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In 1959, Xu Jingda, an artist at Shanghai Art Film Studio, used his new salary to buy a washbasin with a painting by Qi Baishi.

The next morning, when he was washing his face, he saw through the fluctuations of the water that the shrimp at the bottom of the basin seemed to be swimming.

Suddenly, a bold idea came to his mind: “Can you turn a static ink painting into a moving ink-style animation?”

He told this idea to Qian Jiajun, the chief technician of Shangmei Factory at the time.

A year later, an animation called "Tadpole Looking for Mom" ​​was born!

This work, known as "China's first ink animation", has attracted the attention of countless people since its birth.

It has won numerous awards internationally, and subsequently produced many ink animations.

"Shepherd's Flute" and "Deer Bell"

What I want to talk about here is one of the most famous in the world, and also the last well-known ink animation -

"Landscape Love"

The entire short film is only twenty minutes long and does not have a single line, but it does not hinder what it wants to express.

The story is not complicated. The animation opens with the sound of a piccolo. A child is holding a boat to pick up a luthier across the river. When the boat stops, the luthier suddenly collapses. The child took good care of the violinist when he woke up.

One day, the child accidentally started playing the piccolo. After hearing this, the violinist also played the piano in the house, accurately reproducing the music played by the child, and the child began to learn the piano from the violinist.

At this time, accompanied by the sound of the piano, elegant landscapes appeared in the animation, including fish swimming in the clear spring and thatched houses in the snow. The broad-minded and quiet feelings of the ancients were all reflected in this scenery and the sound of the piano.

One day, the violinist suddenly saw two birds flying in the sky. The big bird gradually flew away, leaving only a young bird. The violinist also felt that it was time to say goodbye.

The violinist gave the child his own piano, and the child bid farewell to the violinist and played a piece of music to bid farewell to the violinist in the most elegant way.

The whole story ends here, but the quiet feeling is indeed very evocative.

In just twenty minutes, the tranquil beauty in Chinese paintings was vividly displayed, and it also reflected the deep master-disciple friendship of the ancients and the beauty of natural scenery.

Contrary to the beautiful artistic conception of the film, this animation was born at the most helpless moment of Shanghai Fine Arts Factory.

The entire country's economic system began to transform. Purely artistic animation no longer made money, and animation companies also needed to be responsible for their own profits and losses.

Ink animation can be said to be a relatively expensive work. Although the characters are not drawn by traditional Chinese painting painters, the entire background is indeed composed of ink paintings.

If you have rich friends who often go to auction houses, they probably know the value of Zhuo Hejun's ink paintings.

Of course, the characters have to be drawn one by one by the original artist, and it takes more time to assemble the background. Ink animation needs to be colored in layers and painted on celluloid sheets (this is actually no different from Japanese 2d animation) The difference is just a matter of the number of photos), and then the photographer takes the photos to create the blurred effect.

The characters of these animations were also designed by Chinese painting painter Wu Shanming himself.

This style has also been recognized internationally, and Shanshuiqing won the award. Naturally, animation with such a unique style is really rare.

Another point I want to make is that ink animation is a rather experimental work that appeared in the 1960s.

Te Wei, the director of Shangmei Factory and the director of Shanshuiqing, felt that the animation works at that time were still following the old path of imitating the Soviet Union, and finally this kind of ink animation was created.

This is also when we can truly emphasize the characteristics of national culture and at the same time have something that the whole world can appreciate.

The ink animation integrates things from Chinese culture, but its editing techniques are very consistent with the universal lens language. The birds in it also use symbolic techniques that everyone around the world understands to reflect the luthier's intentions.

When computer-generated animation is prevalent today, works similar to the ink animation style have appeared in Japan. This animation is "The Tale of Princess Kaguya" by Isao Takahata.

This animation is based on the Japanese mythological story "The Tale of Bamboo", but the content has been greatly changed, and it can be regarded as an expansion.

There are also extremely stylized scenes in the painting style. For example, the scene where the heroine is running uses a material similar to ink painting to express such an eye-catching scene, and it also symbolizes the heroine's angry state of mind at that time.

Ironically, although "The Tale of Princess Kaguya" is a masterpiece, it is also losing money, with an investment of about 300 million yuan (it can be seen that with the advent of computers, it will also cost a lot to create such a style of painting) ). The box office was only 150 million.

In today's China, there are also animators who have chosen more efficient methods and are also able to create animations with the characteristics of ink painting, such as the Chinese Choir animation series. Of course, due to financial constraints, most of them are short.

The personal level of an animation director actually has little to do with his ability to make money.

If calculated purely based on whether it is profitable, then even the Shangmei factory during the planned economy period cannot be considered profitable.

This is not the fault of Shangmei Factory, nor is it the responsibility of any one person, but a common problem of the planned economy that affects the decision-making of the entire Shangmei Factory.

After that, Shangmei Factory also began to create some long-form animation series in line with the times, including "Zodiac" and "Shuke and Beta" that are familiar to those born in the 1980s and 1990s.

After the new century, various types of animations have been tried, such as "Big Ear Tutu", which may be more child-oriented, and "Duck Detective", which can be called the shadow of childhood.

Recently, Shangmei Factory has also made some over-the-top sentimental works. These are foreseeable measures while maintaining the company's survival and profitability.

Ink animation is no longer used by people, and it is in line with business rules. First, it is time-consuming in terms of efficiency. Even if it has such artistic effects, the taste of the audience may not be acceptable.

Even in a big animation country like Japan, there are few animated films that can make a lot of money and express something profound like Hayao Miyazaki.

Most people will still cater to the entire market and add some welcome benefits. The most famous examples in recent years are probably those of Makoto Shinkai and Mamoru Hosoda who have added many entertainment elements to their new works.

Comparing their previous works, I have to say that "Your Name" and "Monster Son" have a certain tendency to compromise.

Although it is not necessary to sell meat excessively, it is extremely contrary to my own intention. But these two animations can be said to lack some depth compared to their previous works.

Of course, this is understandable behavior. If it cannot make money, it means that the entire company cannot operate.

Not everyone can balance art and business at the same time. If you don't have that level, you will naturally go down a very despicable path. However, in the face of life, few people can talk about ethics calmly.

It’s rare to find people who can still make money while standing. Only Hayao Miyazaki in Japan has put his most profound work "Spirited Away" firmly at the top of the Japanese movie box office list.

Hayao Miyazaki has been incorporating private goods since "Porco Rosso". His movies are full of things he wants to express. Most of them use metaphors and what the characters inadvertently say to bring out what the director wants to express.

"Spirited Away" is also a family-friendly work on the surface, but in fact it contains profound issues such as human greed and the meaning of society.

This method undoubtedly provides an idea for future animation workers, but not everyone can create such works.

Other directors also have their own ways to balance business and art. For example, Masaaki Yuasa collaborated with a company like Netflix (which has produced well-known American dramas such as House of Cards and The Crown) across the country and is not short of money to produce "Devilman" with such connotation ( not suitable for minors).

Some animation companies in China are also trying to find a way to combine business and art. Some domestic animations cannot yet be said to have profound connotations, but they have achieved the quality of a qualified commercial work while putting themselves into production. Pitch it out.

For example, Qin Shi Mingyue and Convex Hero LEAF will be sold to video websites such as Bilibili and iQiyi. These video websites also help promote animation, and the income of animation production companies is naturally linked to the number of views.

Animation workers in the future will always have to find their own path, or put in some entertainment elements that the audience loves, or have high aspirations and produce in-depth works, and still find the sponsor father.

The success of ink animation is not only due to the era, but also left animators with a warning - while maintaining their own artistic standards, people also need to eat.

PS: For everyone’s convenience, I have collected the juice sources.

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