In the middle of September, we got invited in an interesting animated short film project for Hai Chau – the famous heritage confectionary manufacturer in Northern Vietnam founded in 1965. They want a film that can reflect Vietnamese traditions and introduce some of their “best-seller” confectionary brands.
Then we decided to retold the most famous Vietnamese folk stories under art direction inspired from water puppet.
We quickly formed a production team of young, talented and crazy ones.
client Hai Chau Confectionary
production house Tree Entertaiment
creative direction Vuong Nguyen, Kei Nguyen, Tong Tran, Vy Nguyen
director Kei Nguyen co-director Vuong Nguyen
art director Vuong Nguyen
copywriter Tram Tran, Vy Nguyen
animator Tu Nguyen, Ba Nhuan Nguyen
copywriter Tram Tran, Vy Nguyen
animator Tu Nguyen, Ba Nhuan Nguyen
head of illustrator Tu Nguyen
illustrator Nguyen Khanh Chi, Tran Gia Khang, Du Yên
producer Nguyen Kei
line producer Du Yên
line producer Du Yên
When I write this case study, I suddenly realize ‘Really? We did that amount of works within THAT amount of time?’.
And yes, a cliché quote says ‘It always seems impossible until it’s done’. It’s still true, time after time. I agreed.
To add in dramatic feel like a typical water puppet stage, we created two pattern of wave to demonstrate calm, peaceful, versus rage, war, chaos scenes.
The team has been put all the efforts in order to create the look and feel of a typical water puppet show. From traditional folk music, look and feel of the stage to movement of elements put together.
Every scene is a painting, animated. And honestly, I thrilled whenever hearing the opening music.
I recall the technic when the puppet artists used gasoline or sort of flammable oil to create the burning or dragon breathing flame scene on water surface. I think they are very clever, gasoline and oil lighter than ưater; so it will be floating on top of water and burning until run out.
This effect still impressed me ‘til today.
Bonus the hand sketching storyboard of the very first concept: ‘The Odyssey of the Elder Princess’ which has been postponed due to personal opinions. But we quite like the story, the thoughts and the art direction.
I put it here to remember how passionate and how hard we pushed it forward.
not yet famous 