Staff Pick Premiere: "O Black Hole!" by Renee Zhan |
Have you ever wondered what happens when a black hole formed? It's this week's Staff Pick Premiere, "O Black Hole!" by Renee Zhan is an epically massive and a reversal of core belief that personifies one of the most mysterious beings in the world through color, clay, and song. The question of the origin of the black holealong with its demise -- is imagined by Zhan in an era of astounding imagination and originality.
In an effort to preserve the beauty around her forever, a young Eve-like character decides to consume every single thing she likes. Consuming everything quickly and in a chaotic manner The speed and the chaos with which she does this produces a rumbling black hole that nothing can escape. She devours seasons, planets human beings, even moons, in an attempt to give them infinite life. Upon waking in the belly of the black hole, a character known as the "Singularity" is confronted by beings who need her help. They ask her to go up to the peak of the hole and convince the creator of it to allow its prisoner's through their lives in the manner they should, or the entire universe as we know it is going to end.
"O The Black Hole!" is a fable about holding onto the things you cherish too tightly. The vivid paintings and clay-based imagery create a variety of images about embracing the fleeting and accepting the inevitability of dying.
There's a lot to this film craft and the story; we were able to meet with its animator and director Renee Zhan, to break down all of the questions we had regarding it. Find out her responses:
Inspiring:
"A majority of my movies begin by capturing one or two constant images I've got in my head. Some time ago, I sketched this female using a dark charcoal smear on her face where it should be. I spent hours looking at this drawing and trying to figure out who she was. Then, it became to me that she was a black hole.
The film was about a woman who is concerned about the passing of time that she sucks all of her loved ones and everything inside herself to keep them secure for the rest of her life.
She is a sponge for the whole universe , until she's dancing in her own company.
Black hole is dancing in counterclockwise circles because she's Against Time After that, as Singularity rescues the diverse residents of the dark hole begin to move clockwise according to the natural rhythms of the universe. They restart."
on using 2D and 3D methods:
"I've always been a lover of films that mix media and I really like using visceral textures and traditional mediums. I thought that the story of the black holes really was a good fit for these two different mediums: 2D as well as 3D.
The exterior of the black hole, the place where time moves normally is drawn in 2D by drawing with pencil, charcoal, watercolors, and oil paint, as it's ephemeral and fleeting. The inside of the black hole all that the black hole been able to absorb and make everlasting, is 3D and hard.
When Singularity moves across the black hole towards the top, those walls in the hole start slowly turning liquid like the grasp of the black hole is less secure in the top. I truly wanted all mediums to flow through each and seamlessly transition from 2D to 3D and back to 2D.
It's very important for me to allow room for exploration and experiment when creating a film, to figure things out as we go along. Making the inside of a black space was very appealing because no one is aware of what it looks like. Production designer Richard Henley and I had the freedom to be wildly creative. This was an opportunity to create a visually unique and intriguing world. It was decided to be the form of dark, twisted caves, reminiscent of liquids that had solidified when time was frozen ."
In her initial concept against. final cut:
"When we began the film, I had no idea how it would turn out. I'd never worked on stop-motion or created any film of this size.
In a way, I was disappointed to not be able to make it look exactly what I had in mind. My impression was that my animation was not good enough, and it was messy and rough. Strange because I love seeing this kind of imperfection and roughness in stop-motion films, but on my own I was so angry over it.
In another way, I was thrilled by our work. The music of Harry Brokensha and epic sound design by Ed Rousseau were beyond what I had ever dreamed of.
Lore Lixenberg's amazing voice as the Black Hole and Emmy the Great's unadulterated tones as Singularity added many things to the music.
It's a fact that I'm happy with what we did in the group."
On themes of mythology and humanity in her writing:
"I'm really interested in myths that tell the story of creation in the globe. They ask existential questions of humans and try to answer these questions with grand and thrilling stories about diving birds, eggs or nature spirits. Mythology often includes big epic tales of heroic events and adventures and quests. It's an aspect of our human desire to understand the meaning of our world.
I guess on a much lower level, that's exactly the goal I strive to achieve by making films. In my work, I'm often exploring my own insecurities or fears, anxieties, and obsessions. In 'O Black Hole!,' I imagined the film as a contemporary creation myth. I really wanted to make an film that had some personal questions about philosophy, paired with the fun story of a film about a quest and a crazy operatic score ."
The challenges encountered during the film's creation
"This was easily my most difficult film done. The creation of a stop-motion/2D musical featuring a lead character with stupid long waving hair (that was constantly melting halfway through!) made on a short deadline resulted in some pretty difficult months. I could go on and on about the difficulties. The film was packed with a lot of information the time of a short film. Really, I'm just happy to have had the opportunity to make such a short film, as well as to be part of an amazing team. It is my hope that I'll have many more opportunities similar to this one in the near future and that I can continue making films with my fellow filmmakers !"
A lesson in 'O Black Hole!':
"The closing lines in the film are "O black hole, do not cry, we're dreams that the universe dreamt ...' The central theme of the film is the beauty in transience. The woman in the black hole sucks all the universe around her because she's afraid of changing. The singularity shows it that the process of change creates new life and significance to our lives here.
It seems like the movie seeks to show that things always change, go through a process of dying, and that new things appear and grow and that's beautiful and acceptable. That's why I really hope that's the message the audience takes away. But to be honest I'm trying to persuade myself !"
Her tips (or absence of it) to aspiring filmmakers:
"Maybe you should listen to your parents and be engineers instead. No, I'm kidding! Just kidding! I'm not certain, but I feel like I'm still an aspiring filmmaker myself. In fact, I could need some help also ."
The next step:
"I'm working on a live-action/animation hybrid horror-comedy short film with BBC Films. It's about a British-Chinese violinist named Fei and his world flips upside down at the arrival of a talented violinist known as Mei.
Also, I'm working on an animated feature film idea about a cult that worships birdlife!"