From Chinese comics to animation: The animated process of "Dream Man"

Process

According to the comic-book TV series animated "Dreamer" has been completed and is about to be aired, we will first report to you.

I. Selection of comic works

Comics and animation are popular art that is universally loved, often appearing together. Cartoons and animations, although they are close relatives and have a wide variety of connections, are still two different forms of artistic expression. A theme and style may be good for cartoons that are not necessarily adapted for animation. Any kind of art has its own way of expressing itself, because they have their own special language.
The content of the comic is flat, with a picture of a static picture plus some text to tell the story, and the animation of the picture is three-dimensional movement, it also has the voice to join. The viewing of cartoons can be stopped, and the viewing of cartoons is flowing with time. Comic lines can be disconnected at will, but the animation requires the lines to be coherent, so as to facilitate large-scale color. There are some comics in itself because there are more free and easy lines so it looks good, organized into a very standard line, it will taste different. These factors may be the reason why people who read comics do not like the original adaptation of animated works. So it's not absolute that "good comics can be adapted into good animations".

A good animation, whether adapted from the comic or adapted from other types of things, the first choice of adaptation is not simply because of the original quality, but because the original version of the animation to adapt to do the creation of the basic shape of the cartoon. The idea was established, that is, animated animation, the original cartoon and all other prerequisites are the creation of animation materials. I was first to have a desire to put the animation into some form of expression, only to find the "dream of people" in line with their own ideas of the subject matter. If I just want to turn it into an animation because I think "Dreamer" is good, then I'm just an animated version of the producer. So when I chose this theme, I decided it was a movie I thought I was going to do, instead of just doing something that would make the most of the popular comics into an animated version, even though it did become the first piece in China to adapt a new comic to a TV serial animated cartoon.

I hope to be able to do a new work, it is a after the creation of the animation, and not the original comic. Of course there may be a lot of subjective things, for example, it may be consistent with my ideas, not necessarily in line with other people's ideas, but all the works of art before they come out of this, are first only in line with the author's own ideas, may not meet others. It is possible to finally come out and be tested by reality that this is a failure, and I may adjust myself when I do it again. It may also reflect well, then I will play my thinking further. But I can't do it because I think about the possibility of failure, and that's how it works.

　　Second, the cartoon to create the inevitable changes in animation

The first is a change in the structure of the script. Because the serial comic book "Dream Man" is not a complete idea at the beginning, the beginning of the series also did not complete animation, the story is always in development. But when we do the animation of the 26-episode plan, we need to think about the whole structure, including the ending, which is different from the comics. And the comics are in space, can see repeatedly, but the animation is different, an episode only 20 minutes, sow a story to say how much content, to a few minutes must have the attractive place, each episode must have its own center, this structure's request and the caricature certainly is dissimilar. So the original story structure to adjust, some stories were advanced, and some of the plot was wrong, but also added some original story. But there is no big change in the main line and character. The main line or according to the original comics, but the plot before and after the order, place, season, etc. or there are many differences. The differences in plot settings also have an impact on the type orientation of the program. One place will be the original in the comics in the reality of the elves, changed to only exist in the Li Mengling subjective world. This is a big change in the main story. One reason for this change is that the Elves ' role is becoming lighter in the original story. The work is gradually transformed into a depiction of the real life of youth, and the fairy tales and myths of the world are not explained by the Elves of the realistic theme works, but on the other hand, the story loses its wonderful imagination if no elves appear. It won't be fun, and the gap between the comics is even bigger. But such changes need to be cleverly and rationalized in the creation of animated scripts.

For example, in a dream, Li Mengling with the Genie Anne flew to the space station, and pulled a screw from the space station back, woke up to find the screw in the plot around her. But since it is a dream, it is not true, then the plot is unreasonable. What do we do? We arranged for the Li Mengling Rabbit to kick a normally strange and unusual screw into her house, and Li Mengling didn't see it, and when she woke up in the morning and found the screws, she thought she was really in space. But it was actually a souvenir screw that her father took off the old submarine. The plot of this commemorative screw has several effects: first of all, from its very special point of view, it is closer to the space station, at least for us ordinary people are unfamiliar, so more believable, and then when Li Mengling's mother asked his father to find a screw to do what? Her father would say, "that screw is on the chest like--Tomato Superman!" "This is consistent with her father's consistent personality, and finally perfect to achieve the Li Mengling dream and reality of the true and false sex and--Li Mengling do not know this thing, and always believe that they are really on the space station." This is a rationalization of the plot.

Now China lacks a playwright dedicated to writing animated scripts. I think the script of animation and television, screenplay have a lot in common, so the requirements of writing animation script is also in accordance with the requirements of film and television drama. "Dream Man" is the main writer is the Beijing Green Tree Animation Company's 'm Wang Chuan, he has directed a lot of cartoons, in the creative, program planning and director have a certain experience, to cooperate more easily communicate. In the writing process of the script, of course, also often accompanied by the original author Yao Fei himself involved.

Styling and scenes are also redesigned, and the investment unit has a copyright requirement for the work. The copyright of this cartoon works is CCTV, then all the things should be ours, including modelling, background and so on. From this technical level, if we want to fully use the shape of the comic itself, then unless the comics also buy out. But we do not do business culture products, there is no need to buy this cartoon. In this way, if we use the design of the shape and the shape of the cartoon exactly the same, then there will be the issue of copyright in the future, such as: the future of this model is to be used, if some people think the animation is good, to buy modelling, then he is to find who to buy? To develop this product, is it to buy a cartoonist or an animation? This problem is not only in China, but also in other countries such as Japan. Unless the animation painting is one, that is, the two products themselves are developed by the same company will not appear this situation, if not, then must be to buy the copyright.

"Dream of people" cartoon modeling is not very realistic, Yao pull in the comics to create the style of modeling so that everyone feels very cordial, but also very in line with the aesthetic tendencies of everyone. However, in view of the laws of animation, the style of film and copyright issues, we have done a reorganization on the basis of comic modeling. Characters and comics more realistic, but the image of all the characters are still the original traces.

The main shape design is Wang Peng, is also a very young cartoon and animation, the original is the Tianjin God, he compared to understand this cartoon, do more suitable for the overall style of the film requirements, is basically based on his design, most of the modelling is he did, after 13 episodes also have other people do part.

Scene of the line of the designer is Li Dong, color manuscript design is Liu Hongliang. They have been designed for a lot of cartoons, and this time the program style has also made us fully see their design ability of different styles, especially highly realistic style.

The modelling of the Li Mengling found the actor as a model, because since the decision of the animation style is realistic, it is natural to think of a model should be found. What else would it be like to paint? It's impossible to come up with this out of thin air. In fact, I think that no matter what the film should have a reference. In fact, more than Li Mengling, the animation of the illiterate and the Sun universe is also a model. Of course, these are just references, the real shape does not say that much like these models, the production of the implementation is also difficult, but there are references is very necessary.

Many works do not pay special attention to draw good modelling, we always imitate already has the animation modelling, for instance imitate Disney, or imitate the Japanese animation. However, whether it is the Disney or Japanese animation, they are referring to life, they will go to sketch, will go to the life of the model to draw, I think this is a good way, art is derived from life, modelling creation is derived from life. To create a shape you should find a model for a lot of sketching, but it has been a rare person to do so.

Our scene design and the background of the drawing is also more than the real scene as a reference. The background design of "dream Man" refers to the scene basically is Dalian, also has Beijing and Qingdao place. I think it is impossible to imagine how to create a real life than the actual scene more specific and rich. Our cast to Dalian to folk songs, because went to Dalian, so in our animation to find the Dream Ling Home and the main scene of the street, increased the tram and so many kinds of reality exist in the fun and good-looking things.

　　Iii. the work of the director of the cartoon "Dream Man"

A director is planning and organizing the program first. To this end, we have countless discussions, there are 4 formal topics demonstration, the first time to convene the author and copyright party for the discussion, the second invited some experts, including several major comic book editor, Youth Research Center experts, The third and four times are recruited a group of high school students, from several aspects of the subject to be demonstrated. The results of the discussion were collated into a thick piece of material submitted to the television station.

For various reasons, "Dream people" comic book copyright purchase actually implementation is in early 2002, from 1999 selected "Dream Man" is 3 years of time.

Write the plan report, apply for the project report and then pass the approval. In the planning report of the Director of the Exposition, art design elaboration, the market development of the thinking must have, but more or less a subject of preparation, there is no particular specific provisions, but the general principle is the finer the better, the more persuasive the better. But, strictly speaking, these preparations have gone beyond the work of a director and should belong to a job called a producer. At present, we do not have a producer system, the producer to do the project, the Director is only responsible for the quality of animation works, such procedures are reasonable.
The program creation process, "Dream Man" is 26 episodes, each episode 22 minutes. The number of lenses is nearly 10,000.

summed up in the number, is in the "Dreamer" in the course of the program, I correspond to 10,000 lenses do the work of these:
1, the text of the literary script rough shooting
2, the lens of the mirror personnel to inspect the scene, proposed specific amendments (on average about 30%)
3, re-acceptance of the revised shooting local
4, check the design of each shot, proposed specific amendments (on average about 50%)
5, re-acceptance of the revised design draft
6, by mirror examine original picture action design, propose concrete modification opinion (average about 40%)
7. The original painting action design of the RE acceptance modification
8, mirror-examination as a type of supervision, to propose specific changes in the opinion (on average about 80%)
9, re-acceptance of modified for the supervision and repair type
10, the mirror examine completed animation, proposed specific changes in opinion (on average about 50%)
11, re-acceptance of the modified animation
12, mirror-examine background drawing, proposed specific amendments (on average about 50%)
13, re-acceptance of the revised background
14, mirror acceptance room animation color and background synthesis of the lens
15. The lens and effect of editing and synthesizing by mirror
16, mirror to record the dialogue
17, mirror-by-action recording
18, the Mirror of music mixed record
19. The final inspection by mirror
20, Carry on the title song picture and the subtitle work

As you can see, a cartoon director's job is to experience these and not included in more than 20 process processes, most of which correspond to the entire program of nearly million lens number to complete. And the number of the animation is more than 400,000 pieces of the complete draft.
Shooting

"Dreamer" in the shooting before and after at least 20 people, at the point of view of the shooting will certainly have some differences, because everyone's style may be different. However, before the work of the shooting, I first wrote the text of each episode, the lens number is also roughly divided, so that there is a certain direction. Although there will be changes in the specific painting, will increase or reduce a part of the shooting, will be adjusted, but the shooting personnel will still be the text of the shooting intentionally or unintentionally limited live. Because the lens number has been initially divided, this can guarantee a whole structure, or a whole number of reasonable. And in the shooting staff after the division, I am sure to change the discussion with him, many styles can not be unified place I will change it to a unified place. I participated in the shooting of the special many, put forward are detailed advice, such as how to change the lens, how to change the angle. After each shooting, I want to see, after reading to propose changes, repeated changes. In fact, in the process of making, I will adjust the process of drawing the design draft, sometimes even to the original animation stage will be adjusted, including time, including language, lines have to adjust, each lens must be very serious to see, so "dream of people" nearly 10,000 shots in the shooting of each shot, Every line is clear in my mind. But in the end the style of the shooting could not be completely unified, bad places will be modified, good places to keep, because I think the shooting is a creation, I will be very respectful of this creation, I also hope that the shooting staff can have a lot of innovative places to brighten, rather than just to meet my requirements, then it would be meaningless.

As a realistic animation, "Dream Man" in the mirror does not have any restrictions, but there is a requirement, is to be as far as possible to the human observation angle to narrate the story, to more life, more emphasis on human perspective and angle of rationality. Because this is a realistic subject and a story that happens between several people, try to make the narrative of the shooting feel like it exists between them to observe their communication. "Dream man" rarely use large overlooking, big looking, big perspective lens to emphasize impact. There are some animations often appear such a problem, that is, big overlooking, looking up, vision, close-up and so on constantly changing, as if the lens is very rich, in fact, there is no great significance. Narrative a story, as long as the steady to explain it clearly, good performance details, so that it looks very delicate, and then look good enough, of course, this is because "dream of people" is to become the reason for this style. In addition, "Dreamer" does not have a particularly fast lens, the original half a second lens is extended to almost a second, half a second lens is very very few.

"Dream" of the shooting in the first 13 episodes of the main use or more experienced shooting division, in the latter 13 set to use the new really more, especially the film academy and other college animation professional graduate students and undergraduates more. The main purpose of this is to want more young people to participate in, because the story itself is the story of young people, and they are more familiar with the new comics, and some themselves are painting cartoons. I don't think it's too old to go from thinking to everything. The obsolescence here does not refer to the use of the lens itself, but to the sensitivity of life. Very experienced old shooting staff may not be really concerned about the life of the young people in real life, or he may not be very concerned about such programs, may not see a lot. I hope more people who know about such programs will be involved in the production of the program.

The first 13 episodes and the last 13 episodes, I think the "old" shooting staff and the "new" people have their strengths, but also have a lack of places. The people who do it very well, they do it very well, or the work he has done is more than just doing, forming a fixed routine. For the "Dream Man" this realistic theme of the creation is not very appropriate. And young people lack experience, they are in the process of making the shooting is tantamount to a learning practice process, but they do have a lot of very thoughtful, powerful people.
Design Draft:

The design draft is one of the most important aspects in the prophase work, because it directly affects the original painting and the drawing of the animation. "Dream people" design draft some do very good, in this film production link should be one of our pride. The requirements of the design manuscript is very meticulous, its environmental details are specific, the direction is correct, perspective is accurate, the proportion of people's action is reasonable and so on, have been repeated scrutiny and modification.

Similar to the design of the scene, is the problem of light. In many cases, two of people speak face-to-face in the open air, but their faces are bright; one of the two people standing in front of the body is light, before a person's projection does not shine on a person, or light from behind, arms in front, but there is light on the arm ... There are a lot of such problems. In fact, the picture and the character should be dark when it is dark. As a realistic film, "dream of people" should have a large number of backlighting, because two of people speak face-to-face, if there is a shun light, then another must be backlighting. Therefore, the "dream" of the design of the draft I was a one through, look very carefully, a lot of manuscript painting is very good, but after I have to change the light, to mark the direction of light. In the "Dreamer" before the design of the drafting staff have never been asked to think about these issues, they have been doing things for many years and experience and this is completely different, or to be in the modification of the running-in.

Medium-term original painting and animation:

The realism style undoubtedly enlarges the original picture, the animation drawing difficulty. From the modelling, the realistic character modelling characteristic is not obvious, it and designs the more exaggerated animation modelling-for instance has the big nose, the big head or does not have the hair the character to be different. The realistic style of each shape is similar, the height is similar, the eye size is similar. The difference between people is that the eyes are slightly bigger, the nose is a little higher, and the difference is small. This difference in the painting process is not very good grasp, lines are easily changed. Because of "dream man" realism to the lip thick a little, the eye is small, the hair is long, this person is not like this person's level, therefore gives the original, the animation and the revision type the drawing to increase the difficulty, although we try to do the modelling unification, but is not very easy achieves the desired effect. Because the original, animation in the specific implementation of the process involved in the things too complex, it involves all aspects, all angles, the grasp of the expression of the problem. Plus "dream people" painting 2-3 years of Time, 26 set down the number of drawings about 40 to 500,000, before and after the addition of a good hundreds of people in the painting, everyone may be based on their own ideals to paint, even if the shape of the strict will also appear some differences. Once the picture is moving, it becomes more difficult to unify. In the early stage of the modeling diagram, design Draft can be unified modification, but the original, animation is not possible to do so, light close-up lens has 100,000, so the unity of style has become a very difficult thing.

In addition, the people in the clothing aspect also appeared the communication question. "Dream Man" in people's clothing than ordinary animation more than a lot of pieces. To Li Mengling, she went to school to wear school uniforms, back home to the uniforms into casual clothes, shoes off to replace slippers. Sleep to wear pajamas or nightgown, in the dream there is a beautiful girl's clothes, and if she can recall the junior high school time will also appear in her school uniforms ... So one of the biggest problems we face when we're painting animations is to constantly check if the clothes are right. A lot of clothing, many aspects of the staff of the environment and the overall plot is not really clear, which dress is the first few episodes of a few shots between the clothes, I will try to write in detail next to the shape, and then distributed to the processing company, but also to the computer room, but also have the same place to take care of. Because some clothes are the same style, some clothes are only the difference in color, some of the differences in the cuff is only the mouth or open. So often make mistakes, sometimes the animation itself painted very well, but found that the clothes are wrong, can only rework.
Styling Color Designation:

The first 13 set by Taiwan's art director Shaopo to complete, after the 13 episode is "Dream Man" director of the assistant Du Dong to do, but in the end it is based on my views to decide. In the color designation aspect, the personnel is relatively few, also has the same esthetic, therefore still is comparatively good communication.

　　Four, the cartoon needs to face the question

What I have always wanted to do is to have a very realistic style of the film. I have seen a lot of good Japanese films, why are these films beautiful? It is because of the Japanese environment and real life performance of the special specific, particularly real, and the life into activities of the painting, so it is particularly good-looking, I think we can do such an animation, to do a realistic film has always been my wish. "Dream Man" is CCTV's first large-scale realistic TV animation, because there is no previous experience, so we are in the production of this film has met the challenges from all aspects ...

The first challenge is the concept, in the domestic concept of a realistic film is not particularly clear, nor is it very important. "Dream Man" is not less difficult to make than any foreign TV realism film, but many people do not understand this difficulty, do not understand the production of this film and other films are different. In this case, we use the funds, we are required to make the way and the production cycle and other domestic films are not much different. So it is when you make some difficult problems or you ask for higher time, others will say: "Is also CCTV's film, how other films can be, to you here will not become AH?" How can you bother ah, repeatedly modified. "Others will say:" The money is like this, you can not do so complicated ah. "," You do too complicated, processing companies have difficulty. You're not going to do anything simple? Do you have to make a cake for steamed bread? "That's a lot of words. Now I have become the famous in the animation circle demanding complex, strict director, as if to praise you, in fact, some feel that you are very wrong. One of the pressures I have made in "dream Man" is that many people don't understand the requirements of the film.

Although there is a realistic reference, but the scene design of realistic films than other types of animation more difficult to complete, because the scene is real, is touched on the real life in every aspect. Li Mengling come out from home, what is the doorway like? What's the turn when you're down the stairs? On the street, how many people in the street, what kind of car? These are all based on reality, it is not an illusory cartoon, it is reflected in a very real real life of the picture, including the light to be very careful, morning, the sun in which angle, the formation of light and shade is what, their home is which direction ... Wait a minute. Therefore, Li Mengling's home must have a plan, and is south, and to speculate about the different time, the chair, the figure is how to project. But our background designers in the past design has no sense of direction and the concept of light, are all in the painting stage light, where the surrounding is empty or where all is dark. Some designers say there is no need to pay attention to light, and that there are many American cartoons like this. Yes, but in American cartoons, it is precisely because they are in pursuit of the center of Light and the effect of stage plays. But our "Dreamer" is not expressed in the form of a stage play. Domestic films rarely consider this problem, which causes our staff-whether it is the picture of the shooting, the painting of the draft, painting the original painting, animation or repair type are ignored the problem, no one to consider how the real light should be projected.

The

    Dreamer is a program that produces films in accordance with the way conventional television programs are processed. This method of production is more suitable for the style of the movement of more popular films, but not very suitable for "dream people", so brought a lot of problems. In the early days, we had a director in charge of art design, there were writers, but there was no real group, there was no fixed set of office to open a seminar. And in the interim unified the original painting style of the company has become the most headaches, I do not have time for each company's original picture unified meeting, are written a literal request, by the company to bring their own films to tell them. But some people don't really look at this. They have been working for many years and think they are capable, and they are not easy to listen to and change. Some companies of the original painting just finished the action more exaggerated deformation of the animation program, the program requirements is a person in the speech can never stop to keep moving. He received the "dream" of the original painting, but also maintained that style, as long as a picture of the painting to shake his head, as if ADHD. When I checked, I would ask you to delete the extra action, and he asked you how CCTV was doing it. Why is he asking so much? I am going to explain that my film is different from that, to say n times before can change ... But if we can form a large-scale production group, put 20 of the original paintings are concentrated in a place to paint, so that his thinking only to the style of the film, for a period of time only to do this film does not do other processing, it will not appear this problem. The same type of repair, because it is the repair of each company's own type, so now after the film out there are some of the style is not unified place. I think making a film like "Dream Man" is a unique one, and there should be a special production group for a long time.

There is no particularly effective way to do this, but to reiterate the request and to review and revise it repeatedly. The causes of these problems are manifold, one of the most important reason is that our practitioners in the processing experience in a lot of processing can be said to belong to the more popular foreign processing films, these processing pieces of the requirements are very routine, no personality and creativity. Of course, I'm not saying that the bulk of the processing is not good, but if the long-term production of such things make many people lose their ability to think. This is not a human problem, it is the inevitable result of pure processing industry, and the whole animation group does not seem to be aware of this problem. Our production (mid-term) participants for the annual processing of cartoons abroad, have their rich experience, the domestic animation production has a certain driving role, but they are more suitable for the production of large-scale conventional programs, because the processing of foreign cartoons are also a lot of this category; they're not very comfortable with a program that has special requirements. More unsuitable for fine processing. The improvement of domestic cartoon production level must be improved with the requirement of every new project creation task that is constantly in contact with each other.

After the "dream" of the production, I think the Chinese animation program, from the comic adaptation of the development of animation program is still a lot of space. And with the common development of comics and animation, there will be more choice of subject matter and more cooperation in many ways.