I am just back from a fascinating trip to Hong Kong and central China. I had been invited to the region to be a juror at an international festival dedicated to Asian comics and animation.  

My visit was a professional and personal revelation. The backdrop for the experience was the city of Guiyang, the capital of China’s poorest province Guizhou. Located in the beautiful foothills of south central China this city of two million was wonderful example of the dynamic tensions that are confronting this important nation.

Guiyang is an appealing city rarely visited by western tourists (which accounted for the curious looks we received from residents) and is a city on the move.  It sports up-market western style shops (even a Walmart, which doesn’t exactly qualify as up-market). New demolition and construction is evident as the urban city center becomes quickly and determinedly modernized.

Within the monied downtown there are still pockets of poverty. From our hotel room you could eyeball small shanty homes complete with outdoor gardens and chickens built on the roofs of nearby apartment buildings. As you descend from the city to the countryside you immediately travel back several decades to a rural economy where water buffalo and wiry agricultural workers toil in the fields. It is a region of deep and growing contrasts.

 

The animation and comics festival (AYACC) was lavish affair located in modern hotel and civic building near the town center (which was graced with a giant statue of Mao). The hosts offered great hospitality punctuated by many banquets with copious toasts featuring the local liquor Moutai. In its second year, the AAYAC was established to nurture the young Chinese comics and animation industry as it tries to move into the 21st century.

China has only recently established an animation industry to create an Asian partner and rival to Hollywood. As more and more expensive TV and film animation is outsourced overseas to lower priced labor markets, China is poised to become a major factory for the world’s animation studios. Some accounts suggest Chinese colleges are training over 100,000 animation students for the challenge. In time, the Chinese want to move beyond being laborers in the animation factories and instead create original content for their growing domestic market and the world.

In order to make that leap The Chinese will need to learn from the best practitioners in the world today. Hence, the establishment of the AYACC.

The animation festival assembled an impressive array of guests to interact with members of the Chinese animation industry, students and important animation leaders from across Asia.

 

The Awards ceremony was a televised Oscar style event which featured local traditional entertainment as well as a “We are the World” grand finale.

I was  joined on the festival’s jury by a celebrated group of artists from around China and the globe. There were two sets of jurors for the festival, one dedicated to judging comic art and a second assigned to animated films. I was assigned to the comics panel which included among others, celebrated French caricaturist Patrick Ricord and Temple University professor and expert on Asian comic art and animation John Lent. The animation panel had first class collection of international film stalwarts whose titles included Lord of the Rings, King Kong and the Incredible Hulk.  

In addition to the cartoon competitions, there was also a series of lectures presented by invited guests. I was asked to be the opening speaker on the first day of the festival to discuss and display my adventures in 3-D political animation. This, I thought would be a rather curious scenario. As a political satirist, my job is to openly criticize the leaders of my country… a alien notion in China.

I was delighted to find that my animation was extremely well received. In addition to showing my political animation I gave the audience a lesson in the benefits of motion capture technology (see film HERE). The viewers clearly enjoyed the use of topical political figures in 3-D animation and the new technology. I am pleased to say that lecture prompted invitations to animation festivals in South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia. 

I saw, observed and digested a great deal on this visit to China. It is impossible to describe it all. But one thing that I can share, China is a massively complex and rapidly evolving megalith.  I, like many, had little understanding of its enormous potential and pending challenges. Now that I have had the opportunity to visit China I have a greater appreciation of the nation’s critical influence upon our future.

 

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The Economist and Second City partnered again for another successful stage event in San Francisco on June 25. “The Art of Satire” received a rapturous response from the sold out crowd at the Yerba Buena Arts center. The show, which is touring to several US cities later in 2008, is an exciting mixture of sketch comedy, satiric video, interviews and “Stand-up Cartooning”.

The newest addition to the show was a unique collaboration between myself and Bay Area motion Capture company PhaseSpace. I had the good fortune to have worked with PhaseSpace in the Spring on an earlier animation “Debate 2008“. We conspired at the time to produce a cutting edge presentation to feature in the “Art of Satire” show in June.

 

Our plan was to employ PhaseSpace’s Realtime Motion Capture system to bring alive my animated versions of Barack Obama and John McCain. We understood this would be technological challenge and an entertainment treat.

 

First I created a script that would both show off PhaseSpace’s technology and my digital puppets. The theme was a “Dancing with The Stars” parody. We announced to the audience at The Yerba Buena Center that the two candidates had agreed to have a live special debate that evening.  The format was to be a “Dance-off” where the audience would suggest dance styles and the candidates would have to compete for the audiences’ favor with some slick moves. The audience was then to be introduced the contestants who were fully animated real-time animated caricatures of Obama and McCain. The audience would then pick a winner who was awarded electoral votes as a prize.

On PhaseSpaces’ part, they erected a 16×20x8 framework out of aluminum poles backstage. They added 20 digital cameras for capturing data. They teamed up with Digital Steamworks (my great crew from Baltimore) to add further facial animation enhancements.

Finally there was the actor. I was to act the role of both Obama and McCain. I was to wear a leotard festooned with PhaseSpace’s lit digital markers. I would be wearing a wireless microphone filtered through voice recognition software to create mouth movements for my digital characters. Simultaneously, a puppeteer from Digital Steamworks, Martin DeRiso, would be manipulating the facial expressions of Obama and McCain while I moved and talked. We had programmed a selection of camera angles to toggle through for added interest.

This new, innovative experiment was an enormous hit. First, technically everything went off without a hitch. PhaseSpaces’ professional team of Kan, Ketrina and Milton were completely prepared for all eventualities. Even with minimum rehearsal time the routine was a technical success.

My John McCain character made his world premier with howls of approval from the audience. However, despite his best Fred Astaire steps, McCain was out-Boogied in the audiences’ opinion by Barack’s disco moves. The finishing touch to the piece was when I was called out onstage to take a bow in my leotard with lights attached. Quite a sight.

PhaseSpace’s real-time Mocap system worked amazingly in a demanding environment. I was whirling around the 16×20 virtual dance floor doing ballet, the moonwalk, even the Macarena. All my movements were captured without a problem. I can highly recommend them for their quality goods and professional manner.

You can see here some shots taken of me backstage during the performance by the gifted photogragher Maggie Hallahan. If more images of the performance appear I will share them with you. Stay tuned for more news on “”Art of Satire” shows with cutting edge animation slated for 2008-2009. 

 

 

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