will be there."