CATDOLL: The "father" of "Calabash Brothers" tells you the birth story of the seven brothers

Seven brothers with extraordinary abilities were born from seven magical gourds. Although the goblins have boundless magical powers, the gourd brothers showed their extraordinary abilities to save their relatives. The red boy is a strongman, the orange boy has clairvoyance and super hearing, the yellow boy has a strong body, the green boy can spit fire, the blue boy can spray water, the blue boy has invisibility, and the purple boy was deceived by the goblins and almost ruined the lives of the seven brothers. In the end, the seven brothers united and defeated the goblins. An animation "Calabash Brothers" has accompanied the growth of all the "post-80s". Yesterday, Professor Wu Yunchu, the designer of "Calabash Brothers", came to Chongqing and gave a speech "Let Art Integrate Science - Talking about the Creation of Popular Science Films, TV and Animation" at the popular science micro-video creation and communication exchange training meeting hosted by the Municipal Science and Technology Association. He taught everyone the skills of animation creation and introduced the birth process of "Calabash Brothers" to reporters after the meeting.

Professor Wu Yunchu, 73, is one of the two fathers of the "Calabash Brothers". As the father of the "Calabash Brothers", Wu Yunchu talked about the birth process of the seven Calabash Brothers. He said that the story of the Calabash Brothers actually came from folk tales. At that time, the literature group of Shanghai Animation Film Studio collected the stories of the seven brothers of the Liu family. These seven brothers had characteristics such as long legs, strong men, big mouths, and big bellies, and fought against landlords and local government officials. The literature group wrote an outline, but director Hu Jinqing felt that the original script was too large, so he changed it to the story of the Calabash Brothers fighting the snake spirit and the scorpion spirit.

"Hu Jinqing was the director at the time and asked me to be mainly responsible for the design of the Calabash Brothers' appearance." Professor Wu said that the cartoon was a long feature and the production schedule was tight, so the studio considered using the photocopying technology, which had just been introduced in China, to speed up production efficiency.

How can we retain the characteristics of paper-cut animation while making the characters rich and more attractive, and at the same time facilitate the performance and production of the animation? Based on these requirements, Professor Wu retained the characteristics of paper-cut animation and absorbed the characteristics of animation, innovatively using black lines to design and draw. "It would take a year for a dozen people to shoot 20 minutes of paper-cut animation. We worked with forty or fifty people and shot 13 episodes in a little over a year, which improved our efficiency a lot."

In the process of making the Calabash Brothers, Professor Wu and Hu Jinqing worked together to design the shape of the Calabash Brothers, making them look good while retaining their national characteristics. The final shape of the Calabash Brothers is a fusion of the two people's design works. So, they are both the fathers of the Calabash Brothers. The Calabash Brothers have common characteristics: square face, thick and short eyebrows, bright big eyes, a gourd crown on the head, a gourd leaf collar, a waistcoat and shorts, and a gourd leaf apron around the waist. At the same time, the image of the seven brothers is unified, and they are distinguished by clothes. The colors of the clothes are: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple.

"Calabash Brothers" and "Calabash Brothers" became popular immediately after they were released. They not only won many domestic and international awards, but also became the fond memories of many "post-80s" today. Of course, Professor Wu and others also cherish "Calabash Brothers" as if they were their own children. When his friends see reports or comments about "Calabash Brothers" on the Internet, they will immediately tell him. Professor Wu said that he sometimes also reads them, but he is not satisfied with the netizens' spoofs of "Calabash Brothers", such as which one is more powerful, the sixth or seventh child, and so on, "These are all ruining the image of 'Calabash Brothers'".

In addition, in view of the current situation that some domestic cartoons contain a lot of violent content and vulgar language, he believes that the language of cartoons should be purified and some vulgar things should not be included in them. "The characters are not beautifully designed, and there are many mischievous things in the content. These are not acceptable. Cartoons cannot be superficial and lively. After watching them, children should retain some truth, kindness and beauty. Because cartoons are also artistic creations."