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The Hollywood Reporter’s Carolyn Giardina sat down with the filmmakers of 'Windup' in a 'THR Presents' Q&A powered by Vision Media.
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00:04Hi, I'm Carolyn Jardine, and thank you for joining us for The Hollywood Reporter Presents
00:09Q&A with Yibing Zhang and Jason Keen, and they'll be talking about their new animated
00:15short, Wind Up. Yibing, let's start with you. This is a moving father-daughter story, and
00:22it's ultimately about hope. But would you talk about the idea for the story?
00:27Wind Up is actually inspired by my own personal experiences. I was often sick as a kid. My
00:35memory of those days was foggy. But on the other hand, my parents always tell me, from their
00:42perspective, the event was way more serious. They told me they spent countless nights taking
00:47care of me, fighting their own emotions, and trying to stay strong. I didn't know why they
00:53were so worried, because as kids, we think we're invincible. But when I got older, I start
01:00to empathize more and more with my parents, especially since I have moved to the U.S. to
01:06chase my animation dream. My family and I are far apart. It makes me the one who always worry
01:15about them. Especially recently, because Wuhan is actually my hometown. Like, quickly after news of
01:23the whole city got shut down, I got word that my uncle had to stop the cancer treatment because of
01:30the
01:30overwhelming COVID patients. And both my cousins still need to work in the hospital, where there are a lot of
01:36workers already infected. Like, I was terrified and not sure what to do. All I can do is video chat
01:43with
01:44them as often as possible. But once the camera turns off, all the horrible thoughts would rush back in.
01:51And that was the time we actually crunched for this film. I remember we were animating the hospital
01:59sequence when the father character feels hopeless and sit on the floor. At that moment, I could totally
02:06sympathize with his pain. I guess life imitates art. Especially now, at the time when people of the world
02:18are isolating, craving for connection, and also preoccupied with health and well-being of loved ones.
02:26Because the story of Wind Up is very relevant.
02:30And Jason, I know it's personal for you as well.
02:33It is personal. During production, my wife became pregnant. And so I was able to reflect on
02:41the father and how he would feel. After we were done, I mean, the kind of the film had bigger
02:48and
02:49new meaning for me. My son, when he was born, had some complications. And they had a
02:55transfer room to the NICU. And it was, you know, at the time, I wasn't even thinking about the film,
03:03obviously. I was kind of just in the moment. And I'm now reflecting on this going, wow.
03:09Basically, you know, there was a feeling of hopelessness. And then luckily, the nurses there
03:14and the doctors kept instilling that it would be okay and gave me tasks to do. And whether it be
03:23getting the mother's milk to the baby and that kind of thing. So I now relate so much to that
03:32theme of
03:33hope and not giving up. And now my son's perfectly healthy and happy. So, I mean, it's an important
03:43film, I think. And we definitely need films like that and people like that, the healthcare workers
03:48and just friends and loved ones to keep instilling hope to others.
03:54Now, Ibing, this film was commissioned by Unity. And as part of the production, you used their
04:00real-time game engine for rendering. Would you talk about the technical aspects of the project and
04:06how that helped you make the film? At the beginning, like, it was just me and
04:11Lauren. Like, we have some ideas and we try to, you know, create something cool and try to show people
04:17we can actually achieve film quality by real real-time engine. As a director, I believe
04:26I need to have the working knowledge of all departments. So it's especially important for me
04:33because for this one, because we didn't get a full budget at the beginning, we decided to make a
04:39previous version of the whole film before the cinematographer, editor, animator had started working.
04:46So I can have exactly vision of what I wanted and express it clearly. From there, like other
04:55professional artists who add their own intuition to it and to make something like much, much better than
05:02the previous version I did. Luckily, because we use real-time rendering and everyone in the team can
05:10actually see the final result from the monitor. So we save a lot of time on unnecessary communication,
05:19especially towards the end of production. The process becomes much, much smoother.
05:25Now, it's a nine-minute short. How long did it take to make?
05:28Like, I had an idea in my mind for years. We made a testing back then in 2017. And then
05:39when the project actually approved, like in the middle of 2019, it took us nine months for overall
05:48production. And Jason joined the third month, which means we finished animating the whole shots,
05:55like in the short. Like seven months. Yeah. Which was an extremely tight schedule. I was like,
06:03can we do this? But again, I mean, just to echo with the real-time rendering,
06:08us, mainly all of the animators on the team, they, we are coming from feature film. We're not used to
06:17kind of this gaming technology, the real-time engine. And it was, when we first saw it,
06:23it was mind-blowing. It kind of a revelation, like, whoa, we can see the light and everything
06:28right away. We're, you know, animators are the actors. So we were trying hard to bring these characters
06:37to life. And especially without dialogue, things like lighting and, and the glint in the eye and
06:43how the hair flows become an important element to tell the whole story. And, and it just really
06:50streamlined that process, being able to see it. Traditionally, it would take about like a month
06:56to see this final image, what the, the final render, it's what the audience kind of sees, you know,
07:06I thought it was pretty good in the end. I mean, in terms of like, animators should be using this.
07:13You were the animation supervisor on the project. How many, how many animators were on your team?
07:19So there was about four animators. One of the animators was my wife, Lisa. And, and yeah,
07:28there were, it was interesting. One, um, one of them actually came from unity union, um, from China
07:35and, uh, another, I think she was in San Francisco and another was in LA. So, and everyone in the
07:42team
07:43were just all over the world from, uh, what Alex was Sweden, um, our producer. And so it was definitely
07:52this kind of, uh, ahead of its time again, because everyone now is working from home and remotely,
07:57um, this kind of collab from everywhere that came together really nicely. Yeah. We have people from
08:04like 10 different countries. Now it's really hard to imagine how that is going to work. Yeah. The
08:12biggest thing was time zones and making, Oh shoot. Like I have to like stay up all or, you know,
08:19be in the
08:20a meeting in the middle of the night or something, but, but it all worked out. It was good. Also
08:24because there's a real-time rendering. So we have to have like at least half of the team are from
08:31AAA games. So they know exactly how to use real-time engine. And then the half of the team are
08:38from
08:38animating feature films. So they know like what it takes to achieve the film quality. But like for most
08:47of us, this is first time for us to using a real-time engine to achieve film quality. So, and
08:55not only
08:55that, like, since, you know, everyone's working in the home, um, we need to make sure that like
09:04it actually can run smoothly through like regular personal desktop. If it crashes on one person's
09:10computer, it will affect the whole schedule. So we need to find out what caused the issue and optimize it.
09:17Like, I remember I called Jason, like when he just joined, I called him one night. I was like,
09:23Hey dude, you broke the game. He's like, what?
09:28I'm like, what?
09:29I'm like, oh, you're scared. I'm like, no, no, no, everyone break it. Everyone breaks it. Or you
09:33just need to figure out how to, how to fix it right away. Otherwise nobody can work.
09:39Jason, your uncle is, and is a Disney legend Glen Keane. So I have to ask you about the character
09:46design. Would you describe the look of the father and daughter?
09:50Uh, yeah. I mean, I came out on the project, the character was, um, already designed and half
09:55rigged and half modeled, pretty much modeled, um, at the time. And, um, I, you know, I did take it
10:03and
10:03tweak it. I do have, I was a traditional animator first. So I have some drawing sensibilities and,
10:08you know, a lot of things can be tweaked and kind of posed out to, to really emphasize, uh,
10:16features and the eyes and smile. Um, so, uh, but for personality, I worked with Ebing, you know,
10:23um, together to, to figure out, uh, who these characters were, um, Kiki's biggest inspiration
10:31was Ebing herself. Uh, she has this spark of energy to her and that was perfect for Kiki. Um,
10:39a love of art, a love of music, and, um, of course the love of her father and, uh, which
10:45contrasted,
10:46um, and gave that emotional punch when we saw her, um, in the hospital and for the father,
10:53a lot of inspiration was drawn, um, again, from what, you know, me projecting, uh, knowing that
10:59I was going to become a father soon. I've had this nerves and, uh, and kind of projecting what would
11:05happen if that, if I was in that situation, all those helped a lot, a lot. So, yeah.
11:12And Ebing is something that you touched on earlier that I wanted to go back to was, um, you know,
11:19the music effectively served as the dialogue in this piece. Um, so would, would you talk about your
11:25decision to do that and, um, and then what you wanted to convey in the music?
11:30Actually, fun fact is, like, our producer Alex did, like, uh, soundtracks, uh, sound effects for
11:3850 movies before he worked on this one. So, so, like, he's super professional. He knows a lot about
11:46sound and music. Also, he knows a lot of, like, great composers. Uh, so when we do this film,
11:54he sent me a list of demo reels and we listen and pick the ones I think is fit best
12:02of our storyline.
12:04And then from the very beginning, um, when we actually connecting the music reference,
12:11we knew that for our film, the music is one of the main character. The melody should sound like,
12:18like, children's song that you can sing along with instead of, like, ambient music. Uh, style-wise,
12:25we were looking for something between, like, Western and Eastern music so that it's more universal.
12:32In fact, our, like, the whole film design, like, the environment design and all that,
12:37we follow this rules, like, something, like, universal. Like, people, people sometimes, like,
12:44look at films, like, it happened in China, but it doesn't look like China. Like, yeah, we, we,
12:50we're not necessarily, like, targets, like, this is happening in this part of the world, but we want
12:58to, like, merging all those elements, the art together and, like, to finish something, like, make
13:08people feel more universal. I think our composer, uh, Joaquin did a really good job because everyone
13:15working on this film end up humming the melodies non-stop after. And because we, you didn't have the
13:21dialogue, the characters, expressions, they had to be so expressive. Um, would you both elaborate on
13:28that? The, um, yeah, so it kind of goes along with figuring out the, uh, oh, the style of the
13:35animation.
13:35So there, there's a, there was a range of going cartoony and, and then being very realistic.
13:41And it was a, it was a fine line to be able to hold the emotional weight and it couldn't
13:46be
13:47cartoony. You don't want the audience to make it to, to feel like this was a joke or anything like
13:51that. Um, but you still wanted the fun and the peel of Kiki to come across. So there, there was
13:58definitely, uh, actually my uncle taught me this, uh, he, he would say, uh, I think the term is
14:03sprezzatura. It's an Italian word and it's, it means subtlety is key. And, um, and that,
14:09that kind of went along in my head when we were working on this, going, making sure that
14:15there's this balance, um, between, and, and even even would always say to cartoon, a lot of animators
14:20are doing a lot of cartoony stuff, uh, in the mainstream world here. The, um, so we had to
14:27definitely keep dialing back some of the animators to cartoony, to cartoony. Let's
14:32bring it down. Let's bring it down. Keep it subtle. So.
14:34Yeah. Like, um, you know, in life actions, uh, we can imagine the animators like actors
14:41in life actions, but in the traditional animations, you know, it's hard. I, it's, there's some time
14:50delay for communication, what's kind of acting, but like in real time, because all departments
14:58can actually start together and collaborate and polish the work in parallel. So that is really
15:05helps if the animators can actually see the environment and see the lighting and see the mood.
15:13Like, I don't need to like communicate with them. Like, this is actually a sad thing. You know,
15:20imagine that, imagine that acting with the environment, you know, but because they already
15:26see this. So it's like really easy to communicate. It's like, you see the environment and then you,
15:33you hear like what kind of, we have music at that time. It's more like a temp soundtrack,
15:40but like the timing and a little bit, but they can feel everything when they act, which is really
15:48helpful. Yeah. What even is mentioning is, is the fact that because it was real-time rendering,
15:52we're able to see like the previous was already lit beautifully and the cameras.
15:58It was lit beautifully at the time. It got better.
16:05But it does enhance us animators and feeling the mood and tone. And we, it does have another level
16:12of communication that was surprising and it helps a lot. So yeah, that was, that's a good point.
16:20Ibing, this is your, your first film as director. Would you, what was that experience like and what's next for
16:28you?
16:28I definitely not a lot. There's a lot of, a lot of challenges.
16:35Like I think first is like the very first thing is like story is the king. So we need to
16:43make sure
16:43the story is good and which we spend a lot of time on. I keep on changing the story until
16:50the very end.
16:51Jason hate it. No, no, no. I, I, I totally agree.
16:57Production wise. I'm like, how can we get this done so well?
17:02Nevertheless, our story gets better and better.
17:07Like we got a lot of good advice along the way, such as writing down the theme of the story
17:12in
17:12big letters and make sure we don't drift away from it. I definitely learned that.
17:19And that definitely like, like, because based on this experiences, I feel like for next film,
17:26I will, I will make sure I have a theme of the story before the production started. Because,
17:34you know, when we started, we think the story is amazing now. And then people working on it,
17:40the first question, what's the meaning of this? Like, great. But, but yeah, there's a lot of things
17:51we learn. And another is like, I think, also, like how to collaborate with people. I learn a lot from
18:02this, especially, you know, we have like, people from 10 different countries. And I think we learn a lot
18:13from the AAA game experiences, that our production is quite different from traditional film.
18:21I mentioned something evening real quick. It's exactly along the line, what you're saying here.
18:26You know, because I'm, I've gone through many directors in the feature film. So, and then coming
18:35with evening, not that there's a wrong way or right way or whatever way. But what was great about evening,
18:42and again, because we're half feature and half gaming and around the world, different type of people,
18:48that evening allowed, you know, didn't, you know, shut a voice down. She allowed anyone to speak up
18:59and interject an opinion that would potentially help the film. And, and it was a great way to
19:06collaborate on this team. And it worked extremely well. And it needed to do be that way because of,
19:14because of the gaming experience, which they knew a ton of about the tech and to make the film
19:18beautiful. And then the film experience, just storytelling and how to make the character shine
19:25and all that kind of stuff. So I really appreciated evening's kind of directorial kind of, you know,
19:34as a director, so. And now where can our viewers see the short in its entirety? YouTube on Unity's
19:42channel. Yeah. Well, thank you both for joining us. And thank you for joining us for the Hollywood
19:52Reporter Presents Screening Series.
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