This summer, a large-scale 3D animation epic film "Dragon Nest: Dawnbreaker" produced by the first-line original animation teams in China and the United States took 28 months to be released, which attracted thousands of people's attention and received rave reviews. Benchmark and become a big winner in the summer vacation file.
The film is adapted from the 3D action MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) game "Dragon Nest", which is an agent of a Chinese game company and produced by a Korean company. Bill Burton, a veteran Hollywood filmmaker, is the producer. The film's art director, Grant Major, is the film's art director, and Hollywood veteran music producer Ed Lee Ann Lee scores the music. The posture of the stars holding the moon has attracted more attention to the film. It is undeniable that international behind-the-scenes teamwork is undoubtedly one of the effective means for the rapid improvement of the quality of domestic animation films, and the film "Dragon Nest" itself is the best proof.
If the imitation of "Dragon Nest" is "copying" in a certain sense, it will win the approval of more people - almost the same character setting and storyline as "The Lord of the Rings", similar to "Pirates of the Caribbean" There's a fight on the boat in the middle, and there are bits and pieces of the Hollywood genre in the details. However, I do think it's a "take it" practice. Although there is technical support from foreign teams, and the storyline and character settings have the shackles of the original game, we can still see the Chinese production team's thinking about the domestic market.
Among them, the most prominent performance is the positioning of the film to the sales group - gamers, mainly teenagers, are its loyal fans. At the beginning of the film project, a series of online promotion activities were held, and even the name of the film "Brave Dawn" came from a name solicitation. However, as an animated film, how does it balance the army of children who have not played games? Then the introduction of the opening narration must not be ignored. It explained the whole story and told it slowly. The special voice and speech speed immediately brought the audience back to their childhood, and immediately made the audience very clear-"We are selling this movie to children." Secondly, the phrases of the lines Simplification and simplification also make the plot very clear. Parents of children do not need to leave a message on the website to ask how old their children can understand. In terms of language, the producer has taken care of the group of primary school students, which is full of sincerity. So how to meet the expectations of the teenage crowd who watch movies because of games? The answer is stereoscopic images of 3D fights. Dazzling but not bloody, shocking but not disgusting, we can also say that this setting is for younger groups, so there is no stacking of violent factors. In addition, the use of dialects was also added to achieve the effect of the joke, but the actual reaction of the theater was not outstanding. I think it is because this method is not new.
The film is special - the combination of games and animation, the uncertainty of age groups, allows us to see the feasibility of this innovation, but also expose its problems. After watching the movie, young gamers all reflected: First, there are problems with unfaithful original settings, such as the mixing of various skills of the characters or incomplete performance; Second, the time is short, the story develops too fast, and the clues are single, which feels a bit naive. It should also be mentioned that since the main sales group of this animated film is children, it is difficult to recognize some of the adult-like laughs and exposed female characters. Whenever the close-up of the lens is given to those sultry beauties, there is always a nondescript feeling.
However, what we cannot but admit is that the positioning of this domestic animation for the Chinese market is obviously accurate, and there is a choice for foreign experience, not a simple "copy". Its attempt to cater to the Chinese audience may not be perfect, but it is a successful practice.
In recent years, Chinese animation has closely followed the footsteps of the world's best animations, focusing on 3D effects and giant-screen productions. This is the trend of the times and the only way for Chinese animation. But I hope that in the near future, we can find another way, have our own original domestic animation style, and make progress through "imitation", learning and thinking again and again, and truly let the Chinese animation industry develop and mature.
[This article was originally written by the author, published on the 18th page of Beijing Daily on August 7, 2014, and is now reproduced here. 】
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