Indie animated feature YEAR OF THE FISH will have a limited U.S. release in August and October, including screenings in New York, San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland and San Antonio.
Writer and director David Kaplan shot this Cinderella story entirely in New York City's Chinatown, premiering the film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.
A modern-day adaptation of Cinderella based on an old Chinese version of the story, it was shot on inexpensive live-action video that was used as a guide for digital painting in post-production.
Kaplan's screenplay is based on a 9th Century Chinese variant of the folk-tale, the oldest known version of the story, recorded some 800 years before the better-known European versions. It was developed at the Sundance Screenwriters and Directors Labs and was the recipient of a 2005 Annenberg Fellowship.
The animation was created with an advanced algorithmic digital painting technology to achieve a living, fluctuating painterly look. The aesthetic effect is unique, less like a graphic novel and more like a painting brought to life.
The story is a mix of fantasy, romance, and suspense. A young hopeful girl named Ye Xian (An Nguyen) travels alone to New York City to try to make some money for her ailing father back home in China. She falls into the clutches of Mrs. Su (Tsai Chin), who runs a massage parlor in the heart of Chinatown. But Ye Xian refuses to do the requisite sex work for the clients, so she is made into a menial servant who must do all the laundry, cleaning, shopping and cooking -- a Cinderella.
However, she finds solace in a magical fish given to her by the strange hunchback Auntie Yaga (Randall Duk Kim) and in her fleeting, tender encounters with Johnny (Ken Leung), a local jazz musician. With a crescendo that takes place at the height of the Chinese New Year -- complete with lion dancers, firecrackers, and an enormous banquet in a palatial Chinatown restaurant -- YEAR OF THE FISH spins the conventions of the traditional fairy tale in ways that are consistently surprising and engaging.
The film features an Asian ensemble cast including Tsai Chin (THE JOY LUCK CLUB), acclaimed Broadway veteran Randall Duk Kim (THE MATRIX RELOADED), Ken Leung (X-MEN 3, RUSH HOUR) and introduces An Nguyen as Ye Xian. It was exec produced by Janet Yang (THE JOY LUCK CLUB, PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT) and produced by Rocco Caruso (JUDY BERLIN).
YEAR OF THE FISH is the debut feature film of Kaplan, a New York-based filmmaker who has made several award-winning short films based on folklore and fairy tales, most notably LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD, starring Christina Ricci.
Once the shooting and live-action editing were completed in the summer of 2005, the animation of YEAR OF THE FISH began. Following in the footsteps of Richard Linklater's WAKING LIFE and SCANNER DARKLY, the production was shot and edited on miniDV and then rotoscoped in post production to create a HD animated feature film.
Kaplan's film, however, has a very different aesthetic than his rotoscoping precursors, less like the flat colors and clean lines of a graphic novel and more like a living, breathing painting brought to life. Some shots resemble watercolors; others look like oil paintings. The colors move and dance and spill into each other.
Using an advanced algorithmic digital painting software based on cognitive neuroscience studies into the nature of human visual perception, Kaplan and his small group of part-time assistants were able to work quickly and efficiently, doing with 3 people what would normally employ 40 full-time animators. A single miniDV live-action frame was upconverted to a high-definition painted frame, and that one frame was interpolated into a technique for converting an entire shot. After rendering these shots, Kaplan and his team were able to go back and refine the images frame by frame, add particle effects, and hand-paint details. This entire animation process was achieved on four Macintosh G5 computers and two Wacom tablets, and took six months.
Kaplan was also able to sample the color palettes from some of his favorite artists, such as Van Gogh, Brueghel, and in particular, Cezanne, and then incorporate these palettes into the animation. This gave the overall color scheme a richness and depth unusual to animated fare.The result is a unique approach to the independent filmmaking process, allowing Kaplan to transcend the aesthetic limitations of a "video look" while retaining the creative advantages and flexibility of working at a low budget level.
YEAR OF THE FISH will be shown at the following U.S. locations:
August 20, 2008:--Angelika Theater, New York, New York--Kabuki Theater, San Francisco, California--Shattuck Theater, Berkeley, California
October 10, 2008:--Hollywood Theater, Portland, Oregon
October 17, 2008:--Bijou at Crossroads, San Antonio, Texas
Go to www.yearofthefish.com for more details.
