Director Trinh Lam Tung: Vietnamese folk culture opens the door to my creativity

Can you share your first memories when you started your journey in animation? What inspired you to choose this path?

I have loved drawing since I was very young, starting with my mother's leftover white chalk on the cement floor, then when I ran out of chalk I picked up pieces of young bricks or sticks to draw on the ground wherever I was. It was the belief that drawings can tell stories, can move, no matter how small, that led me on this path throughout my childhood. It was not until I was able to study and work on the film crew of The Adventures of the Yellow Bee - the first computer animated series in Vietnam (made by my first teacher, People's Artist, Director Pham Minh Tri) that I truly stepped into the world of professional animation.

The first days of studying were extremely difficult, everyone needed to buy themselves a specialized drawing table, typical of an animator. That table had a glass surface and a light to see through the layers of moving lines. At that time, I had just graduated, living in a small rented house, lacking everything. On the way home from work, I asked for a piece of leftover glass from the aluminum and glass store at the end of the alley, along with a plastic wash basin and a homemade light bulb, and so I had my first drawing table. That night, I was absorbed in drawing until almost dawn. The "basin table" was my close friend who stayed by my side many sleepless nights, helping me complete film scenes and earn my first salary. It was so primitive but contained a big dream of becoming a professional animator.

- Ảnh 2. — A scene from the film The Bigger the Smaller, the 2012 Golden Kite Award-winning film directed by Trinh Lam Tung

From a boy who loved drawing with chalk and bricks as you just shared to becoming an animation director, what memorable turning points have you experienced?

I do many jobs to make a living such as copying paintings for hire, doing advertising, even carving tombstones, serving in a pho restaurant... but for me, the passion for animation is something sacred and deeply rooted in my subconscious. When we were still friends, my wife always encouraged me to pursue this passion.

Becoming an artist at Vietnam Animation Studio is a great happiness for me. There I get to work and study with the best teachers in the profession, with many talented directors and artists to gain experience.

However, life was not easy. When we got married, and our son was born in 2007, there were times when we paid the rent and only had enough money left to buy a carton of milk for our child. I often had to go to work hungry, seeing my wife and children like that made me sad and worried. I did many extra jobs such as tutoring, illustrating books and newspapers, painting murals..., working all night to earn money to take care of my small family. There were also times when I almost quit my job because life was too difficult, the belief that I could make a living from animation was increasingly fragile. However, with perseverance and effort, my works were gradually recognized, I had more contracts with more appropriate salaries. Especially when I learned and researched many different film genres and languages, I tried to find my own path. The biggest turning point was probably when I chose to return to folk culture. It was Vietnamese folk culture, with its richness and polysemy, that opened the door to creativity in me.

- Ảnh 4. — Director Trinh Lam Tung with Meritorious Artist Chieu Xuan and guests at the 3D animation event Trang Quynh nhi: Legend of Kim Nguu

After more than 20 years in the profession, what are the biggest difficulties and challenges you have faced in the animation industry in Vietnam?

The biggest challenge is believing in the intrinsic value of Vietnamese animation and Vietnamese culture, whether it has a place in a market fiercely competitive with imported products. Many times I have to try every way to convince my partners that Vietnamese folk tales and animation, if placed at the right level, are attractive enough to touch the hearts of global audiences. I believe that each frame I draw can preserve a part of Vietnamese folk culture.

What is it about Vietnamese folk culture that attracts you to choose it as the main material for your animated products?

Folk culture is where I meet myself again, simple, full of metaphors and lively. I do not exploit the materials in the folk culture treasure to restore or try to describe passively and boringly, but "renew" them carefully, because cultural capital always has the characteristics of exchange and adaptation. I feel, live in it to absorb into every breath, through many works and importantly, I find in it the simplicity and simplicity inherent in a resilient, peace- loving nation but no less attractive and modern to catch up with the world's cinema trends.

- Ảnh 5. — A scene from the movie Little Trang Quynh: The Legend of the Taurus

In your opinion, what will be the development of Vietnamese animation in the future?

The appearance of theatrical films and domestic studios investing heavily in good content based on core values and exploiting Vietnamese culture is a very encouraging sign. Audiences are starting to regain confidence in Vietnamese animation, investors are also more interested, and industry leaders have more or less accompanied and supported. Most importantly, it has been many years since we have had good products to conquer the audience, despite many limitations. But I hope this development will not be "steered" by chasing short-term tastes. A stronger spread of audiences with a sense of responsibility from each person will help preserve and promote the nation's eternal values.

- Ảnh 8. — Director Trinh Lam Tung as artist

Recently, many Vietnamese entertainment and cultural products have exploited folk and traditional cultural materials; but if they do not create their own unique qualities, they will not be successful. So in the creative process, how do you balance between preserving the original spirit of folk culture and innovating to suit modern audiences?

It was not an easy task. We had to flip through the script pages with a huge amount of knowledge many times, otherwise it would be easy to fall into a maze. Combining stories with many different colors while still ensuring the consistency of a long animated film script was a difficult task, but we overcame it to tell a complete story in Trang Quynh nhi: Truyen thuy Kim Nguu . I did not try to tell it exactly because that would be meaningless and many other genre publications have done it. I distilled, kept the most core spirit, the most symbolic, then found a modern approach, a simple way of telling, closer to the audience's feelings today. This is like painting a picture with new patterns on an ancient paper background.

- Ảnh 9. — A scene from the movie Little Trang Quynh: The Legend of the Taurus

Can you tell us more about the process of researching and exploiting folk cultural elements in the film Trang Quynh nhi: The Legend of Kim Nguu ?

We research and combine many stories from oral culture, legends, myths, history, folklore or legends... It is really a process that takes a lot of effort and must be carefully filtered. Accordingly, we must knead to ensure the strict technical elements of creating a film script, promote the most specific elements of the 3D animation genre along with market research, demographics... The folk cultural elements are carefully selected in many aspects: music , story, landscape, architecture, costumes, cuisine, dialogues, dialects... All of these materials are interwoven in the most natural way to create the atmosphere for the film but do not forget the reception issues of today's audience.

Vietnamese animation is a "difficult" field in terms of commercial factors. But you have persisted with this playground that has not been able to make money for more than 20 years. If you say you do it just because of passion, it is a bit unrealistic, isn't it?

I think that in any profession, passion is not enough, it is a process of continuous effort to learn and work. With animation, perhaps perseverance and testing people are even more necessary, because professional maturity takes a long time. There is no profession that makes money, all have to be traded and paid for in time, effort or money; animation is no exception. However, through recent market analysis with the explosion of technology, the production of animation has brought no small success, even creating a "huge" source of income in the professions that young people love.

- Ảnh 11. — A scene from the movie "Children's Lion Dance" (series of movies about Trang Quynh in his childish days)

It seems that Vietnamese animation is attracting a lot of young people?

The nature of animation is that when creating and producing it requires the use of diverse, complex knowledge, a mix of many other art forms such as painting, music, photography, graphics, cinema... Therefore, the working environment as well as creativity are always strongly stimulated and attract young people.

Young people are very talented, they can learn new software very quickly and adapt much better than our previous generation. They inherit a civilization of digital technology, a flat world, so they can access new knowledge easily, fully and quickly.