As I mentioned in the last journal, I got chance to work with a young director. His name is Qingyuan Cai. He studied animation in China and France and now runs his own studio. Since I expect to produce original animation in the future, I might get inspired by investigating his professional practice.
EDUCATION EXPERIENCE IN GOBELINS
I first got to know him because of his Gobelins graduation film. After graduating from China Academy of Art in 2018, Qingyuan Cai went to Paris for further study, where he received a more systematic animation education and technical training.
In his graduation film COFFIN, he worked as co-director and was in charge of storyboard and background design, generally the pro-production part, which is also my area of interest.
The short film describes an overcrowded and sleepless night in a cramped shared apartment. Cai came up with this idea due to the social problem of housing shortage in big cities. He focused on the depressing living of the underclass. The team wanted to create a sense of realism through the details of the scene design, trying to give each character a real identity.
Concept art
Character Design
Scene Design
Prop design
One of the goals was to create a psychedelic event that would visualize the moments of mental breakdown. It was in this film that Cai’s personalized and surrealistic style began to emerge. He was influenced by Masaki Yuasa and Seoro Oh, and tried to maximize the uniqueness of animation language by using virtual space, exaggerated physical principles and subjective colors.
Color design
In the interview, Cai complained about the teamwork, with everyone playing as a co-director and pulling each other’s strings. He believed that it would better for just one or two people to hold the decision power. However, the production went smoothly after the pre-designs. There were a few shots that required a lot of planning and work, so in the end they decided to make the animation in 8fps, and reduce the use of hand-drawn shadows.
The film was nominated for the 48th Annie Award, won the Beijing Fenacci Award and other reputations. It helped him to get freelance jobs between France and China, and opportunities for future development.
MOMIQIMIO PRODUCTION IN HANGZHOU
Before building up his own team, Cai took a teaching job and received an investment back in China. He rented a flat in the suburbs of Hangzhou, and with his partner, a producer, he founded a studio called “Momiqimo Production”. The name means absurd, unreasonable and kind of odd in Chinese. It reflects his goal is to make something different.
The studio has been producing original animations and commercial animations, such as music video and advertisement. Last year they cooperated with the video website Bilibili in “Capsules Project”. The website’s company provided funding for directors to produce a series, each of them working on an animation episode (just like the mode of Love, Death and Robot). Moniqimio Production presented The Rat. It is a short film revealing the issue of domestic violence. This one shows more refined design and more sophisticated production than his student film. Now, Cai can be insisted on his personal style and take control of his creation.
If the video doesn’t work, please click on the link below:
Cai is one of the talented guys who can start their career from being a director. What I learn from him is the work speaks. Just do your best to make good animation, and send your films to festivals to get as much attention as possible. If you are lucky enough, opportunities will come to you and you can solve the financial problems of starting your own business.