Anthem
(Eli)You-Syuan Chen
The end of Hatred could stop the killing if we remove the differences of our species.
Genre: Medieval Fantasy
Duration: 4min 06s
Country of Production:
Canada, Taiwan
Media: 3D Animation
Synopsis:
The great hunting group has been conquering and eliminating dangers for mankind, but their excessive pride causes a huge counterattack by the dragons. As humans continue to blindly follow the dogma without respecting nature, endless lives will be taken along with tragedy in the sunset.
Artist Statement:
Character creation is not the last, but the realm I am focusing on. From the use of modeling unique shapes; texturing considerable colors to rigging the reasonable behaviors, the whole charm of a story and its direction is heavily influenced by each character’s position, power, personality and artistic choice which allows these to come alive. For example, red hair leader is young and brave but his strength turns into a blind, extreme and violent force in the hatred, thus becomes a villain halfway; the blue dragon with glowing eyes gives wisdom and morality. These characteristics are emphasized more by the use of lighting and animation.
Behind The Story:
I would like to convey my theme “endless hatred” through the conflict and dilemma happening between humans and dragons in my story. From the modern perspective, the medieval setting is chosen to signify the repeated darkness of history from colonialism and crusades which were all about conquering territories with force for consolidating superior power. The army killed and established countries under the permission of primary religion (Christianity) against other minorities at that time; my main character (red hair leader) inherits the task of hunting dragons and expands his village without empathy. He just takes his dead father’s earrings that implicate the hereditary system from higher classes and let the ideology of hunting, hatred in his group carry away his next action.
In the end, the half-dragon oppositely catches a chance to decide whether or not to kill red hair leader for his species/race by hiding in the hunting group as a human form, yet the half-dragon struggles to continue the revenge while he recalls how humans also had their own difficulty and wanted to live happily on the same land like dragons or every other species. However, he still obeyed his father’s last words that humans must be punished for their greediness and excessive pride in order to keep the peace of each life growth. Although the revenge is fulfilled, the half-dragon feels dissatisfied after seeing everyone falling in a pool of blood. In other words, history has been in the cycle of bloody separatism and imperialism when they act without recognizing each distinct value and thought.
I designed my fierce dragons as prey ironically more thoughtful with intelligence about the behavior of oneself and others with the hope of creating a different perception. The superior power should not only be around one group of people like a conventional story, so I made both main characters to experience the same situation with a similar potential to change the outcome. As our community becomes more and more multicultural, the pursuit of individual power and mindset of comparison in all aspects often occurs and can occasionally be overjustified or abused. Then, an accident might turn into a terrible, endless hatred. Notwithstanding if this hatred or the power of a radical group has been achieved, the world can’t move on without victims and wounds like my film’s ending. There isn’t about right or wrong to execute the revenge, but I encourage the audience to rethink across species/races as one group without stereotype and naturally respect the differences within each other after watching how despair and sad it is to everyone if the revenge goes on.
