was sentenced to 102,000 yuan in compensation for the unauthorized imitating of the " gourd baby " style of the variety show "Laugh When You Come". After the effective judgment of the case was published on the Chinese Judgment Documents website, the topic of "Wang Zulan imitating the gourd baby was convicted of infringement" caused heated discussions among netizens.
"Calabash Baby" is the protagonist of the cartoon " Calabash Brothers ". Its copyright owner is Shanghai Art Film Studio , which was established in April 1957. He has created Calabash Baby, Black Cat Sheriff and Magic Pen Many classic animation images including Ma Liang.
has memories of gourd baby in countless childhoods born in the 80s and 90s. Whether it's the image of a chubby gourd baby boy or a snake spirit, it is impressive. The song "Gourd Baby Gourd Baby, Seven Flowers on a Vine, Don't Be Scared of Wind and Rain, La La La La", many people came with open mouths. So, who created this classic image of Calabash Baby? What are the little-known stories behind this paper-cut cartoon "The Calabash Brothers"?
In January 1987, the production of "The Calabash Brothers" was completed, and its director was the first-level director of Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio Hu Jinqing who died on May 13, 2019. Hu Jinqing not only wrote the story outline of this classic animation, but also drew these vivid characters, so people are called "the father of the gourd baby".
Hu Jinqing’s persistent pursuit of art is one of the heroes in the creation and development of Chinese paper-cut animation. He has co-created China’s first paper-cut film " Pig Bajie Eating Watermelon " with one of the "Thirty Thousand Lao" Wan Gu Chan and others. , And later invented a new "puffing" paper-cutting process, which successfully produced ink-style paper-cuts, which greatly enriched the types of art films. How did
create "The Calabash Brothers"?
In the 1980s, the influx of foreign animation series onto Chinese TV screens also caused anxiety among Chinese animators—the production of China's own animation series was imminent. At that time, Hu Jinqing received the task of filming the outline of the literary script "Ten Brothers" adapted from folk tales by Yang Yuliang. However, the "Ten Brothers" script not only has different protagonists, but also involves a large number of characters such as the poor, the landlord, the official servants, the emperors, the generals, and the talented woman Gong'e. The scenes have also spanned from the farmhouse, the manor, and the government to the palace... In the future, the production cost and production cycle of paper-cut pieces at that time were not enough to support such a creative volume.
Hu Jinqing thought about it for a long time. One day, his mind flashed and he changed the ten brothers into seven brothers, so that all seven brothers look the same, and they are all children, so that they will not have any special deformation. Wouldn't it be good to use all kinds of magical powers? He thought over and over again, his thoughts were floating and attached to the "Gourd". The homonym of "Gourd" is "Fu Lu", which symbolizes auspiciousness and mystery in China. Let the seven brothers be born from the gourd-the idea of "seven flowers on a vine, seven gourds and seven babies" was born. . He also participated in the design of the image of the gourd baby, the most important requirement is to have "game taste". The glaring eyes, exaggerated hair tips, open chest, bare feet, the image is simple and powerful, this is the image of the gourd baby afterwards. Hu Jinqing later recalled: "That image must have something nationalized. I borrowed the image of the'good fortune boy' next to the Guanyin Bodhisattva, and finally painted it as a barefoot and rougher look." However, Hu Jinqing repeatedly emphasized "Although I chose the image I painted in the end, other people in the middle also did a lot of work. Many people helped to complete this film."
Even if the creativity is solved and the cost is saved, it is placed in the cartoon. The workload in front of "The Calabash Brothers" is still huge. As a "paper cut", the filming process of "The Calabash Brothers" is like a shadow play. The staff first cut the characters into pieces of paper with movable joints, and then put out different movements on the large background patterns, and then photographed them one by one. 13 episodes of cartoons require thousands of scenes.
According to Zhou Keqin, one of the creators of "The Calabash Brothers", “Traditional paper-cutting animation is a manual technique of drawing with a pencil, cutting with scissors, and manually forming a piece. It has an unimaginable complexity in modern animation production. Animation to make a series of 13 episodes and 130 minutes in length, which was unimaginable before.The length of the shots such as dialogue and pictures depends on the stopwatch in the hands of the director. The camera to climb the ladder and the 24 frames per second screen action, if there is a slight difference, I will start again. "Z3z
In order to ensure the progress of production, Hu Jinqing has basically lived a life of "sleepless at night" during the two years of making "The Calabash Baby". After working late at night, he would often turn up and get up because of the flash of inspiration in his sleep. , To optimize and modify it.
In fact, compared to the earlier paper-cut short films such as " snipe and clam clam clam " created by director Hu Jinqing, the paper-cutting process of "Gourd Brothers" is not as elaborate. In an interview, Hu Jinqing said bluntly: "The Calabash Brothers is not meticulously crafted, it's all black lines, and its dramas are all about contradictions and conflicts. It is spent on dramas. If the dramas are not well done, this film is finished. "Z3z
For this choice, it was entirely due to the cost of the film. Hu Jinqing recounted: "At that time, we were forced to have no choice, because our cost was only 70,000 yuan, and it was only 5 to 6 yuan. grid. "But the cost of one episode of Hollywood cartoons in the same period has reached millions. In order to save costs, the seven brothers of "The Calabash Brothers" all wear the same clothes with different colors. In addition, the story of "Ten Brothers" was originally The emperor, prime minister, and county official who appeared on the villain were directly simplified into the two roles of snake spirit and scorpion spirit, and the originally complicated spatial background turned into a cave. When Hu Jinqing talked about this later, he had no choice but to laugh: "Because of no money, Brother Calabash can only live in the cave. "Z3z
is in this way, relying on the "craftsmanship" of the purely hand-made era, and with a budget of only 70,000 yuan per episode, a team of more than 50 people led by Hu Jinqing completed this original Chinese classic cartoon in 2 years. Later, even Hu Jinqing himself felt that he couldn’t even think of making such a long paper-cut cartoon.
▲Hu Jinqing, known as the "father of the gourd baby".
paper-cuts are a unique kind of art film. The style of artistic expression of the film draws on Chinese folk shadow puppets, paper-cutting, window grilles and other artistic elements. It is unique among art films with its diverse artistic styles, exaggerated action performances and strong artistic appeal. It is also for this reason that the paper-cutting series of animations directed by Hu Jinqing After the film "The Calabash Brothers" came out, because of its lively and cute characters, it has been talked about by people today. The director Zhao Yi who once won the best animation of the 10th FIRST Youth Film Festival with the animated short film "Baligou" believes that Hu Jinqing participated in the directing The greatest significance of "Gourd Brothers" to domestic animation is that "in the form of a series, it breaks through the size limit of the average Shanghai Film Studio's short animation films, and has created a group of characters with the potential of'net celebrity' to be passed down by popular culture. "The Calabash Brothers" is China's first paper-cut animation series. From it, the paper-cuts are no longer just presented to the audience in the form of small short films, but begin to take on the function of a long narrative.
is in the cartoon "Calabash Brothers" In the story, the scorpion spirit and the snake spirit are locked in Hulu Mountain. The pangolin accidentally pierced the cave, and the two goblins escaped, and the people suffered. The pangolin told the grandpa at the foot of the mountain that only by planting a seven-color gourd can the gourd be destroyed. Later, the grandpa planted seven big gourds, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, blue, and purple, but they were caught by the fairies.
The seven gourds landed one after another and turned into seven boys with different superpowers. They tried to rescue them. Grandpa wrestled with the fairies. The red baby is a strong man, the orange baby is clairvoyant and downwind ears, the yellow baby is an iron head, the green baby can do firework, the green baby has water, the blue baby has invisibility, and the purple baby has a treasure gourd. The cunning goblin was captured alive and sent to the alchemy furnace to refine the Seven Heart Pills. Finally, the Calabash Brothers united and used their strengths to rush out of the alchemy furnace and defeated the fairies. The storyline of
was 130 minutes in total. With twists and turns, the confrontation between good and evil is even more fierce than "" and "Nezha", which is impossible to see in previous art short films.
In this regard, the Chinese animation historical research expert Li Baochuan He believes: "This is a work produced in response to the market impact of foreign animation. It has a certain commercial purpose and has some necessary commercial elements. "And, this is a series," the series is more important to tell stories, and it is a continuous and diverse narrative, leaving the audience with suspense and expectation.Like nature and deep. "Z3z
In Zhao Yi's view, the special feature of "The Calabash Brothers" is that it is a work of the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio during the transformation period. It has already carried commercial attempts, such as the form of this series, while also inheriting In addition to the style and production team of the traditional beauty studio, "it can be said to be the'extreme' of the Chinese animation school. After that, an animation era is over, and then the beauty studio has fully entered the production of contract processing and TV animation series. "(Source: People's Daily Online, Teng Chao, Zhou Huixiaowan/Article, "Dahe Daily" Wang Feng/Article, Shangguan News Li Junna/Article, Time Net)
