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Reference board

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/treasur1m/dijiangs-tale/

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Character sketches

First week in pre production. Ive been doing lots sketches for the characters. I mainly focused on the 2 friends characters.

Later during this process, we decided to take inspo from Beijing opera for character design. Especially the face paint. I’ve done some research on that, i’ll post it whenever I feel like. 

also Some tests on Dijiang

Need to finish the background. Looks nice but it’s not there yet. Will need to keep experiment on everything.

Also love the cloud wings design, my new idea from yesterday.

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Schedule for before 16th June

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A very messy story structure

In last week’s meeting, we figured out the big structure of the story. It looks messy because Max wrote it ;) (but we know this very clearly in our heads) Also will make them into simple storyboards soonish.

.   birth of Dijnag through vibration (start with a circle)

.  Dijnag is first formed through sound of nature (at this stage just a babby)

Sound is visualised through gradient waves 

.  Dijnag matures through the sound of music, he becomes an adult after he hears music (show him walking and the world slowly becomes in focus)

. we see other monsters looking through the trees and rocks 

. slowly they follow Dijnag and start 2 join the dancing 

. dance sequence

. the 2 friends notice this, and are intrigued. They invite or kidnap Dijnag for there party 

. party is a formal dinner 

. Dijnag is sitting there confused, a monkey man is poking him with food 2 get him 2 eat 

. plate crashes on ground and sounds like music, dj gets up 

. dj kick another plate to make more music, he starts 2 dance 

. the other gest start 2 dance 

. the 2 friends look jealous, one of the other gusset pull them in to the dance 

. the 2 friends have fun YAAAAAY 

. part sequence 

. next day the 2 friends go 2 see dj with a thank u gift for the party

. they try and feed him but notice he has no face 

. they try 2 mold a face, it don’t work 

.  they try and carve a face, they crack a fce in to dj 

. end with a shot of dj with food stuffed in mouth and cracking open 

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Some more thoughts on the story

When I first read Dijiang’s story, I was quite confused what is the massage. Also, if we are telling this story to the audience, I want the audience to get something out of the story.  

To figure out that, I have done more research on the background of this story.

We found Dijiang from The Classics Of Mountains And Seas, but the story we are telling is from a book of Zhuangzi. 

Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu 莊子 “Master Zhuang” late 4th century BC) is the pivotal figure in Classical Philosophical Daoism. 

After realising the connection between this story with daoism, I started to understand it more. I have read a bit of Daoism classic Daodejing. I agree to Daoism to a certain degree but not fully.  

Taoism (/ˈtaʊ-/), or Daoism (/ˈdaʊɪzəm/), is a philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao (Chinese: 道; pinyin: Dào; lit. 'Way', or Dao). In Taoism the Tao is the source, pattern and substance of everything that exists.[2][3] Taoism teaches about the various disciplines for achieving "perfection" by becoming one with the unplanned rhythms of the universe, called "the way" or "Tao". [2][4] Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize wu wei (action without intention), "naturalness", simplicity, spontaneity and the Three Treasures: 慈, "compassion", 儉, "frugality" and 不敢為天下先, "humility".

I appreciate that Daoism respects the nature or the universe instead of a idolised god. Living in this world, in my life, I have not seen convincing evidence of any god. But I have seen the grandness and the magic of the nature. I believe that the nature should be respected and loved, because it’s the only tangible greater existence I can see, also, our lives depend on it. 

With my shallow understanding of Daoism, and some of my research on the story, combined with my own reflection, I figured out the message of this story. It’s sort of “ Do things your way.” Also it’s kind of a subtle Fk U message to some people that had been in my life before.

In the story, why Dijiang died is not because there are holes in his face but it’s because he has been force to turn into someone else, someone that could breath, eat and hear.

七窍一开即死，正是因为失去了那个浑然如一，而这也是道家老子《道德经》所推崇的是像浑水一样的“沌沌兮”的状态。

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Cinema come 2 U - How it started - Prototype Animation!

This is our presentation for the prototype.

For this hand in, because we had very little time and we were all working on other projects, we were planning to make a short trailer of the whole story. But due to many factors, we had to make the animation even more simple. At the end we had a week for production and post production for this video. During that hectic week we all went a bit crazy but it’s nice to have people going crazy with you. 

Some sketches

Some storyboards that we didn’t end up useing

Some behind the scenes

Max and I working

me going crazy

Carrie going crazy

Max going crazy ( also our lockdown hair style lol )

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Cinema come 2 U - How it started - Prototype Box

3 of us in the team are both from graphic design background, but Carrie took the role of graphic designer and printer and crafter, Max also helped with the box. I just watched and judged in the box making department ;)  

Finished prototype!

Some visual inspo

Printed! One problem tho. Our time was tight, and we couldn’t find a printer that could do large format (A2) double sided print. So we had to print each side separately and stick them together. Took us about 8 hours to construct 6 boxes.  

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Cinema come 2 U - How it started - Story!

When I was brought into this project, we didn’t have a clear concept on what story we are going tell. But Carrie and Max were thinking about old asian myths. I was so excited about that, because inside the idea bank in my brain, there is an idea I’ve been wanting to do since the beginning of my creative journey. 

It’s an ancient Chinese book called Classics of mountains and seas. (wikipedia) It’s  a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts.The book was written by many different people in a period of a few hundred years (sort of like a mythical online forum, people just post whatever they want to the page). Things described in this book is super fascinating. There is a god without face, a whole country of people with a big hole on their chest and many of the famous monsters are from this book originally. 

One problem tho, the way this book is written is very boring. It’s actually just a catalogue. Each paragraph describe one mountain, and the format never changes. It’s usually something like this 

Imagine reading a whole book of that... 

This book is quite famous in China, but when I asked around, no one has actually read it. I understand that because I know this book is not very easy to read and also people just tend to read less books nowadays. That is why I want to create things based on this book. If no one does anything to keep this book alive, it will eventually die, or become just a name of a book. I want to show that lively world inside the book to more audience. 

Don’ have to read this, just some of my sentimental rant... (Well, in a way I just want to promote this book and promote the rich culture people used to live in China. Nowadays, people in China always say that they’re proud of our 5000 years of Chinese history. But in my opinion, if you don’t embrace that history or not even curious about that history then that history is not really yours.)

Anyway, after a few rounds of selection (our google doc), we decided to make our film based on this god called Dijiang.

《山海经》第二卷《西山经·西次三经》云：“有神焉，其状如黄囊，赤如丹火，六足四翼，浑敦无面目，是识歌舞，实惟帝江也。

“The divine god known as Dijiang (帝江), the “Thearch Long River”, was like a sack with an aura of cinnabar; Borges, calling it the Ti-chiang, described it as bright red. It had six legs and four wings, but no eyes or facial features of any kind, living in a perpetual state of confusion. It was also fond of dancing.

This “state of confusion” led to the association of Dijiang (帝江) with Hundun, a being of cosmic chaos. The undifferentiated Hundun had no eyes, ears, mouth, or orifices of any sort, and died when his guests tried to drill openings in his body.

Dijiang’s description can be found in the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas, where it is located in the Celestial Mountain along with large quantities of metal and jade. Borges attributes it to the T’ai Kuang Chi.”

The text from this book described how dijiang looks like and where he lives. and later on we found another text describing him from Zhuangzi, a Taoism classic.

《庄子·应帝王》中有“南海之帝为儵，北海之帝为忽，中央之帝为浑沌”的句子。又写到“儵与忽时相与遇于浑沌之地，浑沌待之甚善。儵与忽谋报帝江之德，曰：人皆有七窍，以视听食息，此独无有，尝试凿之。日凿一窍，七日而浑沌死”。这里的记载显示浑沌（帝江）的形象乃有人之情而无人之形。

“The emperor of the South Sea was called Shu , the emperor of the North Sea was called Hu , and the emperor of the central region was called Hun-tun . Shu and Hu from time to time came together for a meeting in the territory of Hun-tun, and Hun-tun treated them very generously. Shu and Hu discussed how they could repay his kindness. "All men," they said, "have seven openings so they can see, hear, eat, and breathe. But Hun-tun alone doesn't have any. Let's trying boring him some!" Every day they bored another hole, and on the seventh day Hun-tun died.”

The moment when we saw this story, we decided this is the one. When you first read it, it just seem so random and ridicules. Well, but it’s a story told by Zhuangzi, the Taoism super star, it has to means something more than that. Took me a while to understand the story completely, I will write about it when I feel like :)

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Cinema come 2 U - How it started - Theatre!

In March, I started working on the non-flat screen project from uni. My ideas was to experiment with installation or box hologram, but I didn’t know what exactly I wanted to do. Great minds think alike, my friends Carrie and Max came to me and asked if I’d like to work together on a box theatre project with them. Of course i said YAS because they’re amazing and brilliant, and we’re all on a similar level of craziness :)

The idea was inspired by mobile theatres we used to see on streets in Asia.

Nowadays, with all the screens around us, the excitement of watching performance has been washed out. We want to bring back that special feeling we once had when we were younger. (sad as adults we don’t get that amazed feeling as much anymore)

Our plan is to post the theatre to our audiences, the invitation/ticket to the theatre is the theatre itself. The medium we use is box hologram projection.(have no idea what’s the name exactly )

How it works is to place a plastic sheet inside a box, and have a screen at the top. When place the plastic sheet the right angle, the viewer will be able to see the reflection of the screen. ( sounds simple right? but trust, somehow the reflection just seem sooooooo much cooler than seeing it directly from the screen, and that’s the effect we want from this project, being amazed!)