A Fantastic Journey to the Deep Sea - New Chinese Animation Film

In the Spring Festival of 2023 in China, "Deep Sea (深海)", a fantasy animated film was released. The film builds a new underwater world different from the past, telling the story of a girl who pursues and explores in the mysterious underwater world and meets a unique journey of life.

01 The Light of Chinese animation

Three years ago, "Jiang Ziya" released a trailer of "Deep Sea" at the end of the film. The sea flows like a paint plate, the starry sky shines like a diamond, and people gets a glimpse of the magnificent scene unprecedentedly in Chinese animation.

Now, after the long-awaited, "Deep Sea" has finally come out. The film unfolds in the extremely beautiful particle ink style, and the whimsical underwater world makes audience hold their breath in deep concentration. The unprecedented gorgeous and splendor, the fantasy world where paint texture and ink temperament mingle. The depths of the sea contain innocence and melancholy, and the deduction of light can only be so colorful in the animation world.

Its animation production can be said to be a milestone in China's animation production in recent years. In order to present the ultimate visual effect, it pioneered particle ink technology. In each scenes, billions of 3D particles of different colors accumulate the elegance and layer of ink. The number of particles in many single frames is as high as 1-2 billion. The number of particle special effects is even as high as 2 billion in the "Eye of the Deep Sea" lens, and the color layers are up to 200 layers.

In the "Splitting Sea" lens, there are more than 100 layers of particle special effects in a single lens, and the number of particles is as high as billions. The special effects engineer in charge of the lens was originally scheduled to be completed in 3 days, but in order to achieve the ultimate effect, it took 15 months to complete it.

The production team has made a lot of efforts to convince the audience that the deep-sea world is real. More than 4,000 corals of different styles appeared in the film, with a total of more than 150 varieties. There are more than 100 animal characters in the film, each with its own name and its own character setting. The Sea Otter character alone has more than 80. For the characters, even the simplest actions are repeatedly by creators imitated to achieve an effect comparable to that of real photography.

Two years of research and development, seven years of production, 200 million yuan cost, 1,478 people on the production team, turned the moment beauty of the animation into another world that existed in parallel time and space. As Yi Qiao, the chief producer of the film "Deep Sea", said: “This is an adventure, but we will always insist on making cutting-edge works”. The word beauty alone is enough to support our curiosity about this film, and the story of the film itself is even more touching.

02 Warm Narrative

Chinese animation was often adapted from Chinese mythological story in the past, but "Deep Sea" is different. It tells a new original story: the girl strayed into the dreamy deep sea world and met a unique journey of life. In all the films of the Spring Festival, it is also a special existence, and a secret matter of mind in the jollification, which is soft and directly hits people's hearts.

The protagonist is a little girl who suffers from her original family and forms a introverted, sensitive and lonely personality. Her name is Shenxiu (参宿), which is also the name of a star, a star that is about to die and is on the verge of an explosion.

Another protagonist, Nanhe (南河), is named after a star that has always been accompanied by Shenxiu, shining on Shenxiu. For the little girl Shenxiu, he is a stranger and guardian. Nanhe has a dual identity. In the deep-sea fantasy of Shenxiu, he is the owner of the deep-sea hotel.

"Deep Sea" is a typical three-act play. From the gloomy boarding in the first act to the adventure of the fantasy and foggy deep-sea hotel in the second act, to the revelation and climax of the third act. The plot of the three acts unfolded slowly. In the interweaving of dreams and reality again and again, the audience finally learned the truth and achieved empathy.

"Deep Sea" is a delicate and affectionate story, and it is also an animated film with a distinct director's personal style. The film's main character, Shenxiu, is actually the inner reflection of director Tian Xiaopeng. He broke through the difficulties of technology and story, just to tell the story that existed deep in his heart to the audience. This is a concrete practice of running with the dream.

To some extent, "Deep Sea" is a very bold story. Its boldness lies in setting the limited audience caused by uniqueness. Loneliness, social fear, depression and other people can be more likely to understand this story close to the heart and achieve empathy.

In Deep Sea, Nanhe lights up a light for Shenxiu. Director Tian Xiaopeng also lit up a light for us with "Deep Sea". After finishing this dream with Shenxiu, we who watch the film should also bravely return to the real world, collide head-on with pain, and go all the way with the light.