ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.8 - NOVEMBER 2000

A Lessening Dichotomy: China
(continued from page 1)

Using Maya at the Shanghai Film Studio. Photo courtesy of Frank Gladstone.

The following day, we traveled to Shanghai, perhaps the most cosmopolitan city in China. There, we visited the Shanghai Film Studio and were given a tour by the studio president, Zhu Yongde, and the director of operations, Eddie Lee. The Shanghai operation, while also tacitly supported by the government, has taken a very aggressive attitude toward digital production. Beginning in March of 1999, the studio prepared offices, bought and installed equipment (somewhere close to seventy workstations, a data center, film recorder and very extensive motion-capture stage) and software (Maya and Lightwave technologies), trained their crew and began producing 22 episodes of animation for television. Presently, they are in the midst of another series and are producing special effects for commercials and feature films as well. At the time we visited, they had just completed about nine minutes of digital work for a China-produced action-adventure film called Crash Landing. Their reel, especially for a studio so new, is impressive.

Frank Gladstone helping to illustrate the facial capture set up at the Shanghai Film Studio. Photo courtesy of Frank Gladstone.

Shanghai, perhaps because of its more entrepreneurial history, its worldly, mercantile flavor, has generally a more aggressive outlook toward progress, driven, of course, by very ambitious studio leadership. What they have done in so short a time is remarkable, yet they too want to learn all they can, realizing, like their peers in Beijing, that they are really still in the midst of the training curve.

And they are quick to respond. We arrived a bit off the cuff, as the studio only learned we were coming the day before (which was actually the week-end). By the time we had toured the facility and were ushered into a room to look at the tape of DreamWorks animation I had brought along, the entire digital studio had been brought in and were waiting for us! It was a pleasure to talk with them.

The Shanghai skyline. Photo courtesy of Frank Gladstone.

Developing A Voice
So, how is animation in China? Well, I certainly cannot claim to know exactly the state of the industry there. I only saw two digital studios and did not have an opportunity to visit any other sites, either traditional or CG based. Even while the Beijing and Shanghai studios continue to grow and expand, other studios are in the works as well.

Nevertheless I did make it a point to stress that while having digital technology was important, it alone was not a "magic-box" that would somehow give China an edge in animation. In fact, I took pains to say that soon technology will be available everywhere (if it is not already) and that China must not only look to its expertise in mastering machines and software, but also find other ways to make their animation stand out from the rest, either in its economy, its mastery or, most importantly, in its ability to put across a story.

China has a long and beautiful narrative tradition and it has a soulful, creative and resourceful population. With the coming of the WTO and favored nation trading status with the United States, China will have even more of an opportunity to act as a contract entity, producing product initiated in other countries. That is all well and good (and something we all must recognize as our business becomes ever more globalized), but, if China really wants to make its mark in animation, I hope they will find a way to be more than contract labor, initiating their own projects designed to bring to the world some of the inventiveness and artistic tradition that is so much a part of the Chinese culture.

 
1 | 2 | 3