The Chinese team behind "Love Dead Machine": The effects you admire are all drawn by them

It is precisely because of Tim Miller's matchmaking

More than a dozen designers of Tianhe Yan Studio are

The third season of "Love, Death, Robot" is completed

The concept design of the two episodes of "Bad Travel" and "Worm Group"

This means the first time Chinese animators

In the front -end design field of world -class animation projects

Stir up the beam

Around 2015, director Tim Miller accidentally "fish" on the Internet. The picture is painted with a pointed ears with a bow and arrow in the hand, and the yellow mucus flows on the trunk behind the elves. He was moving with this picture. This exquisite style of painting is exactly what Tim Miller wants to convey in his movie. He began to look for the author of this painting.

Soon after, Beijing Tianhe Say Studio received a cooperation invitation from the United States. At the beginning, they hadn't responded to who was the person who sent him a message. After a while, the other party was the director of "Deadpool" and the famous Tim Miller.

On May 20, 2022, the science fiction animation drama "Love, Death, Robot" produced by Netflix was officially launched in the third season. Get high scores. In this short film series, the two short films of "Bad Travel" and "insects" are particularly noticeable. The former is the first animated film directed by well -known film director David Vinci in 40 years, while the latter is Tim Miller The works of his works are also the producers and behind the scenes of the series of "Love, Death, Robot" series.

It is precisely because of Tim Miller's matchmaking that more than a dozen designers of Tianhe Yan Studio completed the concept design of two episodes of "Love, Death, Robotics" in the third season of "Love, Death, and Robotics". This means that the Chinese animators first provoked the beams in the field of the front -end design of the world -class animation project in the form of a team. In addition, in the design of the "Gibaro" episode with the most visual effects in this series, there are also Chinese artists Ma Liang and Ling Yun's participation.

Help the "big guidance" realize the people who conceive

Seven years ago, the "cool" science fiction animation such as "Love, Death, Robot" was just a vague idea in Tim Miller's brain. At that time, he was most concerned about the Deadpool 2. He began to invite Tian He Yan Studio to participate in some of the work in "Deadpool 2". Later, although "Deadpool 2" was completed by other directors, the cooperation between the studio and Tim Miller continued. Since then, in Tim Miller's studio Blur Studio's "Hedgehog Sonic" and "Love, Death, Robotics" in the second season of "Love, Death, Robotics", Tianhe San Studio also participated in the work of conceptual design. They can participate in the basis of the conceptual design work in the third quarter of "Love, Death, and Robotics".

Tian He Yan Studio made in "Love, Death, Robot".

"Concept Design" is an emerging industry with the development of the film industry. It requires designers to have a full understanding of the world view, plot and settings of movies, animation, and then draw detailed and exquisite characters according to the needs of the script and director. , Instrument, transportation, and conceptual chart of scenes. For example, the exquisite spacecraft and space stations in the "Star Wars" series, the image of a soldier wearing armor, dazzling weapons, the construction of these images is inseparable from the efforts of the concept designer. Because of the most important role in the establishment of an animation image, the concept design belongs to the "front -end" design field in the animation industry. The in -depth participation of the design was only regarded by the industry as a huge breakthrough in Chinese animators.

In the process of multiple cooperation, Tim Miller confirmed that these Chinese designers were good partners who could help him realize his mind. In the third season of "Love, Death, Robotics", "Worm Group" is his own work. In this short ten -page original story, humans, aliens "investors" and low biological forms The "insects" have developed from cooperation and survival from cooperation to fighting. There are different life groups in the novel settings, which can satisfy the animation that can satisfy the "ease" and "dangerous sense" he wants. Tim Miller naturally put forward high requirements for the design of this animation. There is a huge spacecraft in "Worm Group". At the beginning, Chinese designers provided 3 original paintings with key frames. Tim Miller chose one of the prototypes of the spacecraft. Since then The space of the cargo cabin is also painted, because according to the plot, the alien "investor" using the spacecraft likes to trade. Subsequently, the designers provided a number of sketches on the cargo compartment of the spacecraft. After determining the plan, 3D sketches were made. The director determined the structural details and finally completed the final design draft and renderings of the spacecraft.

Tian He Yan Studio drawn some of the drafts drawn by the episode of "Love, Death, Robot" in the third season of "Love, Death, Robot".

"Bad Travel" is the friend of Tim Miller, the director of David Vinci, the director of "Fighting Club" for more than 40 years. Essence Vinci fancy the original novel of the script 15 years ago, telling the story of a crew fighting with the monster and the crew contaminated with his opinions, and survived by a life in the escape. He likes the tone of this "all wicked", and even hangs the preliminary concept map of this work in his studio for many years, but has never had the opportunity to really try to land. In the original novel, the name of the monster is "Death and Beast". Its appearance is simply described as a "black big head" with ten legs. The Chinese team. It happened when the painting was from the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020, and the new crown epidemic was just beginning. The team designed this monster as a big crab with a scorpion tail and was inspired by the coronary virus, and the front thorns were designed on it. The face of "Cancer Monster" is designed with mimic mode. There are many large pits on the face and a false eye. It looks terrible and impressive. The designer was very satisfied with his work, and Vinci also fancy this design.

Because of the previous cooperation experience in other movies, in the third season of "Love, Death, Robotics", Tianhe San studio and overseas teams no longer need to run well. During the cooperation process, they did not pass a call, and most of the time sent email communication every day. The designers will be sent to the United States after drawing a well -known style picture. Generally, they will provide a few more styles of works for the other party to choose from, and then go to see if they need to modify. In the "Bad Travel", the retro -style ship, the designers drew more than 20 versions, and in order to make "Worms", there were about 140 official drawing to the United States.

In the process, they mainly bear the pressure from the construction period, especially Tim Miller's team has high requirements for efficiency. The film "Bad Travel" is 19 minutes long, and the content needs to be designed with a lot. It takes 3 to 4 months to finish its concept design, while "Worm Group" is faster. More than a month.

Not yet entering the "output worldview" stage

"Love, Death, Robotics" in the third season of "Bad Travel" has a score on the IMDB of overseas authoritative movie websites. The ability of Chinese designers has begun to be seen by overseas netizens.

Tian He Yan Studio produced by the third season of "Love, Death, Robot".

But such cooperation also has regrets. Although this depth participation is a big step for Chinese animators, they still have not arrived at the core position of the creation of animation film -director and screenwriter. Because the two sides are cooperative relationships, the script and some needs have long been set. Taking the character design in "Worm Group", the skin color of the protagonist is actually defined for a long time. Chinese designers will not treat these at the beginning. Details that stipulate good details cannot impose Chinese elements in them. What they do is to effectively present the settings in the script.

Looking back on this cooperation, Jin Xiaoyi, the person in charge of Tian He Yan, felt that it was not difficult to cooperate with these international "big guides", because the designers of their team grew up watching the Western science fiction movies and anime. They were popular The worldview system of science fiction and fantasy in culture has been established for many years. Designers around the world have talked about Marvel, DC, Disney, Pixar or Harry Potter, and the ring king. What. However, making a "animation universe" that belongs to the Chinese people must also develop local characteristics in aesthetics, but it is more challenging for designers.

"For foreign directors, these tasks are equivalent to adding content in the existing creative tradition, and it is naturally simple." Jin Xiaoyu explained to China News Weekly that it is not easy to do in China's own animation films, and it is not easy to do, and it is difficult to do. Not because of the poor ability of Chinese designers. In the fields of special effects, the level of Chinese people is already international, but there are still not enough experience in shaping the worldview. In order to find the Chinese characteristics they need, designers need to spend a lot of time to read and collect. When designing the conceptual design of the movie "Dragon Searching" directed by Ur Shan, the designers of Tianhe Say Studio once visited the Museum in Inner Mongolia with the crew, went to many tombs to "explore the cave", and even went to Beijing to go to Beijing. Thirteen Tombs look for inspiration.

The difficulty of Chinese animators "goes to the sea"

Tianhe Yan Studio's team prototype was established in 2014. They are not a typical animation studio. The main work is to do conceptual design. There are many fields that can be applied. For example, movies or advertisements and games need to design concept maps. Today, this studio is already the "great god" in the field of conceptual design. Although the scale is not large, there are currently only a dozen designers.

These designers do not like to express themselves, even on Weibo, they are just exposed to various exquisite creations. They have full confidence in their own abilities. The studio rarely "996" like other design companies. The partner Jin Xiaoyu said with a smile that if the quality of the handouts handed out is hard enough, others need to pass 100 sheets to pass and they need to pay ten to ten. A few, naturally don't use "996". The problem of a headache now is how to recruit suitable talents, and how can we flow back from the industry. Tian He Yan Studio's "going to the sea" is a successful case of Chinese and foreign animation cooperation in recent years, especially the rare cases of cooperation with European and American companies. Although it was a century -old birth of Chinese animation in 2022, Chinese animators "went to sea" began very late, and there were few cases of real success. In 1985, with the establishment of Shenzhen Emerald Animation Company, China began to set up its own animation production company. A few years later, more animation studios began to appear in Shenzhen, Suzhou and other places. The work of work processing is basically the painting of the artist, and there is no creative decision -making power. This state lasted until the beginning of the 21st century. Although China has developed into a foundry country in these two or three decades and slowly produced its own animation products, the international cooperation of Chinese animation has stagnated.

In 2008, the "Kung Fu Panda" produced by the DreamWorks animation became the first box office animated film in the Mainland. It successfully brought Chinese elements to the world, allowing China to see the hope of learning through cooperative learning experience, and also made the United States see it. In the Chinese animation market, both sides have cooperation intentions. In 2012, in order to create "Kung Fu Panda 3", Shanghai's Chinese Cultural Industry Investment Fund and the American Dream Workshop Animation established a joint venture "Oriental Dream Factory". However, the box office of "Kung Fu Panda 3" in 2016 did not meet the expectations, and the functions of Chinese played in them are more inclined to invest in management and derivative development, and have not learned too much content creative experience. In 2018, the United States sold its shares in the "Oriental Dream Factory", and the cooperation between the two parties declared failed.

Relying on cooperation cannot improve the quality of the original animation, and change of destiny still depends on the work itself. In July 2018, after the 65th episode of the Japanese animation "Naruto" sequel "Bo Ren Biography" was broadcast, people found that Chinese young director Huang Chengxi served as a "painting supervision", that is, the director's post, and also became the Chinese animation overseas animation overseas animation A major breakthrough in the film. Huang Chengxi got the opportunity to be promoted to the director after he painted the original painting for two years in Japan. Some netizens have taken stock of more than a dozen well -known Chinese painters from the famous Blizzard Game Company. The first painter Wang Wei, the first painter, was the only Chinese painter in the core team of "World of Warcraft". He designed the live CG movie "World of Warcraft" In a large number of characters, he also came to work in the United States for more than ten years because of Blizzard.

In 2021, Wang Wei founded the IP Creative Studio Imagendary Studios. It gathered a large number of top designers. The science fiction works are the direction of their future focus and the popular theme of the international animation industry. With the successful cooperation such as "Love, Death, Robotics" and "World of Warcraft", coupled with the increasingly popular science fiction works of Chinese writers in overseas. Perhaps, the future of Chinese animation will be smoother than before.

Send 2022.7.11 Total Issue 1051 "China News Weekly" magazine

Magazine title: The Chinese team behind "Love Dead Machine"

Reporter: Qiu Guangyu ([email protected])

Edit: Yang Shizhen

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