On March 2, 2024, at the invitation of the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies (hereinafter referred to as Hopkins-Nanjing Center), Yu Zhou, co-founder and president of Light Chaser Animation Studios, and Wang Yao, chairman of the board of directors of Guolian Fund (formerly Zhongrong Fund), gave a lecture entitled "From Nanjing to Chang'an" to the members of Hopkins-Nanjing Center. Yu Zhou and Wang Yao both are alumni from the Class of 1997 of Hopkins-Nanjing Center. The lecture was hosted by Prof. Li Xiaorong, Director of the International Affairs Office of Nanjing University and co-director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, co-director Prof. Adam K Webb also attended the lecture.
Speaker Yu Zhou
Guest Wang Yao
Host Prof. Li Xiaorong
I. Looking Back: A 28-Year Career
Speaking about the topic of this lecture, Yu Zhou said, "In terms of history, the move from Jianye to Chang'an spanned generations, but for me it was a 28-year process." Yu Zhou began his career at the internationally renowned management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. A long career in consulting drove him to gain experience in the industry, which led him to work for Motorola and Russell Reynolds Associates. He joined Tudou in 2010, and after the merger of Tudou and Youku, he began to think about content in the cultural industry—how to avoid the expectation gap caused by the uncontrollable nature of live-action content. So he and his partners began to turn their attention to animation production.
Looking back on his career, Yu Zhou believes that his year of study at Hopkins-Nanjing Center was an eye-opening, rewarding, and wonderful year, with far-reaching influences on both his personal career development and his future life. He and his wife Wang Yao used to live in two dormitories adjacent to each other at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, and it was this affinity that brought them together. Ten pairs of alumni from the Class of 1997 eventually entered into marriage. Recalling the days of his studies at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, he reminisced, "In fact, many things in life are full of serendipity. 15 years ago, I never thought of making animation films, and my classmates may have also met their future business partners and best friends in life at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center."
Yu Zhou and Wang Yao retook a photo in front of their dormitory during their student days
II. Dream: 12 Years of Chasing the Light
At the beginning of Light Chaser Animation, Yu Zhou and his partners saw the huge potential of domestic animation films. To study Computer Graphics production, they went to Hollywood many times to research and recruit new staff. Animation film production is a challenging industry with a high entry barrier, Yu Zhou used three videos to show the epitome of the growth of Light Chaser Animation.
The video "The Birth of a Shot" takes the film Little Door Gods as an example, showing the production process of a shot of only four seconds, which went through more than 10 departments, including storyboard, character design, scene and prop design, character modeling, 3D sub-direction, character binding, animation, character effects, color development, lighting and digital painting, etc., for a lengthy period of 349 days. The video introduces: " There are a total of 1940 shots in the film Little Door Gods. If you compare it to the Tower of Babel with a huge project, the staff at Light Chaser Animation are building it up brick by brick. Every little detail is strived to be the best. From storyboards to lighting, a shot is born." It takes more than two hundred people three to four years to make an animated film, and the birth of each shot in the film comes from the excellence of each team, behind which carries the persistence of all staff at Light Chaser Animation. As the company's first film, the 29-month-long animation film Little Door Gods, although not impressive in terms of box office revenue, has established an animation production line, laying a solid foundation for the company to achieve the industrialization of animation film production in the future.
In the production featurette of White Snake, Yu Zhou shared, "When you make adjustments, it may take three years to see the results." An example of this is White Snake. After 2016, Light Chaser Animation adjusted the direction of its work from family-oriented to a strong, emotionally-heavy, youthful genre and began to make adjustments to the subject matter of its animated films by adapting myths. The new theme also brought challenges such as animation modeling, acting style, etc. In the face of all these challenges, the staff at Light Chaser Animation launched a variety of attempts. During the animation production process, the animators filmed different types of full-length episodes as references, drew on live-action films to improve the character design, and referred to ancient and modern architectural books and field trips in the scene design. All these efforts have made White Snake(2019) an outstanding work with an excellent reputation.
Finally, there is a special mixed cut of Light Chaser Animation's works over the past ten years. From Little Door Gods, Tea Pets, Cats and Peachtopia, White Snake, New Gods: Nezha Reborn, Green Snake, and New Gods: Yang Jian, to the fiery Chang'an, Light Chaser Animation has positioned itself as a Chinese story made by a Chinese team for a Chinese audience, and has aspired to create animated films with Chinese cultural characteristics and international first-class standards. In recent years, the company has been working on three to four films at the same time, aiming to achieve the goal of releasing one film per year. In the future, Light Chaser Animation will continue to innovate and create more wonderful works.
Communication and Q&A
Yu Zhou had a lively and interesting Q&A session with the community of Hopkins-Nanjing Center and also started a wide-ranging discussion on topics such as the cultural industry, IP economy, and career planning. The attendees expressed their gratitude to alumni Yu Zhou and Wang Yao, and the lecture was successfully concluded with warm applause.
