"Traveling Through Brush and Ink" - Short Film of the Day

Last year, Annlin Chao – an animator currently living in London who grew up in Taiwan, directed a beautiful mixed-medium (but primarily stop motion) video entitled Traveling Through Brush and Ink for the National Palace Museum in Taiwan which was featured in their 2016 annual exhibition. The inspiration and the subject of the piece were four separate landscape paintings from three distinctive eras of Chinese history: the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties.

The four paintings which each scene in the film are based off are:

Emperor Minghuang’s Journey to Shu – Anonymous, Tang dynasty
Travelers Among Mountains and Streams – Fan Kuan (ca. 950-1031), Song dynasty
Ancient Temple in a Mountain Pass – Jia Shigu (fl. 1131-1162), Song dynasty
Autumn Colors on the Ch’iao and Hua Mountains – Chao Meng-fu (1254-1322), Yuan dynasty

The piece opens with a two-dimensional traditionally-animated character – a little modern man – who discovers each of these paintings in a scroll. He is then transported into a stop motion world where each of these landscape paintings are locations through which he begins to travel. The character then begins to, in a way distinct to Chinese artistry with philosophical undertones, transform into many different objects and creatures found in nature (i.e. a fish) through his journey in exploring these paintings, brought to life in three-dimensions. In this 3D world, the character is animated in two-dimensions using laser-cut rapid-prototyping. It’s an interesting concept, both artistically and thematically: that the viewer experiencing a work of art would become two-dimensional like a painting, while the painting itself adopted 3D qualities, becoming the tangible reality.

The idea behind the film, as well, is an interesting choice and one that is somewhat rarely explored in stop motion – art history, specifically of Chinese and Eastern culture.

One of my favorite moments of technical beauty in the film begins at 1:15 into the runtime and lasts for four seconds. In it we see a gorgeous swiveling shot, seemingly around the two-dimensional paper-cutout character as the camera spins around, panning over to a different background, giving the character the illusion of three-dimensions. One of the reasons why I think this moment is so brilliant is that it cannot conceal that the character is only two-dimensional, although (even after watching the moment over several times) the camera and the character within the shot give the illusion that the two-dimensional puppet is in three-dimensions.

The video was posted by the director of the film, Annlin’s, Vimeo page, where you can go to see more of her incredible work. You can also explore her animation on her website, as well as Facebook page.

You can go watch Traveling Through Brush and Ink here, from annlinchao on Vimeo. You can watch the behind-the-scenes film here.

Here are the credits for the film:

Art Director: Pu Chen

Director: Annlin Chao

Composer: Pi Chiu

Color Design : Kuan Hung Chen

Film Editing : Chia-Hung Lin, Ping-Kuei Lin

Scene Design: Ren-Hao Cai, Jia-Jhen Syu

Graphics Design: Chung-Yang Chen

Special Effects: Yo-Cheng Zheng

Lighting Assistant: Chang Wen Liang

Assistant Animation: Lu Chang, Petula Hsiao, Jamie Xuan, Cheng Leo, Hung-Xie Chia, Szu-Yu Tu, Lee Te Yi

Executive Producer: National Palace Museum

Executive: 247Visualart

Production: XXtralab

Note to reader:
If you’re reading this post on the Stop Motion Geek website, you may have noticed a few changes in the design of the blog itself. This past week I began to update the blog in a few ways.

The first of the major changes to the blog was an update to the blog template, which replaced an outdated template to a newer, brighter, and easier-to-navigate page.

The second element updated was the pages on the blog featuring behind-the-scenes content from many famous stop motion films. These pages were consolidated into one, main, behind-the-scenes page instead of the prior several individual pages focusing on one film. The new page features all of the films that were previously given their own pages, as well as a number of newer stop motion films that have been released since 2013. For each film on the page there is a playlist of videos and behind-the-scenes resources such as links to articles and to purchase the making-of books for each given film. I recommend going to check out that page if you haven’t already to see the updates done to it.

The third update I made to the blog was an unfortunate accident: I unknowingly deleted the frequently asked questions page, which was just recently updated. That being said, I’m making attempts to recover the page but with little luck, so I might end up having to rewrite the entire page if I can’t find a hardcopy somewhere. Depending on whether I can recover the old page or not (if anyone can help me with this I would be much obliged), the page will be up again in the next few weeks.

You can stay tuned for the upcoming interviews and articles by subscribing to Stop Motion Geek via the “subscribe” button at the top right corner of our homepage, or by following us on Facebook @StopMotionGeek, or by visiting https://www.facebook.com/StopMotionGeek/. You can also stay up-to-date with the blog by following us on Instagram or @stop.motion.geek.blog.

Comments

Interview with Joseph Wallace, Director and Animator of Psychedelic, Cut-out Stop Motion Music Video for Canadian Artist Parker Bossley's "Chemicals"

Parker Bossley as seen in Chemicals . Photo courtesy of Joseph Wallace. “I think the thing I’ve always found wonderful about cut out animation is that it’s one of the most immediate forms of animation,” muses British stop motion animation director Joseph Wallace – currently based in Bristol, UK, where, in January of this year, he founded the stop motion studio Hangar Puppet Animation Studio – in discussion of the medium he employed in his most recent film – the surreal, psychedelic music video for Canadian artist Parker Bossley’s debut single, Chemicals , which has already won a Vimeo Staff Pick. Perhaps more than anything else – perfectly suiting the film’s subject matter –the style and medium allow to film to transcend to time itself, just as Wallace implies, undoubtedly allowing the film to become just that – immediate. Almost so much so one gets the feeling they’re clawing at air in search for a handle on reality as they fall…along with Bossley – also the film’s protagoni...

Read full article »

Interview with Mark Smith, Director and Writer of Stop Motion Short Film, "Two Balloons"

A still from Two Balloons featuring the character of Elba. Photo courtesy of Mark Smith. As I sit, listening to Peter Broderick’s moving composition for piano More Of A Composition , I close my eyes and envisage an enormous funnel cloud skimming across the crystalline face of an ocean – the skies are murky and unusually dark, lightning crackles, spider-webbing across the darkened skies before then vanishing, and still, after its gone, an electricity continues to hum in the air and I simply know that it’s going to soon strike again. And as the scene presents itself to me, I suddenly feel something similar to what director Mark C. Smith felt when he saw the same image as he sailed to a small island called Grenada along with his wife in a timeworn sailboat. For him, in that moment inspiration struck, and the idea suddenly came to him for his heartfelt stop motion film, Two Balloons . For me, I open my eyes and feel as I did the instant Two Balloons ...

Read full article »

Aardman Co-Founder David Sproxton's Tips for Success in the Animation Industry, Part 2 (of 3): 4 Production Tips

David Sproxton Over the course of Aardman co-founder David Sproxton’s two in-depth interviews with Watershed’s Mark Cosgrove, it becomes blatantly obvious that his easy-to-listen-to, soft-spoken words offer an invaluable resource to animators and filmmakers alike in the way becoming successful in the business of animation. In keeping with the theme of last-week’s article, this week signifies the second post in Stop Motion Geek’s series of articles on advice for animators and filmmakers accrued from Sproxton’s interviews with Cosgrove about the history of Aardman, wittily titled “ Aardocs .” Last week, the elements of Sproxton’s advice that I chose to write about primarily pertained to pre-production, whereas this week I’ve chosen advice of his that pertain primarily to the process of production. His advice – posted below – span everything from importance of knowing your limitations to an excellent way to to build your skill-set as an animator or filmmaker to the value of creati...

Read full article »

Interview with Bram Meindersma, Composer and Sound Designer of Oscar® Nominated Stop Motion Short Film, "Negative Space"

Sam and his father, from Negative Space . Source: Vimeo. Unlike practically every other medium, film has the unique aesthetic of being composed of the elements of sound and image, and, curiously, whenever watching a film, the two blend together into something of an impeccably hybridized concoction. With as much influence as sound has over the audience’s final experience of any given film, composer and sound designer Bram Meindersma’s work on the Oscar-nominated stop motion short film Negative Space – directed by Ru Kuwahata and Max Porter – proves an endlessly fascinating and extraordinary case study, as it uses sound – both its soundtrack as well as every other element of sound design – only sparingly and in subtle ways, one that could almost be called conservative. Yet it is perhaps just that component of its sound design that, at least in part, makes the film such a powerful one. Perhaps the reason why Meindersma’s delicate work on Negative Space is so powerful is i...

Read full article »

Interview with Matt Bollinger, Painter and Animator Behind Stop Motion/Painting Hybrid Short Film "Between the Days," a Beautiful Portrait of Routine, Unfulfillment, and Despair in Middle America

"Before Work" finished painting featured in Between the Days . Photo courtesy of Matt Bollinger. Often – far too often – we forget the true weight of our actions, our everyday decisions, ranging from those big to small. And, in forgetting, we forget ourselves – who we truly are, where we have been, what we have done, how we have gotten here, to this very place in this very moment. For we are nothing if not the sum total of all our decisions, our actions…even the most minute, even those – perhaps especially those – made in the thrumming humdrum of the everyday: the act of rising from our bed and reaching over to flick off the alarm resting on our bedside table, lighting a cigarette, collecting yesterday’s trash before moving on to more, equally menial tasks. Moments spent alone, in ostensible comfort – the comfort provided us by 21st century accoutrements so many of us have grown to take for granted. Whether we are aware of it or not, each of our actions leave a ma...

Read full article »

Interview with Chris Randall, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Second Home Studios

Chris Randall in the Mills & Reeve Innovation 50 list. Source: https://twitter.com/SecondHomeChris/status/904681346060230656 “I came to animation mainly from a point-of-view of blind curiosity,” Chris Randall—the creative director and co-founder of Second Home Studios, a Birmingham, United Kingdom-based, award-winning animation studio—tells Stop Motion Geek. “I’d always loved the medium but never took it seriously, or saw myself with a part to play in it. It wasn’t until after Uni that I realised I basically like tinkering and trying out new things, whilst at the same time telling stories. So, animation is a perfect fit for me.” First founded in 2004, Second Home Studios has garnered multiple BAFTA and Royal Television Society awards and nominations for many of the films in their diverse repertoire of artistic and commissioned projects, encompassing all styles of animation—from stop motion to CGI to 2D—as well as puppetry and mixed-media. In their fourteen-and-counting years...

Read full article »

Interview with Samuel Lewis - Animator, Character Designer, and Sculptor on Stop Motion Short Film, "Lost & Found"

Knotjira, a clumsy dinosaur made of wool, as seen in Lost & Found . Photo courtesy of Andrew Goldsmith. “If I had to pick a starting point for my career as a stop motion animator I would have to say it was my obsession as a six year old with a book called ‘Playing with Plasticine’ by Barbara Reid,” Samuel Lewis – a London-based stop motion and 2D animator and director, whose most recent labor of love can be seen in his contribution to the Australian stop motion short film, Lost & Found – tells Stop Motion Geek. Upon reflection, Lewis explains that his love for the medium of stop motion began very early in life, and has merely managed to burn ever brighter in his fervor to master the craft. “I would spend countless hours fixated on sculpting tiny snails, fruit bowls and dinosaurs to the point where I would stay inside on family holidays sculpting a surfer in a beach scene rather than going to the actual beach that was only a short walk away,” Lewis recalls wistfully. “...

Read full article »

A Screen Novelties Christmas Present, to Us!

I check my email and I see... Property of Screen Novelties This gets an ' ohmygosh ' reaction from me; which doesn't happen every day for one who loves his internet tidbits. Oh, I almost forgot, I have been deprived my internet due to an ice storm that happened last morn, just thought I would throw that in there... For those of you who know me personally, you will notice after watching this [Screen Novelties] is breaking new ground. I have been saying that if Screen Novelties works hard enough they will be the next Laika. I believe in you guys! So anyhow check it out right here: http://screen-novelties.com/greetings-from-krampus/#.UrjRCNJDuuJ Screen Novelties website: http://screen-novelties.com/ "A Krampus Christmas" eCard from Screen Novelties on Vimeo .

Read full article »

Interview with Robert Shaw, Director, Writer, and Co-Animator of Stop Motion Short Film "The Machine"

Parables and allegories, amidst every other kind of story that can be told, have a unique and extraordinarily powerful quality that is all their own: They allow us – the audience – to learn lessons about and to see ourselves, others, and the world in which we live through a completely different lens – that of narrative. The best allegories and parables, in fact, have the unique ability to simultaneously act as conduits for important lessons and to also exist as literal stories, which gives them the unique ability to challenge beliefs and ideas held by the audience in a way that only art can do. Some of the most cherished stories ever composed, illustrated, and put on film are parables and allegories, and what makes them so exceptional are how powerful the lessons are that they teach. The Machine meets The Farmer in The Machine . Photo courtesy of Robert Shaw. Robert Shaw, in his haunting and beautiful stop motion short film The Machine – which he wrote, directed, and co-anim...

Read full article »

Behind the Scenes of "Robocop 2" at Tippett Studios and how "Jurassic Park" Changed Special Effects Forever

A depressingly large percentage of Hollywood movies boast a gratuitous amount of potential and possibility and yet, for one reason or another, often fall far, far too short to live up to the films they seem to have the potential of being. Although it’s a shame that many of these films have a stupendous level of production value and talent but are often often overlooked, as production value and talent are seen as secondary and supplementary to a quality story – the special effects work done on such second-rate films sadly go unrecognized the most often. An immutable fact stands strong – mediocre films, no matter the level of talent and amount of time poured into producing their special effects, are seen and remembered as nothing but wasted potential…or worse. Yet few box office bombs have had special practical effects work as groundbreaking, especially in the stop motion realm, and yet unfortunately remains unrecognized in every respect than the 1990 film Robocop 2 , both an irrefutabl...

Read full article »

Stop Motion Geek

Search This Blog