2021- Student Exchange Report - SCFAI Chongking - Li Manfei
I am interested in an exchange semester in China at the Sichuan Fine Art Institute in Chongqing. I used to see great animated films from Chinese studios, and while watching, I was amazed how they created the film. Already then, my interest was aroused, and a small thought grows out like a bud in my heart. I was also wondering how different the animation university in China would function than the one in Switzerland.
I was very happy to find out that the HSLU has an exchange program with China. The HSLU cooperates with several Chinese universities, but I chose the Sichuan Fine Art Institute in Chongqing because it is cheaper to live there than in Beijing. I have come across the name of this school several times by chance on the Internet when I was watching the graduation films of its students.
My roots are from China. I've also settled in well in Switzerland. Now it would be interesting for me to look back, to dive back into my childhood memories. But when I was back on vacation in between, I noticed that China is now developing extremely quickly. The old traces of memory can hardly be seen in the big city. With a longer stay, I would like to experience the country, which I know well and yet is foreign, anew with my eyes, make notes, record, and be inspired. The two different western and eastern cultures are also interesting for me. Thanks to the possibility of the HSLU to do an exchange semester, I can realize my exchange dream.
During this semester I had four different modules with my class. Each module took around 4 weeks to participate.
The first one was the Storyboard Module.
There we worked in groups of three. We created a story and made a detailed animatic with sound and music. Since there were a lot of different animation competitions for students to join, the teacher suggested us to create stories that can be applied to the competitions. Usually, stories with a good positive vibe or correct moral are having a higher change to be awarded. So, teachers would recommend students to avoid making stories of sensitive political or social themes or including violent scenes etc.
The main theme of our story was network consensus. We wanted to tell a story of how the network opinions destroy a person in a slowly way. It was not easy at the beginning for us to unite since all of us have our own interpretations. The teacher’s feedback was correct, and she thought we had a good theme and suggested us to reduce the unnecessary elements in our animatic, since there was too much that we want to show about this theme, and this causes difficulties for the public to understand.
Then comes the Animation Module, where everyone could have their own project by creating a short animation or we could help on a graduation film. I chose the second option and while working with the group, I could really feel their hard-working atmosphere. They made an unbelievable great job of a 12-minute graduation film. The character designs and story setting were very creative for me! The film told a story about a dream-delivery company that delivers different dreams to everybody at night. I helped on the animation and colouring, and I was always surprised by how well the concept art and animations were done. I learned from their working style, and I also had a great practice too. The third module was Sculpture. The idea was to transform 2D figures into 3D sculpture that must be at least 40cm high. I haven’t done a big sculpture like this before, but the teacher was very nice and professional. With his help I learned a lot about sculpture, and I manage to finish my figure. Most of the other students hadn’t done this before, but it was unbelievable to see their wonderful result. I 3d-scanned my sculpture and made a 3D print of it to color it.
The last module was Sound Design. We had some theory at the beginning, and then we had different tasks among our group. As a team we had to design a scene and act it out and record the sounds in different environments. Other exercises were dubbing a movie or animation film sequence or a clip. It was fun to do it as a team and it awakens the interest to sound design. The last task was that each person had to create a scene by acting it out and record the sounds also to mix it. It was fun to do, and it was nice practice for me.
Besides the modules I also joined the cheerleading team. We practise once a week and we had to dance to the music on the university sport day. It was very fun to do it and I met different people as well. There were also a lot of other events in the university. As entertainment the student organisation create different events for student to join and win. (Prizes are money or food coupons or something useful) For example this “the voice of SCFAI” is a singing competition. The Two moderators are from the acting departement. Here are some photos I took:
School Environment
The school was rebuilt from a forest/farming area, and they try to keep how it looked like and change the environment at least as possible. The school is huge, and I always feel like I’m not at a school, I’m studying somewhere in a bamboo forest or natural park. The nickname that the student gave to this school is” welcome to the Sichuan Forest/natural park institute”.
Admission procedure
Since China has a huge population, a very big number of students coming from different cities take part in the exam of this fine art university. It’s too much work for the judge to interview or to read though every single person’s results. So, their exam is more based on the basic painting skill. The students that attend to the exams must bring their own painting materials and easel. They have different painting tasks, one example is they get a tiny black and white photo on the task paper: a desk which is covered by a black cloth and on the top of it there are different objects such a plastic bag with different fruits inside (they have to paint and imagine the fruits with their colours) , next to this plastic bag there are also other objects, e.g. vase, spoon, flowers etc, and on the top of all these objects there is another transparent scarves or plastic wrap on it. They have to paint this in oil and paint it in blue-tone, red-tone etc. depends on the task. The staff will put all the paintings on the floor of a huge room (indoor stadium). The judges walk past the paintings and use a long stick to pull one of the paintings out of the role and say the marks. (Full score is 100, but the student told me that 94 is the highest that a student can get, 94 is already almost perfect. Normally 80-something is already very good.) Those paintings that don’t get a mark are out. It was very interesting for me to hear how their admission procedure goes.
Teaching methods
There is no more Stop motion as a subject, only 2D and 3D. Their Bachelor study takes 4 years. Everyone from different animation sub-departments will learn the same theory in the first two years and focus on a specific direction they chose in the third year. They would go each year on a class “inspiration trip”. Besides visiting the tourist spots, they will get some drawing missions there too. Everyone of my class had to learn 3D programs (Maya, Zbrush, Blender) for their whole first year, because the teachers (it also depends on the teacher) believe that one will be out of the animator’s world if one doesn’t know how to use 3D programs. He thinks even as a 2D-animator it’s very important to know 3D programs otherwise it’s very difficult to find a job later. The differences between the teachers from the SCFAI and HSLU are that the SCFAI focuses more on the future, teaching the students how they can “survive” in the animator world by analysing what is asked in the animation film marketing to produce a better product. In HSLU we are free to create our stories and the teacher focuses on our interest and let us do what we want and support us as much as they can.
The teaching method at SCFAI is kind of “realistic “orientated. They teach their students how to make animation to get money/ to get a job. What kind of animation is popular, what elements or stories does the public want to see, what does the animation film marketing needs etc. First to think about the central message of the stories, then to build up a concept and all the details. It gives me a feeling that the teachers want to see a story with deep messages which tells a good moral. For me there were too many restrictions during the creation of a story. The teacher would give us many keywords regarding the right moral and positive vibes and suggest us to follow these keywords. There are many competitions that students can join, but we all know that with a big possibility the judges prefer to choose a story that follows the right political orientation or has a positive vibe. Sometimes students must join different competitions or event because they can get ETCS points for their study. Besides the main subject, they also have sport class, culture class, English class, politics, art history etc.
Culture
Since I am also Chinese, there is no culture shock and no language barrier for me, so I had an easy life there. It was fascinating to see how fast China has developed. People there no longer use paper more since many years. Everything goes via QR code and mobile phone. Even the very elderly people are using mobile phone to pay and send messages. I had to admit this make life much easier and more hygienic since there is no contact of money. The Chinese food there never let me down, and I enjoy a lot of them. Everyone from SCFAI is extremely excellent at drawing and it was very common that they already earn a lot of money with their illustrations. I was really fascinating to see their arts, because it looked so professional that I can’t think it was from a young student.
Conclusions
These four months at school were very short for me, and these are the most unforgettable four months for me too. It was not easy at the beginning, since I spend 42 days quarantine in China, but I don’t regret because I really learned a lot during this trip. I met some nice people that introduced me the school and talk about their life and also teach me a lot of how to live in China with only one mobile phone. I also got many inspirations in China. I feel so lucky being able to experience the two different art university in China and in Switzerland. I also appreciate to have met some Chinese colleagues in Chongqing too. I am thankful to HSLU and the teachers giving me the chance to experience this amazing time!
