Zhong Xian on the Surrealism of Animation
With her fluid and authentic style, Zhong Xian is a London and Taipei based animator showing you can create touching and engaging stories through simple forms. Her new short film Superdog uses live action video, illustrated animations, and ephemera from her childhood to adapt a story Xian wrote at 10 years old. The film was produced by Dizzy TV and you can watch it here! Polyester editor Charlotte Amy Landrum chatted with the artist on her inspirations, the creative process and more!
What was the process of creating a piece of work from a story you wrote when you were a child?
From my point of view, when children make stories, logic and meaning are the last things they care about. So when I transferred the Superdog comic into an animation, I wished it could be as simple as possible and remind the imperfection. When it comes to production, character design is the first task, and then I will do the storyboard and consider the sounds at the same time. After doing some drawings and writing, I will start drawing the actual frames. For me, the priority of making a film from childhood work is not to complicate the story. A three-minute short film takes three months to produce with the size of my current production team. Although the working period was relatively long, it was a beautiful and precious experience.
How do you feel your art style has progressed over the years?
The most exciting thing about animating is that my visual style can change significantly depending on the theme. I liked the bright, bold, rough visual style when making the first film SPACE. When making the film VAMPIRE, I chose charcoal pens and black acrylic to create a dark humour vibe. As for Superdog, I used warm-tone colours to emphasise the simple retro feel. Among the many variations of style, the only constant is that I want my style to be authentic, naive, simple and rough.
What are the main inspirations for your work?
Although I am an animation director, I rarely watch animations. Many sources of inspiration come from live-action films and nature. I can feel and think of many things in nature.
Do you have a preferred medium to draw in?
I like to create with cheap and simple tools that are readily available. Just like collecting all kinds of the garbage when I was a child, I will try any medium that can be reached.
Your work almost feels like the surreal daydreams you would have as a child. Do you take a lot of inspiration from memory and childhood?
Yes, I do. Since I was a child, I have been a person who easily stays in the fantasy world. It used to annoy me as I often felt that my soul had left the real world and I was unable to concentrate on spending time with friends. But after using this kind of imagination in animation, I found another way to connect with the real world again.
Your films are simplistic yet maintain an ‘imperfect’ look that keeps the work feeling authentic and unique. How do you achieve this process in a medium like animation where things are usually kept quite precise?
Animation is a mind game for me. It has no certain rules. When animating, it’s like creating an illusion. We are magicians, philosophers, and psychologists. The more rough, imperfect and uncertain the animations are, the more feelings, stories and angles can be presented and revealed. Some scenes need to be faster and faster; however, some scenes need to be slow, even need to be still. What I’m talking about maybe abstract, but when I was making a film, what I was trying to do all the time was to trick and mislead the audience, to play a kind of mind game and create a space for us to breathe.
What are some of your favourite animated films?
If I could only watch one animation my whole life, it would be Sarina Nihei’s Small People
with Hats. If I feel lost, I would watch David Buob’s Das Haus to find my passion back. (works every time) If I could introduce one animation to my parents, it would be Jonathan Hodgson’s The Man with the Beautiful Eyes. If someone asks me what animation is, I will tell him or her to watch Tim Webb’s A Is for Autism. if I am in a bad mood I will watch Becky James’s I hate you don’t touch me or Bat and Hat. If I am hosting an animation party at home with friends, the first film I will watch is Anton Dyakov’s BOXBALET.
What draws you to surrealism?
I’m not very good at drawing in a realistic style as I never learned how to draw. And in my
animations, I don’t like to draw too well either. A surreal visual style can let the audience know that they are watching a film, which is a space completely different from the real world.
Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum
