It has been 20 years since the cartoon series "Big Ears Tutu" was aired. Since the third day of the Lunar New Year, Tutu, who is kind-hearted, energetic, loves to eat snacks, loves to think wildly, has a pair of charming ears, and can use "ear-moving magic", has returned to the "Relive the Classics" channel to accompany the national TV audience to celebrate the New Year Year.
Where did the prototype of the quirky Tutu come from? Why the image of attracting wind ears? After 20 years of continuous creation, why are Tutu’s stories loved by generations of children? What surprises will "Big Ears Tutu" bring to the audience in the future?
Let’s take a look at Suda, the artistic director of Shanghai Animation Film Studio Co., Ltd. and the director of “Big Ears Tutu”, who shares his experience of “raising a baby” from the perspective of “Tutu’s mother”.
2024 marks the 20th anniversary of the premiere of the cartoon series "Big Ears Tutu" on CCTV. Time flies, Tutu's prototype - my son Su Chang will graduate from graduate school this year. Tutu in the animation is still the greedy, ignorant and warm innocent little boy, affecting the children's joys, sorrows, joys and companionship. They grow. Thanks to the love of viewers, big and small, nearly 200 episodes of "Big Ears Tutu" have repeatedly won the first place in the ratings of CCTV Children's Channel and the four major children's satellite TVs when it was broadcast on the TV station. The number of views on the Internet exceeded 4 billion. Covering nearly 300 million viewing users. The animated films "Big Ears Tutu: Food Rhapsody" and "Big Ears Tutu: Tyrannosaurus Rex in Action" were also released one after another, and were screened in theaters across the country and launched on video platforms, winning the favor of Tutu fans.
This is how the image of “TuTu” was born
When I first started creating Big Ears Tutu, my son was about the same age as Tutu. When my son was growing up, I recorded some interesting things that often happened and wisecracks that made adults laugh. Every time I read those children's words, I still laugh out loud. So I came up with the idea of using my son as a prototype to create a childlike life in reality. Through the introduction of Sister Xiaohe, the host of Shanghai's "Happy Jumping" column, I met Teacher Dingdang, the planner and screenwriter of their crew. The two of us hit it off immediately, and "Big Ear Tutu" began to take shape.
Many interesting things in the script really happened to my son. For example, one episode in which Tutu participates in "Happy Jump" is based on the real experience of his son. Another example is "Tutu Gets Goat Sore", which is also the story of his son. Of course, it is more about recreating the interesting things happening to the children around me.
With the source of the story, there must also be styling design. I asked outside designers to try out several styles, but none of them were suitable. In addition, there was a lack of incubation funds at the time, so I asked my father to help me design a series of images of Big Ear Tutu. Because his son had a bad ear when he was a child, he painted Hu Tuhua with "big ears". In fact, his father, Su Tae-hee, was a famous children's painter (now called an illustrator) as early as the 1980s and 1990s. He has drawn illustrations and comic strips with unique folk characteristics and rich color of the times for major children's magazines across the country. In the early 1990s, the director of Shanghai Art Film Studio approached my father and asked him to serve as the art designer for "Cube Mansion" and the puppet film "Little Goose and the Red House".
The summer when I first stepped through the door of the American Film Studio, I got an admission letter from the animation major of the Fine Arts Department of the Beijing Film Academy. Before going to Beijing to go to school, my father took me to explore the mysteries of fine art film creation. From then on, I formed an indissoluble bond with this animation holy land - my university teacher Qian Yunda (director of "Tales from Heaven", "The Adventures of the Sloppy King" and "Little Sisters of the Heroic Prairie"), Pu Jiaxiang (who participated in "Pride" The creation of films such as "The General", "Havoc in Heaven", "Nezha Haohai") all come from Meiying Studio. After I started working, I was fortunate enough to become an employee of Meiying Studio, and even gained the new name of "Tutu Mom" on my creative journey.
This cartoon, created by three generations of a family, has not only gained the love of children and parents after years of hard work, but also attracted the attention of more adult audiences who miss their innocent childhood. It has also been recognized by industry experts. The cartoon series "Big Ear Tutu" won the "Five One Project" of the 11th Spiritual Civilization Construction, the Best Animation TV Film Award of the First Animation Award of the Chinese Culture and Art Government Award, the National TV Literature and Art "Starlight Award", the Golden Eagle Award, Magnolia Award and other 26 important honors, Tutu animation film won the Best Art Film at the 31st China Golden Rooster Award, the Bronze Award at the 14th China Animation Golden Dragon Award, the "Dynamic Golden Sheep" Excellence Award at the China International Comic Expo, etc. honor.
The changes and changes in the 20 years since the creation of “TuTu”
All the creators of "Big Ears Tutu" are extremely proud and grateful to be selected into the newly launched "Revisiting Classics" channel and be broadcast as one of the first batch of classic animations together with "Havoc in Heaven" and "Tadpole Looking for Mom"! Although the creative process spans more than 20 years, Tutu still maintains high market awareness and strong development momentum. We believe this has a lot to do with the "unchanged and changed" that everyone has insisted on over the past 20 years.
First of all, the creative concept of inheriting and carrying forward Chinese traditional culture remains unchanged. The story of "Big Ear Tutu" is the epitome of the Chinese modernization process, and the actual creation is inseparable from the soil of China's traditional culture and folk culture. In terms of art design, we take "rooted modernity" as the creative concept and design figures with different shapes but unified styles, emphasizing the "clumsy" form admired in Chinese folk art, that is, "clumsy" can reveal wisdom, and "clumsy" can reveal wisdom. "Clumsy" creates interest, inherits and innovates the cultural core of the "Chinese Animation School", promotes the aesthetic taste of the Chinese nation, and allows children to be influenced by Chinese culture from an early age. In terms of dubbing, we pursue life-like and Chinese characteristics, and use voice performances to supplement and enhance the picture. The creative team hopes that "Big Ear Tutu" will be a "down-to-earth" reality-themed animation, and hopes to create new expressions in the new era under the nourishment of the artistic source of Meiying.
The second is that the core theme of the children's perspective remains unchanged. The animation content of "Big Ear Tutu" is humorous and humorous, focusing on children's spiritual growth, family harmony, and the harmonious development of society and the times. We believe that if we put down our adult pretensions and look up through the eyes of children, we can see an unexpectedly vast world. Children's innocence and unrestrainedness make this world more interesting, more wonderful, and more colorful than the world that adults are familiar with. We have always tried to explore and show the humorous and pure inner world of children, which makes our animations not only loved by children, but also memorable and enlightening for adults.
The third is how to seek change while remaining unchanged. In addition to the unchanged core concept, Tutu is also constantly seeking innovation and change in its creation. Over the past 20 years, "Big Ear Tutu" has always paid attention to the reactions of all walks of life to the works, so as to continuously enrich the story content and expand the expression carrier with the changes of the times and the development of the market. While completing five series of cartoons with a total of 130 episodes, from 2013 to 2014, a 60-episode three-dimensional preschool education series "Tutu's Kingdom of Wisdom - Mathematics Series" was launched, giving full play to the characteristics of entertaining and entertaining content. Technically explore the expression form of three-dimensional animation.
In 2017, the first animated film "Big Ear Tutu: Food Rhapsody" took 5 years to produce. While continuing the consistent scatter-point perspective animation style, the film takes individuals and families as the starting point in creative themes to show social hot issues about food safety, expanding the depth of realistic themes and linkage with social development; in the animation presentation The graphics, music, special effects, etc. have been comprehensively upgraded, nearly 300 characters and more than 200 scene design drawings have been designed, and a Shanghainese version has also been released. In 2021, the second animated film "Big Ears Tutu: Tyrannosaurus Rex in Action" continues the creative direction of observing reality, focusing on the issues of elderly care and companionship for lonely elderly people, and deeply embodies the positive values of "everyone dedicates love and warms the big family" , there were laughter, tears and touching, using innocent childlike innocence to awaken attention and care for the elderly, showing the children's selfless love and sense of responsibility. In the future, Tutu's series will continue to be created. The script creation of the third animated film "Big Ear Tutu's Dream Return to Red Cliff" has been completed. We hope that colleagues who like Tutu will give us more support and help so that it can be born as soon as possible.
In my eyes, cartoons have never been "pediatrics", but a long-term career that carries a sense of responsibility for the future development of a generation. A lot of the initial education a person receives comes from the cartoons he or she watches. Cartoons are responsible for enlightening the values of life and guiding aesthetics. Therefore, high-quality cartoons must not only convey China's excellent traditional culture, but also absorb excellent cultures and technologies from various countries, and also reflect high-grade aesthetic choices. Only with this kind of awareness can we go far in this field. Although this road is not easy, with this enthusiasm, courage and sense of responsibility, we are willing to continue to explore, try and break through the boundaries between tradition and modernity, and create more works full of innocence and fun for children and adults. , nourishing and warming people's hearts.
(This article comes from the "TV Art" WeChat public account. The author is the art director of Shanghai Art Film Studio Co., Ltd.)
