Chinese Animation

Today we learnt about Chinese Animation.

Chinese School of Animation

To start this off we learnt about the system related to our main Studio.

A group of animator’s working during the late 1950s to late 1980s, under the leadership of Te Wei was referred to as the Chinese School of Animation, (a school being a group of artists whose work is similar, especially similar to that of a leader). They were associated with Shanghai Animation Film Studio.

The Shanghai Animated Film Studio was established in 1957, it was the first professional and specialised animation making institution in China, remaining as the only one until the 1980s. It was a fully state-owned, financed and controlled studio, meaning that the artists didn’t have to worry about the commercial side of animation and were allowed to freely focus on the art, but also they would have restrictions on content based on what the state allowed. It held around 200 artists, each sharing a similar creative philosophy and artistic style with animation.

Films of note:

The Proud General (1956) by Te Wei

The Peacock Princess (1963) by Jin Xi

The Stories of Effendi (1980) by Jianfang Qu

First Golden Era 1957-1966

Characteristics of films from this period include:

• Narratives adapted for Classic Chinese Literature
• Style Techniques and design taken from traditional Chinese Painting
  • GONGBI (Elaborate style Chinese painting)

    

    

  • INK PAINTING(Expressionist/Freehand Style Chinese Painting)

    

    

 

• Elements taken from Chinese Opera : Stylised movements and poses, music using the gong and drums and the facial mask designs (translated to the face of the character designs to quickly understand their type of personality, like a villain/hero).

 

 

These characteristics can be seen in the following films, with the different painting styles and different tones that used the above elements.

Havoc in Heaven(1961-1964): This was Wan Laimings’s Second animation feature, it was an adaptation of the classical Chinese novel Journey to the west. We can see the character’s movements are very stylised, the opera mask design of Wu Kong’s face and how the music is timed to the martial art movements that are almost dance like. The backgrounds take the style of the Gongbi paintings and there is a lot of colour.

 

Where is Momma (1960): This was made by Te Wei, who was known as the father of Ink Animation, following along with the expressionist Ink Painting style, using minimal colours and no dialogue so that it could be understood by a broad audience. This won awards at festivals in Annecy, Cannes, Locarno, Zagreb and Paris, attracting a lot of international attention for the style and the emotion from the music as it tells a story with no language barrier. He also made two more of these in this style : Cowboy’s Flute (1963) was his second and his third was Feeling of Mountain and Water (1988).

 

Another thing to note in these are how detail isn’t an important part of the story telling, it is a lot more fluid in terms of stylisation, in comparison to and contrast to Disney’s Animation style in the west that had a lot of strict linework and colour.

Second Golden Era 1977-1989

Characteristics of films from this period include:

• Narration including modern characters and wider topics. Animation that reflects the modern society and the people in it, and soem animations started to capture illusion and subconscious.

• Animations Inspired by Western Modernist Paintings
  • The New Doorbell composition inspired by Piet Mondrian’s painting

• Souvenir’s character designs were inspired by Henri Matisse’s paper cut out.

 

A Da (1934-1987) was an important animation director in Shanghai Animated Film Studio, he was there for 17 years after graduating from the Film department of the China Ministry of Culture. One of his short films (Three Monks) has received the most international awards in Chinese animation history. For this period of animation we looked at three of his films.

Something to note with all of these is how the style has shifted from the Chinese painting styles and it has become incredibly simplistic, with the use of the same characters seen across these films (the Three Monks in Super Soap, and the Little girl in The New Doorbell). The narratives focussing on more modern elements but also straying from these folktales and myths has left space for moral stories to be presented. These are all quite acessible for wider audiences as it uses no dialogue, telling the story purely through visual and aural means.

Three Monks(1980): This story was inspired by an old Chinese proverb : ”One monk shoulders water to drink; Two monks carry water and there is no water for three monks ”  From a previous post I have been through this briefly already, but essentially it can be seen as a moral lesson about sharing the work and not letting an unfair hierarchy to form when a common goal is in mind.

Super Soap(1986): Super Soap can be seen as a commentary on the marketing strategies of the capitalist society and how unfair it is, as well as commentary on how fickle fashion trends can be as everyone wants to be something that they can’t have, blind to what they currently posses. What makes Super soak particularly good is the use of sound to fall in line with movement and exaggerate elements for comedic effect.

The New Doorbell (1986)

The Decline of Chinese Animation 1990s-2000s

Unfortunately there was a decline in the animation industry at the end of 1989, the Chinese government withdrew their funding for Shanghai Animated Film Studio, making them now commercially responsible for their work. This new workload combined with the rising commercial animations from America and Japan as well as losing important animators in the studio meant that there wasn’t much to be able to save this style of national animation.

Chinese Animation Industry 2015-

However, there was a rise again as financial support from the government, as well as the investment into the local animation studios and animation making was back. From around 2015 there was an increasing number of animated films that were created in China, with quality that mimicked the style of western commercial animations ( using CGI or the Japanese 2D style) to tell stories from folklore with modern settings and other mystical and magical stories.

In conclusion, I had a great time learning about Chinese animation and how it has grown. I think even the older animations stand up in quality and I have been very invested in learning some elements about Chinese opera and how these have influenced the movement of the characters and the music and the adaptation of elements from the west into now modern Chinese animation. I will definitely see myself delving farther into this nation’s animation and potentially use it to affect my own design choices.