Text | Zhang Xingruo

Few people know that jiaozi, the director of Ne Zha, used to be called Jiao Keli. He once filmed an animated short film "Hit, Hit a Big Watermelon", which was popular all over the network and won more than 30 awards.

After that, although jiaozi has been doing animation, most of the time he is receiving advertisements, outsourcing and saving money for originality. The success of the phenomenal domestic animation "Nezha" is hard-won, which is inseparable from the precipitation of experience and years, and is the result of years of accumulation.

Coincidentally, the director of the Great Protector, Bu Sifan, also directed the animated short film Blackbird, successfully embedded in the animation industry, and slowly grew up to make an explosive masterpiece. This makes people wonder: Is it possible that animated short films are experimental fields for cultivating outstanding young directors?

This speculation is not unreasonable. Relatively speaking, short films are small in size, short in creation cycle and low in cost, which is more suitable for new directors to "practice their hands", try and explore different styles, and collect user feedback in time to guide subsequent creation.

But who will do the animated short film? How? Where to do it? This is a problem that practitioners need to think deeply. A new generation of young directors is born at the right time, and all platforms have pushed support programs, and now a talent experimental field is being rolled out for them.

Recently, animation short films such as Boundaries, Hysteria, Ultimate Experience, and The Way Back, attracted the close attention of animation lovers. These works are hatched by the "Capsule Project", an animation support project of bilibili. They are themed around seven extreme emotions, and have all kinds of styles, such as science fiction, national trends and surrealism. Many netizens regard them as the "China version of Love Crashes".

The core of a sound animation industry chain is still the talent pool of young directors. Compared with the legendary and difficult reproduction of explosive works, it is undoubtedly more exciting for outstanding creators to find a vibrant industrial ecology embedded with opportunities.

Today, although domestic animation has gradually occupied the dominant position in the domestic market, many industrial problems still exist. The first point is that the talent pool is thin and the original confidence is slightly insufficient, which directly restricts the content innovation of domestic animation.

After so many years of shouting about the rise of the country, we do have a solid work and market, but the phenomenon of homogenization of themes is also quite obvious. After The Return of the Great Sage and Nezha became popular, a large number of works told China myths and historical stories. The popularity of animated films such as Legend of Deification New Gods: Nezha Reborn’s Yang Jian was obviously not as good as before, and their word-of-mouth was also polarized.

This is almost a necessity. Because the original content itself is uncertain and the initial investment is large, many novel ideas die without financial support and market attention, which is the invisible hand of the market at work and the choice for investors to avoid risks.

In this way, young animation directors, who lack the opportunity of trial and error, can only create works that conform to the mainstream aesthetics and put their own unconstrained brain holes on the shelf. The current situation is that young directors need creative freedom, and animation lovers are calling for "wanting to see something new".

Bilibili’s "Capsule Plan" is the echo of the market. The 14 short film animations all have the characteristics of strong creativity, strong resonance and strong empathy, and each work has popular topics for discussion, such as domestic violence, alcoholism, affection and so on, which is thought-provoking.

Most importantly, these short films reflect the director’s distinctive style and unique thinking. Among them, Hysteria and Ultimate Experience, two works, with their unique painting style and perspective, deeply discuss the topic of social pain points, realizing the organic unity of aesthetic value and emotional value.

Hysteria tells the story of a drunken man coming home and fighting with a mouse from the perspective of an alcoholic man, and reflects the theme of domestic violence with metaphor and irony. The film combines the concern for social issues, the depiction of complex human nature and the penetration of universal values, which is worth pondering by the audience.

Cai Yuanqing, director of Hysteria, told Reading Entertainment Jun that when he was studying in the Academy of Fine Arts, he chatted with others and found that his common domestic violence was incredible in the eyes of many friends. Cai yuanqing created hysteria, an animated short film with great humanistic concern, based on his own knowledge and experience.

Similarly, Zhu Qing, the director of Ultimate Experience, often extracts creative materials from the details of life. Last year, his mind came up with a complicated world outlook and the setting of high-tech Taoist priests. In addition, he loved watching live games and thought that different elements could collide into a complete story.

The capsule plan made this "almost impossible" idea successfully land. In the short animation "Ultimate Experience", the audience saw that the protagonist Xiao Kai sold the sensory experience through live broadcast, and was "taken away" because he could not resist his desire, and finally had a bizarre experience with the Cyber Taoist in the process of "exorcism".

Zhu Qing stressed with Reading Entertainment Jun, "I prefer to talk about what I have seen, experienced or are very interested in." For example, the story of Ultimate Experience takes place in a place surrounded by mountains and foggy, and this is "the common weather in Chongqing".

In addition, the national tide of science fiction in Boundaries, the warm affection in Going Home, and the short parents in Guang Chen is just right … all kinds of novel brains and vigorous creative attitude also reflect the thoughts of a new generation of young directors.

Screenshot of "Guang Chen is just right"

In a word, the capsule project is a pioneering experiment of domestic animation, and it is also an important exploration to protect creativity. These contents can not only provide nutrients for the future creation of young animation directors, but also escort the diverse contents of domestic animation.

In recent years, it is clear that there are many support programs for young animation directors, and there are a lot of funds and flows to enter the market. It is clear that young directors themselves have a strong desire to grow, but why is the overall performance mediocre and it is difficult for their works to reach the core audience?

In fact, careful observation will reveal that most of the support programs for young animation directors are relatively simple, focusing only on a certain link of creation, without supporting services. More importantly, any support plan needs to find suitable soil before it can brew the greatest commercial value.

In contrast, the "Capsule Project" itself is highly advanced and diverse, and it has many inherent advantages to take root and sprout in bilibili. We should know that this plan is based on the creation of short films, and it not only incubates and supports talents in the animation field, but also looks to areas such as movies, games, advertisements and so on that may breed animation elites.

In fact, more than one young animation director mentioned that after graduation, they had few opportunities for trial and error, and their innovation and creativity could not be guaranteed, and their enthusiasm slowly faded away. Cai Yuanqing, director of Hysteria, also revealed that he is now facing a similar situation.

Reality makes it so. The birth of the explosion is very accidental. If it is completely in accordance with the market way and the most cost-effective way, the new young director is obviously not the best choice for investors. In this case, short films with light content and natural fit for short video era are undoubtedly a good springboard for them to realize their dreams.

In the view of Zhu Qing, director of Ultimate Experience, making short films is the only way for young directors. After filming a complete work, you can at least understand the production process. Moreover, short films can alleviate the financial pressure of creators, and they can do interesting and interesting things more easily. "The attraction of the capsule project is to give creators freedom to a great extent."

Of course, the creative expression of young directors is important, but good works must be seen, accepted and even condensed into a certain consensus, so as to release the greatest content value and become a real link between animation practitioners and audiences. To do this, it will test the user composition and consumption ecology of the platform.

In a youth community like bilibili, users’ aesthetic diversity and high acceptance are more conducive to the dissemination and infiltration of experimental and pioneering works. The younger generation is happy and good at speaking out for the content of interest, bringing full exposure and exploring new communication points.

Comment area of short film animation "Hysteria"

When the domestic animation "Yuan Long" was launched, the original work was far less than the male-frequency headline. However, the elements of soldier king, son-in-law, and crossing have been played by bilibili users, which has given considerable enthusiasm to the production of the work and pushed it out of the circle to the whole network.

After the "Capsule Project" series of short films were broadcast, the comment area was also very lively, full of works evaluation, plot disassembly, theme discussion and so on. Among them, the open ending of Ultimate Experience aroused the audience’s interest in divergent interpretation, and then collided with more brain holes outside the work, invisibly radiating the work to more audiences.

Short film animation "Ultimate Experience" comment area

Talking about the fantasy drifting of Ultimate Experience, director Zhu Qing analogized that in bilibili, creation is like building a garden. This garden is not simply self-expression, but built on the mountain and born by the water, making all tourists feel interesting and want to stop and watch as much as possible, and the users are tourists.

For a long time, we all think that animation is the children’s content of most people and the circle content of a few people, but now we can really feel that domestic animation has become an important entertainment category that is juxtaposed with drama comprehensive films on all platforms and is becoming the mainstream entertainment form of the whole people.

The all-round rise of domestic animation is inseparable from the changes in the thinking of the whole society, and it is also inseparable from the efforts of the industry itself, constantly seeking content upgrades and establishing a sophisticated and mature full-chain operation ecology. Therefore, discussing the success of an animated short film and a support plan should not only stay in front of us, but also put it into the whole platform ecology to think about its brewing value.

Screenshot of the animated short film Tomato Restaurant

Let’s say that the Capsule Project is actually only a key step for bilibili to support domestic animation, and its ultimate goal is to form a super ecological chain with animation as the core, and all ideas and works can be fully developed and nourished as long as they are involved in the industrial layout ecology of the platform.

This is a true interpretation of long-termism. At last year’s bilibili Guochuang conference, the platform officially launched the "Light Seeking Plan". On the basis of the original "Small Universe Plan", it added a "Capsule Plan" for mature animation production teams and a "Original Stone Plan" for the widest range of animation enthusiasts, aiming at excavating and supporting more domestic animation creators.

Therefore, bilibili’s animation support plan is to build an all-round training system, deeply participate in many links of production and creation, and systematically give help and guidance to animation creators and fans with different attributes.

The douban score of "Capsule Project" is as high as 8.8, and the broadcast volume and discussion degree are still growing, and the outstanding achievements are obvious to all. The performance of "Small Universe Plan" and "Original Stone Plan" is also remarkable. After the launch of "Small Universe Plan", the number of submitted works has exceeded 10 million. At the same time, many outstanding works have successfully signed contracts with bilibili, and the development of animated dramas and films has been completed or is being promoted.

Some works that have been completed or are being promoted by the "Small Universe Plan"

Of course, the smooth progress of these plans cannot be separated from the nourishment of the whole national innovation zone. In 2017, in response to the growing voice of users, bilibili officially established the National Innovation Zone. In November of the same year, the platform made public the "national innovation support plan" for the first time, indicating that it would support domestic animation at all levels from investment, operation and commercial development.

Over the past six years, bilibili has long been one of the largest animation platforms in China, and it has also become a weather vane on the road of domestic animation development. At the press conference of Guochuang in bilibili last year, the official revealed that in the past four years, the cumulative number of people watching bilibili Guochuang’s animation works exceeded 340 million, with a cumulative viewing time of 1.92 billion hours, with an average annual growth rate of 40%.

In the general list of the heat index of Guduo animation, six of the top ten works are from bilibili, and masterpieces such as Life of Immortals, Linglong and Yuan Long are among them. Reading Entertainment Jun thinks that the most imaginative place in bilibili lies in the active PUGV ecology, which means that any type of high-quality animation can find the core audience here, and with the blessing of active users, it can break and expand the circle.

Take "Life of Immortals" as an example, this animation, which was adapted from the top website at the starting point, continued to increase in traffic after it was launched in bilibili, attracting new fans. In this process, "The Return Period" is an animated episode of "Biography of Immortal Cultivation X Qian Runyu" and "Biography of Immortal Cultivation" shows their magical powers. Which Taoist friends Pick? " And other materials bring a lot of attention to the feature film.

Of course, operation and communication are only the speakers of word of mouth, but they can’t create word of mouth, so content is still the most critical. We need our own "Love Crash", and the key node of industrial development needs a timely support and push from the platform. On October 29th, bilibili’s new national innovation conference will come, and the outside world is looking forward to meeting more outstanding works.

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