"The influence of my work can't catch up with the stars and a half of Othello's work!" Japanese animation master Takahata Once Said This. The colleague he admired immensely was the French director Michel Ocelot.
Michelle Oslow at the audience panel. Courtesy of the Consulate of France in Shanghai
Recently, Oslo, who is famous for animated films such as Kirikou et la sorcière, Princes et princesses, Azur et Asmar, and Les contes de la nuit (The Story in the Night), came to Shanghai and brought his new film Ivan Tsarévitch et la Princesse Changeante）。
"Prince Ivan and the Princess" is the same as O's previous works" The Prince and the Princess and "The Story under the Night", and it is also a collection of short films, which are still connected by three storytellers in the empty cinema at night.
A collection of short films, Tales of the Night shows what Oslow is best at.
The 73-year-old Michelle Oslow's hair has fallen in half, and the rest is snow-white, but when he talks about animation, your focus will only fall on his eyes, and the innocence and joy of belonging to the child overflow, even if it is talking about the past life experience that did not go well.
"When I created my first 'Girl and Monster' many years ago, I was at the trough of my life, and everything was very unsatisfactory, and I might even choose suicide, murder or drug use. Fortunately, I didn't do that and started writing. From this story, you can see my despair, and you can see my hope. When I finished writing this script, the problems in my life were still there, but I seemed to be able to look at them from another angle, and I felt a lot better. Like the girl in the story, she became daring to face the monster. ”
Including "Girls and Monsters", "Prince Ivan and the Princess of Change" is made up of four short stories. As before, Oslo still hates to spend too much time on the title of the film, and directly uses the protagonist of the fourth story as the title of the whole film. Yes, it's another story of a prince and a princess, who says he's obsessed with it because "they are the ideal embodiment of both men and women."
The Gothic style of The Legend of the Poor Hunchback is reminiscent of the illustrations in the 14th-century Biography of St. Denis.
Similar to his past stories, the plot of this new film still has a little dark color, but it does not show the true nature of goodness and beauty, Othello said, this is because he regards fairy tales as his language, so the unconfident girls in the film, the bullied sailors and cats, the young people who are forced to learn witchcraft and the princess who will become terrible monsters have finally reaped happiness.
In addition to the thunderous reunion ending, Othello's optimism is also reflected in the problem of money that independent filmmakers have the most headache. Although in interviews with the media and in the post-screening of "Prince Ivan and the Princess of Change", he mentioned the embarrassment of funds many times: because he had no money, he thought of using silhouettes; because he had no money, he could only waste it; because he had no money, he could not make new films in 3D completely.
At the end, he would always add: "I have gained happiness in the process, and the result has made me very satisfied." It was as if "no money" was not only not a resistance, but a catalyst for his creation.
However, "no money" only achieves stylistic uniqueness, and in his opinion, the most important reason why his works can impress people is that they contain sincerity. Not only from the works, but also the Audience in Shanghai had the privilege of witnessing the heart of an independent animator in a retrospective introduction to his animation career after the film screening. The following is a transcript of Michelle Oslow's self-description.
【Michelle Oslow's statement】
"Cartoons without animation"
The debut novel "The Three Inventors", which was completed only by scissors and white paper.
My first work was the short film Les trois inventeurs, and I wanted to announce my existence to the world and show that I was a very talented person. So I tried my best to make this work, but the world didn't see me because of it. After that, I started a wonderful experience as an unemployed person.
Back to The Three Inventors, I wanted to make a very beautiful short film, but it was a serious theme. When you watch this work, you can actually understand the production process: it is very simple, only need to use scissors and white paper, I call this "animation without animation". But it was not easy to do it well, and then I spent a long time perfecting it.
Oslo called The Three Inventors "an animated film without animation."
After The Three Inventors, I wanted to try to make more elaborate animations, and I had La légende du pauvre bossu (Legend of the Poor Hunchback). The short film tells the story of a poor hunchback who wants to court a princess but is treated unfairly. Its picture color is very single, there is no dialogue, but it was nominated for the César Award, and the other two shortlisted short films were much more complicated to produce and much more expensive, but in the end, it was "The Legend of the Poor Hunchback" that won the César Award, perhaps because the story is very moving.
Oslo's hand-painted 4 Wishes.
I then painted thousands of hand-drawn drawings for the short film Les quatre voeux du vilain et de sa femme, which tells the story of a farmer meeting Saint-Martin. I'm also going to make a sequel, and you'll probably see it in a few years, and the plot design will be very bold.
Can be used to "silhouette" at the end of life
It was after completing 4 Wishes that I discovered a new way to animate, which is what you Chinese call "silhouettes". I used this method because I was very poor at the time, and this method was particularly cheap to use. At the same time, I got a lot of fun out of it and was happy with the production effect. This approach makes the work appear pure and at the same time very stylized.
Since then, silhouette has become my most commonly used method, even if I have been more successful now, but sometimes I will encounter problems with funds, for example, sometimes get a budget, with the usual way of animation, it is barely possible to complete, but with silhouettes, it may be possible to make two, so I think I will use the end of my life.
However, sometimes silhouettes have limitations, and it's time to think of something else, such as the short film Cruel Queen (included in The Prince and Princess). It's based on an ancient fairy tale that resembles Turandot, but I adapted it into a science fiction film in which the queen would use radar to track her suitors and kill them if found before sunset.
I wish the radar could rotate 360 degrees, but that couldn't be done with paper, because the paper was flat and couldn't be turned at an angle. Fortunately, we found a bottle in the trash can, which has two bottoms, one of which is relatively round. We cut it out and painted it black for radar so we could turn it around.
Bottles picked up from the trash can turned into the Queen's radar.
This is the fun of doing animation, you inevitably encounter a little difficulty, you have to use your brain, from the material around you to solve, rather than from a long distance to ask some experts to help.
Let me give you another example, in the story about Japan, "The Old Lady's Coat" (later included in "The Prince and the Princess"), there is a picture of smoke surrounding Mt. Fuji, how can this be represented by animation? I picked up a translucent garbage bag on the street, then put it in front of the camera, pulling it a little bit, as if the smoke was gradually dissipating and Mount Fuji showed its full picture. I've been using this method ever since.
Garbage bags picked up on the street can show the scene of the fog dissipating next to Mt. Fuji.
Either listen to me or stop shooting
After that, it was time for "Twitter Adventures" that changed my destiny. My career is bounded by this film, which can be divided into two parts, and before it was born, my living conditions were always relatively difficult, and I could only make some short films; from this film, I became famous.
The success of The Adventures of Twitter made Oslo famous.
However, there was a lot of resistance in making this film, and the producers almost completely criticized and dismissed me. This work was done for four years, and every day of the four years I was rebelling against him. What he objected to most was that there were a lot of nude and semi-nude characters in it, but children could not be born in shorts. I spent my childhood in Africa, and I was under the impression that Africans were beautiful, and that they lived peacefully and were not afraid to show their bodies.
Before the premiere of the film, many people told me that I would bankrupt my producers and that the film would be banned forever. But after the film came out, it was understood by everyone and was a great success, not only in France, but also in the world.
After Twitter Adventures, my life went relatively smoothly, and everyone became fond of me, including the bankers. So I wanted to try some techniques that were a little more "expensive" than just silhouettes, like CG and 3D.
I started experimenting with animating with computers because I found it to be a great tool to use. The first silhouette animation I started doing was to use a black silhouette figure in front of a bright background. In order for light to pass through the paper as a background, it can only be depicted in watercolor, because other painting methods such as gouache cannot transmit light. Of course, I can't do some material pasting on the background.
If I do it with a computer now, I can use PS to solve these problems. I can create more freely, I can paste with all kinds of materials, and the background transformation is like magic. The background of the silhouette animation "Prince Ivan and the Princess of Change" that everyone saw was also done by computer, but compared with the past with scissors and paper, the speed of animation with computers did not become faster.
In Azul and Asmal, Oslo reveals the beauty of the two different civilizations of the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
I tried to make characters in 3D again when I was making Azur et Asmar, and the background was still 2D. But I want the characters to still look like they've been created, and in my opinion, an image that's too close to reality is boring.
Azur and Asmal is associated with a legend that blue eyes bring bad luck. The story begins on the northern side of the Mediterranean, where Azul has a nursing mother whose son Asmal is his playmate, after which his father drives the two away. Twenty years later, Azul rediscovered the nursing mother and Asmal in the south of the Mediterranean, but their status was reversed.
Oslo uses bilingualism in Azul and Asmal because the film is meant to show the clash of two cultures.
When I made this film, I spoke both French and Arabic. At the time, I was warned: bilingual movies definitely don't sell well. But I made it clear that I had to use bilingualism, because the film was about the clash of two cultures.
Later, someone suggested: if you want to use bilingualism, then add subtitles, but I still said: "No, you can't add subtitles." Thus began a tug-of-war between the two sides.
Fortunately, the success of "Twitter Adventures" gave me confidence, and I insisted on either bilingual without subtitles or simply not shooting, and finally achieved my wish.
1900, the best time in Paris
Finally, I'll talk about the new film I'm working on, Dilili à Paris, which will premiere at next year's Cannes Film Festival and then be released in France in October.
This new film must use 3D, because the story takes place in Paris in 1900. Many of them, dressed in elaborate mop dresses, hats decorated with feathers and ornate jewelry, walked swaying, and many beautiful carriages and cars of the time walked through the streets of Paris, which could not be expressed if only flat silhouettes were used.
The background is still made of 2D, there will be some hand-drawn, and many photographs will be used - because Paris was very beautiful at that time, I decided that some of the pictures would be presented directly in photographs, of course, the choice of photos must also take into account the effect of 3D.
"Di Li Li in Paris", which will premiere at next year's Cannes Film Festival.
The protagonist of the film is a little girl, and another important character is a boy on a tricycle who meets on the Montmartre Heights, and other characters include The Impressionist painter Laudreck, whom I personally like, and his friends. One of the most wonderful scenes is of three people riding a tricycle down the steps of the highlands and finally stopping in front of the Irish and American Bar.
Then there's a great picture of a little girl making headlines in the newspaper after catching two bad guys. Since journalism was in its infancy, you would see well-dressed men and women in front of the Paris Opera Square holding a newspaper, mixed with the shouts of newspaper boys. While the little girl and her friend were standing on the balcony witnessing everything in the square, they turned and entered the interior of the opera house decorated with ornate chandeliers and painted domes.
I didn't have enough money to make the film completely in 3D, and I thought I wouldn't have to run into any more money difficulties, but in the end I couldn't get away with the money problem. I tried to raise costs like a young man, but it didn't matter, I just continued with my methods. Anyway, I used to do something 2D, after all, it was out of love for hand-made that I entered the world of animation, if I had grown up with the computer, I probably wouldn't have chosen animation.
On the other hand, if you use 3D to do it, you have to add new content to do it all, which is very cumbersome; 2D is much simpler, whether it is a beautiful lady or a handsome gentleman, I can draw how I want, and the transition between pictures is actually the same as I used to do silhouette animation.
In my film project, there is also a Chinese story called "The Dream Lover". I do a lot of data gathering, because I hope that when I tell this story in animation, it will be very Chinese and will not change.