Tianshu is a short in a Chinese Wuxia theme, demonstrating how a female protagonist escapes the stone room and finds the precious sword.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/639331059?h=6d229a240a
I was inspired by Jin Yong‘s books(Jin Yong is a Chinese Wuxia Novelist.) I have been reading his books since I was young, and one thing I have noticed is that many of his protagonists, mostly males, are usually trapped in a cave/secrete room, and in this place, they always find certain Wuxia master books or are instructed by Wuxia masters living in this cave. When they get out of the room, they are “reborn” and become Wuxia masters.
I am really interested in this setting and I am curious about the reasons behind this. I also feel that his intention is different from Plato’s Allegory of the cave so I started to search for the theory behind it. And I found a Japanese scholar, 岡崎由美, who specializes in Jin Yong’s works, gives some explanations for this kind of stories from Jin’s books. She mentioned that in many religions, the cave is the gate between the human and the god. (金庸小说的幻想因素——以洞天的隐喻为主)Thus, Jin’s protagonists are reborn and grow after they experience the cave.
The most important character in Jin’s books is usually a male character. But for me, as a female reader, I am usually attracted to female characters. Especially my favorite character, Zhao Min, a Mongolian Chinese. When I was a child, the first time reading about Zhao Min, she quite became a role model for me. She is so brave and intelligent. She is a great young woman at the context of ancient China.
Thus, the design of my main character is based on Zhao Min. The original avatar is from ReadyPlayerMe. And I modified her face. When I sculpted her face in Blender, I was thinking about the actress who played Zhao Min from Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre 2019.
My original plan for my protagonist is that she is from a royal family(like Zhao Min) and was chased by a group of people. They battled but she was hurt by the hidden weapon. (There are always some “insidious” people in Wuxia novels to indicate the two groups: Good vs. Evil but to some degree I think it is different from western stories.) Her royalty should be indicated by her clothes. The stones which block the gate of this room cut off the route for her enemies. And in this cave, she has grown more than an intelligent royal family lady. She gained some Wuxia treasures like what happened in Jin’s cave stories.
I also consulted the video game Tomb Raider’s Trailer for inspiration.
I made a character from Readyplayerme. However, I encountered some difficulties with time and clothes change so I had to abandon my plan to show her royalty but focus more on how she escapes the stone room and finds the Wuxia treasure at the end, implemented in Unreal engine4 using Sequencer.
I paid a lot of attention to camera movement. I have watched many Wuxia films or dramas for years, and I really like playing video games so during the production I kind of know how to move my cameras. After the production, I realized that I used a lot of Kuleshov effects.
I also practiced the Rule of Thirds and camera angle theory I learned from the Camera Angle Explained website.