Director Nezha’s Alternative Life: Ten years of poverty, ten years of sharpening a sword

author| Planet of Value 

The cultural confidence that Nezha brings to China has reached a new high at this moment.

On the evening of February 7, the box office (including pre-sales) of the movie “Nezha: The Devil Boy in the Sea”(hereinafter referred to as “Nezha 2”) exceeded 6.7923 billion yuan, surpassing the box office results of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and reaching the top of the world’s film history single market box office list!

This is not the end. In fact, on the first working day after the holiday, the forecast box office of “Nezha 2” has already risen to 10 billion yuan. Major movie theaters, which were in near-death struggle two months ago, now even the wages of cleaners have more than doubled.……

So Nezha’s rescue became a topic. The director Jiaozi, who always practices in seclusion, has also become the destined person among the industry population to save China films.

Interestingly, we seem to be able to see every historical node in Guoman’s life: what is never understood, to what has changed, and then to reversing stereotypes.

And this can also be found in “Nezha 2”: for example, Nezha was born as a demon boy and is not understood by everyone; for example, Shen Gongbao said that the prejudices in people’s hearts are like a mountain that cannot be shaken……

What few people know is that Dumpling was originally a medical student and was once ridiculed as an unemployed loser for the elderly. However, he resolutely decided to give up his professional career and switch to animation, live on his mother’s meager pension, hone his sword in ten years, and eventually become a world-famous national comic book hero. Having experienced too many ups and downs in life, he has a deeper understanding of the various characters in “Nezha 2” than others. He used his actions to tell the world that if there is no way ahead, I will take a path.

His story hides the ultimate answer to every ordinary person ‘s life change.

Three years of aging and six years of unemployment, a loser’s life is restarted

The words that run through the first thirty years of dumpling’s life are not understood.

In those years, animation and games were undoubtedly the two most irresponsible choices under universal values. There is no progress in indulging in it, and relying on it to eat is even more deviant.

As for Jiaozi, after graduating from the School of Pharmacy of West China Medical University, he inexplicably stayed in an advertising agency for a year and went home to eat his old age. According to this development, in terms of social nature and life path, people are basically sentenced to death and become the object of gossip among neighbors and the control group for educating their children.

Even friends think his goal is fantasy.

At that time, Jiaozi’s father had passed away, and he and his mother could only live on their mother’s monthly pension of 1000 yuan. The daily meal cost does not exceed ten yuan, and vegetarian food and instant noodles are common occurrences.

Entertainment only involves listening to storytelling, listening to music, watching movies, and anime that cost almost no money. Most of the time, he seems to rely on his so-called animation dreams as spiritual food.

On the road he insisted on, there were no teachers, no connections, no resources, and no channels.

A layman, brave enough to stay at home for 16 hours a day, using pirated 3D software, reading tutorials over and over again, and working as a screenwriter, director, and special effects engineer, is nothing more than a waste of effort in the eyes of most people.

It reminds people of the movie “The King of Comedy”, where Yin Tianchou, played by Stephen Chow, held a book “The Self-Cultivation of Actors” when he was at his most down-to-earth.

Except for her mother, no one understood what Jiaozi wanted to do. But under such doubts, he worked hard for four years.

“At that time, my computer memory was only 768M, so I couldn’t make relatively complex CG scenes. I had to commandeer my friend’s high-configuration computer, but I still rendered it until the memory overflow. In the end, I had no choice but to open the MAYA window and manually render it frame by frame. rdquo;

In 2008, the dumplings were completed using the original anti-war animated short film “Beat, Beat a Big Watermelon” independently produced by MAYA. The entire film lasted 16 minutes and 09 seconds, and unexpectedly swept more than 30 international awards.

At the end of the short film, he made a long list. Including but not limited to Disney, Mansaiying, Osamu Tezuka, Hayao Miyazaki, Akira Toriyama, and Ang Lee. The words in white on a black background, unilaterally thanking these people, provided unimaginable encouragement and companionship to an unknown practitioner in an unknown corner.

But “Beat, Beat a Big Watermelon” seems to be at an untimely time.

Around 2005, overseas animated films such as “The Girl Who Travels through Time and Space”,”Doraemon: Nobita’s Dinosaur 2006″ and “Evil Boy” performed well. Japanese animation accounted for more than 70% of the prime time schedules of domestic TV stations. The wages of animation practitioners were low, and the wave of job changes quickly came. The output of Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio has dropped sharply, the number of employees has dropped sharply from 800 to 97, and the mortgage of the film of “The Troubles in Heaven” has only received a loan of 600,000 yuan, making it impossible to make ends meet.

The creators who shouted the slogan of the rise of Guomian people handed over unsatisfactory answers time and time again.

In 2007, the total box office of “Warrior” produced by Shanghai Film Group and Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio had not yet reached 10 million yuan. “The Secret of the Treasure Gourd” co-directed by Zhu Jiaxin and Zhong Zhixing earned only US$3.13 million worldwide. In 2008, Lin Chaoxian directed and adapted from the comic book “Fengyun”, the animated film “Fengyun”, had an investment cost of 60 million yuan, and the final box office was only 33 million yuan, causing a serious loss.

Lessons learned time and time again have made capital and the market retreat from this.

“Beat, Beat a Big Watermelon” has stood up, but domestic animations and dumplings are still not understood and recognized by the industry, management and market.

Dumplings broke through the wall with passion, but had to face the reality that there was no one behind the wall.

The rise of national manga belonging to dumplings”

Although “Beat, Beat a Big Watermelon” did not bring direct economic benefits, it pointed out a path for dumplings.

In 2009, Jiao Zi and producer Liu Wenwen co-founded Jiaokeli Animation Studio (the predecessor of Keke Bean Animation), but the environment is still unfriendly to the animation industry. In most cases, the team can only support themselves by making advertising animations.

The turning point is in 2015.

That year,”The Return of the Great Sage” produced by Light Media’s Colorful Room was born and grossed 956 million yuan in box office. The industry began to see the possibility of national comics.

Tencent took the lead in making efforts. Penguin Films (a subsidiary of Tencent’s Internet Media Business Group (OMG)), together with dozens of partners such as Reading Group, Tencent Animation, and Tencent Games, as well as Xuanji Technology, Shimei Jingdian, Fuxu Films, and Force Animation, Mili Films and other domestic first-line animation production companies, jointly released Penguin Films’s National Animation Plan, investing 10 billion yuan in the animation industry. It is hoped that by promoting the development of high-quality content, expanding a wider group of young users, and comprehensively linking up movie roaming, we will promote the improvement of the overall level of national comics.

Also that year, Jiaozi received a phone call from Beijing. Opposite is Yi Qiao, CEO of Colorful Bar House.

The two people chatted from online to offline and hit it off.

As a result, the gears of destiny began to turn, and another five years of hard work began.

After confirming that Nezha was the main character, Dumpling began to study all works related to Nezha and found that his favorite was the 1979 version of “Nezha Troubles in the Sea”.

The scene of Nezha committing suicide in the film is not only an indictment of the cruel reality of feudal society, but also a revolt against patriarchy and personal destiny. It once became an image of childhood fantasies of East Asian children and one of the largest expressions in the entire history of China literature.

Dumpling felt that this version of Nezha was very similar to himself, and also incorporated this thinking into his work. Therefore, we can also see the inheritance and tribute of dumplings in “Nezha: The Devil Boy Coming into the World”(hereinafter referred to as “Nezha 1”). For example, the plot of Nezha saving the siblings from Yaksha remains, and Ao Bing’s weapon also uses the same double hammer and ice attributes as the Shanghai-American version.

He spent two years changing 66 versions of the script alone. Every time a version is written, a meeting is held to collect a wave of revision opinions.

Unlike point-like feedback, script creation is a linear, net-like pattern of information and logic intertwined. In order to achieve the revision of an opinion, it is often necessary to overturn and rewrite all previous story lines related to it.

Repeated revisions not only caused headaches for the entire creative team, but also eroded everyone’s confidence. In the end, Dumpling even jokingly called every script discussion a criticism meeting.

In order to ensure quality while controlling costs,”Nezha 1″ has connected with more than 60 special effects companies before and after, and has become a well-known god pit in the industry due to its large number of modifications and large amount of special effects.

Behind this helplessness is even related to the team’s anxiety about life and death. When he first promised Yi Qiao to do a big job together, Dumpling stopped all outsourcing work, which means that the results of “Nezha 1” are related to the life and death of the entire team.

Fortunately,”Nezha 1″ was seen by people, and the core that the dumplings wanted to convey was also presented.

On July 26, 2019,”Nezha 1″ was released, and the final box office reached 5 billion yuan, ranking among the top ten box office in film history.

Reversing stereotypes and changing destiny against the sky have also become the new label of dumplings and national manga.

He said:

“When everyone doesn’t mention the rise of Guoman, Guoman really rises. Because at that time, national manga was something as dull as air and water. rdquo;

Closed again to break the curse

“We hope that through excellent works, we can reverse everyone’s prejudice against this industry. We hope that more aspiring young people can join this industry in the future, so that they can support themselves and live with more dignity.” quot;

When “Nezha 1” was released, Jiaozi once told the media this.

Just as Dumplings expected. After 2019, the animation industry has really undergone a lot of changes.

On the one hand, excellent works continue to be exported.

The “Lion Boy” series of films focuses on realistic themes and combines the creative concept of originality + realism to tell the story of teenagers who are full of humanistic care. Both Douban scores exceed 8 points; in 2023,”Chang ‘an Thirty Thousand Miles” will be awarded with a box office of 1.825 billion yuan breaking the cumulative box office record for animations in the past three years; domestic animations account for 3 of the top 10 global animation streaming media platforms, contributing 29% of original content. The themes expand from traditional children to adult-oriented, science fiction, history and other fields.

On the other hand, the cultivation of talents has become an industry consensus.

Light Chasing Animation and Communication University has established a laboratory. The starting monthly salary of animators born in 2000 reaches 24000 yuan, three times that of the same position in Japan. In 2020, the Bi Shi’s work “Falling into the World” uploaded by the animation major of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts on Station B was released on the big screen with the joint efforts of all parties. In recent years, the multi-line development of animation IP from content to derivatives has also been increasingly valued.

From a certain perspective, dumplings and “Nezha 1” have become concrete representations of the historical nodes of the industry. But the huge achievements and traffic did not knock him out.

After the promotion period of “Nezha 1” ended, dumplings were almost invisible on social platforms.

While UGC content related to works on social platforms continues to ferment, when the second book of “Nezha” will come has become a question that no one can answer.

Although the dumpling man did not appear, his legend has always been circulated in the Jianghu.

When talking to friends in the film and television industry about movie scheduling, he told us that the entire industry is watching when “Nezha 2” will be scheduled. In fact, everyone is quite afraid of it.

In an unknown corner, he experienced quite a tormenting creative moment.

“Happiness is always short, but pain is long. You have to go through a long period of pain and suffering before you can finally get a very short bit of pleasure.” rdquo;

In order to fill in his own hole, break the curse of the sequel, and let the audience see things they had never seen before, he began to have an excessive seriousness and perfectionism.

Unlike the first one, which focused on key points, in the second one, he hoped to do the best in every part.

In the lens splitting process, every angle is drawn well, and there is always a sentence followed by whether it can be better.& ldquo; Many shots never got the answer until we finally had to hand in the film. But this is not necessarily the final answer. It is just what we can get within the controllable range of only human resources, hardware resources and time resources. The best answer. rdquo; In his self-statement of “People”, he said frankly.

As a result, in five years, dumpling’s hair turned half white. Fortunately, the market has once again confirmed that literary and artistic creators need to persist. Today, the box office of “Nezha 2” has topped the world, exceeding 6.8 billion yuan.

Objectively speaking, the script of “Nezha 2” is actually flawed. The emotional transformation of Li Jing and Lady Yin after the slaughter of Chantangguan, and the emotional foundation of Nezha Ao Bing’s joint efforts to break the tripod and fight against the Infinite Immortal Weng, were commented by some viewers that hell was forcibly ignited. However, we still cannot deny that the narrative traps of “Nezha 2”, image creation and visual effects performances have provided new directions and standards for animated films.

Looking back at Dumpling’s life, there is no way that studying medicine cannot save China people. He simply believes that if he can use his hobbies to make money to support himself, that is the greatest happiness in life, he walks stupidly and persistently.

In his heart, there has always been a courage not to look back, a standard for good works, and a future picture of domestic animation.“” Perhaps this is the reason why a fool or an atypical good child succeeds.