Previews of final project

Some lighting effects are not performed in this video. The glowing of robots eyes as the signal they send to each other. The shining of the marker on the back of dragon as his releasing of power. 

Going Live Project Process

In the beginning of our project. I didn’t pick any manager due to the lack of experience and confidence. But I would love to learn as much as possible. So I told teammates that I’d like to do anything we need. We start the project with brainstorm. Everyone gave some ideas and we decided which one we are going to pick. We used some toys to play different role in the story. And set a scene to imitate the story. We all enjoyed it and found it was really helpful for us to see the scene before it was built. After the general structure was set, we started to model the characters and other objects needed. My first task was furniture modeling. As we use a living room to be the environment, I made different forms for each kind of furniture. I think doing this will make the living room more like someone’s room. However, we didn’t use them all but all of the furniture are picked from them. There was nothing really hard during modeling time. I gained more experience of modeling in Maya by these. We didn’t spend too much time on character modeling, some of the characters are free references from web. We found some real troll dolls and scanned them by scanner in order to build a model.

In next stage, we began to refine our story board. We split the basic idea of whole story. Three of us took part in story board drawing. After that we picked everything we feel good and put them together. With tutor’s help, we finished the final story board and made a preview to be the profile of the film.

In stage 3, I joined in the rigging group to rig the troll which is not a very complicated model. With the experience in our class and the help of other teammate, the rigging and skinning were going well. As team needed, I also rebuilt a pair of shiny eye balls for the troll. Internet tutorials are really helpful for us. We didn’t have enough time to learn too much from the class after all. Blend shape is an interesting part in this stage. I enjoyed the time of shaping the facial expression and lip syncing. I got a better understanding of how it works in the animation film. Abundant blend shape will make a character more vivid and funnier, so it is good to do more tweak to make it better.

Animation stage is one of my favorite part in the project. In this stage, I tried to do as much as I can for the animation. It was a challenge to me because I found that it is a different feel of making movements by yourself. We all watched some animation films before but it is hard to do than I think. We need to consider combination of movements, lip sync and time slider. We wanted to make it both realistic and funny. We need highlight to make viewers laugh. In this period, we were working together all the time. When a shot was done by someone, others will be told and they will need to give their advice or idea. I truly understand that communication is a key to make progress effective and improving through the work. Our good ideas are always come from the discussion. What’s more, detail of movement can really make it better and paying attention on details can really make difference of whole film.

After we were happy with the basic animation, we put the texture in and start the lighting. To make sure the light is uniform. We had even more communication during working. Sometimes two or three of us worked together in one. Some shots need dramatic light and it was really nice to have suggestions when you are working. My personal experience of lighting is just based on the class I had here. Lighting really needs patient because we can’t see the effect instantly like animation. That is another thing I got after the long and bored lighting time. But we were very happy about the result we got. It looks very nice and I think it is worth to spend time on it.

I also took part in the compositing group. I don’t have any experience of After Effect or Nuke. But the good thing is I can always learn from other people. To make clear the basic principle of how compositing work is a very important experience for me.

During the final editing time, we found some problems left and got them fixed. I’m new in editing, too. And it is more like a one man driving work. So we were sitting around the editor and giving our idea and suggestion over the progress. 

I’m glad that I joined most of the process of making the film. I’ve learnt so many thing from tutor, teammates and tutorials. The whole project is an amazing experience which gives me the idea of how an animation film can be made. For me teamwork and communication are the most important things in the project. I’m grateful for the people help me out when I was facing difficulties and challenges. I really enjoy to work with my team.

Animation film review, Monkey King--Hero Is Back

Monkey King is a Chinese animation film came up on July 2015. The film gained the best animation film award of 2015. It is treated as the highest quality animation movie in China so far. The idea of story is inspired by Journey to the West which is one the four great classical novels. The first producer Xiaopeng Tian made some changes of the main characters of the novel. He told others that he wanted to make a different Journey to the West animation when he was in university in 1995. He likes the story telling way of Miyazaki Hayao. Telling story step by step instead of something suddenly happened. He told people that is the way he wants it to be. Also, he said that animation should never just for the low age group like kids and he won’t make this film into a low-age animation.

I can tell that Tian is a fan of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Not only from his claim but also from his character design. The boss of the bad guys in this film called Hundun which means chaos. Hundun is one of the four vicious beast in a Chinese classic text Classic of Mountains and Seas. It was described as picture below.

The Hundun in film.

Next is the character from Chichiro which is a film from Studio Ghibli.

They got some obvious references in the film but they didn't influence the comment of this it. Cause the producers spent a long and toilful time on their work. 8 years from 2007 to 2015. They wanted to present the film in 2013 but due to the disagreement of most of the crew they decided to put the animation back to the stove. After another 2 years work, the film finally comes up.

The story is about a little boy who is an adorer of the monkey king sticking on him and fight against Hundun to save folks. The little boy believe that monkey king is the agency of justice all the time. Producer Tian said that the boy's insistence is the topic of this film. But the thing is that the insistence of believing in justice is actually an opposition of the heaven. Because that was what monkey king did in the myth. But one thing I need to clarify is that the heaven in Chinese culture is not the same as it in Western culture. The heaven here is like an empire in the sky. If the opposition to the heaven is justice or righteousness, what is the heaven's role in that world and what does the heaven represent in the real world? The big changing of personality makes the value of story a little bit messy. Cause the monkey king used to be very savage in the novel. 

My opinion of this question is that the boy is wrong about the monkey king from the beginning, he just think that MK is really cool. But his insistence moved the MK and making him become righteous.I believe Tian wants to tell people something by the film but the storytelling is not that satisfactory. There are some inexplicable plots which made a negative influence of the whole story. Some characters popped out suddenly and started to do something without a point.

The plot and the music of the film are two main points doubted by viewers. There is a background music called 'the brave heart' popped out in the middle of the movie. But it made viewers feel inexplicable. Even the first producer Tian himself said that this song is not proper with the plot at the point. Humble producer Tian also said that the nice comments of the movie shows the lack of good animation resource in China and pointed out two long-term market problems which are the focus on low age group and ignorance of other age group.

However, The Monkey King Hero Is Back made some difference to the homemade animation industry. It shows people that Chinese animator can make something better. A 60 million yuan budget film earned a 900 million box office is also a nice grade. It might be a new beginning of the domestic industry. Even if it is not, the film will still be remembered by viewers and the field. 

Film Review of Farewell My Concubine

Beijing opera is one of the most famous Chinese traditional art. People in China were crazy about Beijing opera and the best performers. We call the best performers Jueer(great performer). To become to a Jueer, one person need to work on it when he or she is a kid. Maybe it is similar as ballet. On the way of growth, performers will suffer countless pain both in mentality and body. People out of the field may never learn what those pain like. 

Child was stretching his physique.

There 3 pictures show that kids who made mistake in rehearsal are being punished.

The first image is a kid being whipping on his hip. The last two images show that a kid was poked a pipe in his mouth.The punisher maybe their Shifu(teacher) or their Shixiong(upperclassman)

Kids join in the opera class are not all willing. Some of them are orphans, some of them joined because of the poverty or other problems. So there were always some kids try to flee due to the tough and cruel practice.

This is a kid crying and asking "how do they become to a Jueer?" during he was watching a Jueer performing at that age. He was the kid try to flee from the class. After the perform, he went back to the class. He saw his Shifu was whipping other apprentices who didn't stop him from escape. He couldn't stand all of these anymore and he hung himself.

Our two main roles of this movie are the best in the class. They made a vow to each other to become to Jueer together in the future and they made it years late. They became to the best partner of each other. People were crazy about them. Every performance was packed auditorium.  

The performance shot of them who are adults.

There is one thing I need to mention. The performer acting women was raped by some powerful man. He is a male but some viewer will treat him as a woman because of his perfect performance. Although they are best performers at the point, they are still bullied sometime. One reason of that is opera industry is treated as one of the bottom level of social hierarchy. The same level as whore.But they passed all of these difficulties and achieved their goal. They are tough and best artist. No one can question that.

Story is not finished here. War happened after a short glorious years. Japanese intruded China. Their army stationed in Beijing on July 7th 1937. Japanese army ask two performers to perform for them. They refused. So army caught the older performer. To save his Shixiong, younger performer promised to perform for Japanese and he did it. Japanese then released another performer. But because of this event, two performers were accused as betraying China after WW2. Court judged they as not guilty in the end. 

Few years later, commie won the civil war. And this time is the doom of two artists. Different from before, commie made them become to the enemy of Chinese because they don't want to perform like the way commie want it to be. During the China's Cultural Revolution, they were labeled as counterrevolutionary and the enemy of proletariat.

Those 3 pictures are showing they were bounded and paraded through the streets. The text on the poster hung on their chest says that 'overthrow the Beijing opera bully' and each of their name behind.

The older performer finally couldn't stand it anymore and began to expose his partner.To say the words people wanted to hear.

After all of what they have experienced. They can not get over the commie. They were totally defeated both in mind and body. They were cracked. One betrayed another one and another one did the same thing. They are no tough guys in front of red power. The red power got his own way to deal with people like them. It's different from anyone even invader. Death threat of Japanese army did not work on them. The court said they are not guilty. But this time, their own people who had little red book on their hand said they are bully. And they were cracked.Starting to at each other. The most famous roles played by two performers are the king of west Chu and his queen Yu. In the end, they were released form jail many years late. They had a last performance on the stage with no audience down there. The opera is about that West Chu kingdom was about to be defeated by East Han kingdom. The queen dancing for the king for the last time and then killed herself. But this time,queen acted by younger artist killed himself by a real sword. The desperate persecution made a great artist fell into despair and chose to end his life. 

Today, we got movie like this. For me, that means people start to introspect. Although there is a long way in front of us. The most important thing is that we try to do better to avoid those kind of awful misdeeds. In my opinion,refusing devil and regaining humanity are two significant things we need to do in a period. Anything helpful with these is worth to have a try. 

Farewell My Concubine was directed by director Kaige Chen. The movie came up in Hongkong on January 1st 1993.

Concept and Storyboard of Jade

phonemes

Reference for the final project

http://thekoalition.com/reviews/child-of-light-review