Small-scale animator moved by independent ambition
Xu Zhou owns a small animation studio in Shanghai and has turned down many lucrative overseas offers of work. Instead, he works with his wife to realise his desire to apply computer animation technology to traditional Chinese themes.
What kind of work does your studio do?
The Shanghai Benson Animation Company was established in 2000 and we do various things, from animation for company advertisements to cartoon shows for gala performances and outsourcing for Japanese series. Sometimes I also make sculptures because I graduated from Shanghai University with a major in sculpture. What I do is get income to support the production of animated films, which I also script and direct.
So far, I have created two animated films, one five minutes long and the other 10 minutes. The Flying Jar (2003) was a big success and won an award at the prestigious Red Stick International Animation Festival in the United States. It tells a funny story of an old master and his two apprentices fighting over a wine jar. My production last year of The Iron Wand Princess is the longer piece and was partly invested by a Japanese company.
How did you get into animation?
I have liked painting and set decorations since I was a small child. My father is a professor of set design at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and I grew up among many art teachers. I worked for about six years as an animator and designer at the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which is called the cradle of China's film animation industry. In the early 1990s, I went to Shenzhen and worked for some foreign companies, where I learned about very different technology.
I began to self-study computer animation in 1993 after I saw a foreign production about a reading lamp. I was really touched by it and was amazed how light and flexible the movements were. In Shenzhen some foreign companies offered me jobs with decent salaries, but I wanted to set up my own company to apply the new technology - which was rare in China at the time - to produce China-themed animation.
How does your studio operate?
We now have eight people. The company started from just two people, my wife and me. My wife has supported me all along. We were classmates in high school learning animation. We don't make a huge profit, although we initially earned a lot from producing lucrative animation promotions for real estate businesses. But I am not interested in animated adverts and don't want to focus on it. I am confident in our creativity and design. I believe the market will be prosperous in the future because animation will be of great interest not only to children but also adults.
Do you do much outsourcing work like many other mainland studios?
We have done some outsourcing contracts from domestic and foreign companies. But I want to develop our original animation and highlight my own brand. I think Chinese people have a lot of creativity but there is lack of encouragement, from the education system to government policies. Now there are thousands of institutions around China providing training in animation. But from my own experience, most of their graduates are not qualified and what they produce is just rubbish.
Xu Zhou was talking to Alice Yan
