The Kuandu International Animation Festival was honored to invite three well-known stop-motion animation directors to participate in the post-screening discussion on October 25: Director Yu Yu, whose works "Voyant" and "The Island of Us" were highly recognized by the Golden Harvest Awards;  Director Zhang Xu-Zhan, whose work "Compound Eyes of Tropical" won many awards and participated in major domestic and foreign exhibitions; and director Huang Yun-Hsien, whose work "Little Hilly" won awards at major national film festivals.

The first person to introduce the work was director Yu Yu. She mentioned that when she was creating "The Island of Us,” because this film’s creative style was different from her previous ones, the not-so-familiar creative workflow became a big challenge. When talking about creating characters, she would start by thinking about the purpose of the characters, then go further and make the appearance of the characters based on their functionality.

Next was director Zhang Xu-Zhan. Zhang grew up in a traditional paper craft shop and was influenced by paper craftsmanship. The director also mentioned the special technique of using "paper.” Compared with the methods used by other creators, his methods were more like clay, and this method was also consistent with the texture and touch that the various characters in the film needed to present.

Next, we had director Huang Yun-Hsien. She has been learning the art of dough-making from her father since she was a child. Although she was not enthusiastic about it as a child, it has become the most important core of her creation today. She also mentioned that the ending song of "Anthropocene" was actually heard while riding a bicycle on a mountain road. Meanwhile, she immediately recorded the lyrics, and it became the ending song.

Finally, an audience member asked the three directors: "How to give meaning to the characters, or how to hint at the content you want to express?" Director Huang Yun-Hsien said: "The characters should carry as many film tasks as they possibly can!" Director Yu Yu felt that the color or changes in shape can also effectively hint at the content you want to convey and Director Zhang Xu-Zhan even believed that “letting actions and situations handle the information you want to provide is an indispensable key.”

At the end of the interview, Director Zhang said to the students: "Graduation is only the beginning of creation!" He encouraged everyone not to bear too much pressure on the path of study, but to take full advantage of this learning environment that does not consider reality, so that they can show off their talents in society.

Yu Yu

Yu Yu specialized in Stop Motion Animation and graduated from the University of Southern California with an MFA in Animation.

In 2019, Yu Yu went back to Taiwan and founded Shadow Step Studio, to continue making more stop-motion commercial and personal projects

ZHANGXU zhan

Director ZHANGXU Zhan, Born into a centurial ancestral paper-crafting family. The "Hsin Hsin Paper Offering Store" specializes in making paper sculptures for rituals or funerals. His works are full of bizarre, grotesque image expansion, intent to discuss the society and contemporary survival experience. And also expand cinema experience, etc contemporary art. Recently he is the winner of Deutsche Bank’s Artists of the Year Award 2021.

Huang Yun-Hsien

Enthusiast of puppet animation and entity handicraft.

Born in 1982 into a craftsman's family in Changhua, Taiwan.

Hsien started selling her dough at the temple when she was a child. After graduating, she ran her original brand in Creative Product Market with her unique modeling ability and dough-crafting skills. She realized that characters should not only have a delicate model but also the story and mental impression.

Hsien believes that stop-motion animation and dough-crafting both emphasize the unique hand-made spirit. She hopes to show the different expressions of the declining traditional culture.