Initial thoughts on the graduation film

At the beginning of this year, my grandfather passed away due to illness. Most of my childhood time I spent with him and grandma. He is also the person that helped me build my interests in art.

I had a very painful two months after it happened.

As the production of my final animation, which was supposed to be on schedule, was put on hold for at least two months. Because I couldn’t get motivated to work, I skipped a few weeks’ lectures, I had to travel and went out with friends to escape the reality that I had to face, then I totally didn’t draw anything during the time, except for deadlines that forced me to make some progress.

I went to a quiet place in Norway alone to heal, and observed the whales. This is like a field trip. And then I kinda found out the film I wanted to do. And made a draft structure on the train to the airport before I went back to London.

At the end of February I tried to get my act together and started to produce at least something. I tried to write several scripts, but was not very happy with all of them. After much revision, I finally settled on the film I wanted to make. This film is actually dedicated to my grandfather. The whale that appears in the film and leaves the human world with the element of life is his incarnation.

For the best visual effect I can make, I have forgone a deeper interpretation of the storyline. I just wanted to convey my emotions more through the overall aesthetics of the graphics.

And it was probably the only animation I could make without being distracted for half a year by other things and using my own style completely. So I didn’t want to think about whether my style would be too complicated and thus increase the workload, but just wanted to challenge myself for once.

PUPARIA and PRINCESS MONONOKE inspired me and I think my style somewhat has the same vibes to these two films, PUPARIA is an animation about insect pupae with no storyline and no dialogue, but there is a unique grotesque aesthetic with messages about insects. And PRINCESS MONONOKE hints at a confrontation between nature and human, poignant and thought-provoking.

Perhaps a little clichéd, this time I wanted to do an adventure story that I’ve fantasised about many times. Because there are so many main characters and its world view is huge, a short film would not necessarily be able to tell a full story of a grand scale. So at first I wanted to make it into an animated trailer that would provide suspense and leave the audience wanting to know the full story after watching the short.

And if companies from animation industry see the film, I hope it will give them an initial idea of what I can do: I could do environment design & character design, I understand the basic laws of animation, I have studied some camera language and post-production of films.

But anyway, now the only thing I want to do is give it my best shot to finish it. And enjoy the process of making my own film. The future is still long and this is just the beginning. :]