One post tagged with "stop motion"

“What we aim to create is a type of performance that makes audiences feel the characters’ inner worlds, which is actually quite rare in stop-motion animation.”

On January 1, 2026, after a three-year hiatus, Yao-Chinese Folktales 2 returned to Bilibili. Co-produced by Shanghai Animation Film Studio, Shangying Yuan, Bilibili, and Chen Liaoyu Studio, this original anthology consists of 9 short films. Twelve directors explore themes of “China” and “Strange Tales,” delving into the core of Chinese storytelling while using reality to reflect on personal perspectives of self, family, and social relationships.

Directed by Chen Lianhua, the fourth episode Xiao Xue stands as the only stop-motion animation in the series. Using medical records as a narrative thread, the film blends reality and fantasy within a supernatural atmosphere. With its distinctive wool felt texture, profound and introspective storytelling, and nuanced emotional development, it portrays the process of reconciliation between two generations, striking a strong chord with audiences.

Animation Academic Pa was honored to invite the director of Xiao Xue, Chen Lianhua, as well as Da Li and Xiao Hua, key creators from Lilliput Stop-Motion Animation Studio, one of the production teams. Join us as we follow their narration and step into this world woven from wool felt.

01 Concept & Creativity: From Story to Script​

​Chen Lianhua: As an anthology series, Yao-Chinese Folktales was planned holistically, centered around the keywords “China” and “Strange Tales”. However, regarding theme selection, the producers gave fairly free rein, hoping for diverse styles rather than homogeneity.

My work in the first season, Grain Buds, leans toward an artistic and stylized approach, and the second season maintains that positioning. The producers didn't impose many restrictions on me either.

Previously, my creative work was mostly solo, but the Yao-Chinese Folktales series allowed me to experience teamwork. In the first season, I collaborated with a few people, but this time the scale was much larger—an unprecedented experience for me. I’ve always been interested in 3D puppet stop-motion animation, and now I finally had the opportunity to be part of the production.

​Chen Lianhua: When we initially discussed themes, the directors and writers gathered to talk about what they wanted to shoot. We could start from topics we’re currently most interested in or have deeply experienced.

Actually, we initially wrote a script about mother-daughter relationships, complete with an outline, but it relied too heavily on formalistic aesthetics and lacked narrative substance, so it wasn’t adopted. At the time, the showrunner asked if I had any other ideas, suggesting I pitch a few more.

Honestly, I was quite disappointed then, but on the subway ride back that day—maybe within just a few dozen minutes—I came up with the current story. It started as a one- or two-line synopsis before evolving into today’s Xiao Xue. It still explores generational relationships, so the theme remains similar.

As for the book The Medical Records of Qiu Rongchuan, it doesn’t actually exist, but “medical records” are indeed a significant category in traditional Chinese medicine texts. I often enjoy reading TCM case studies, so I wanted to adopt that format. But I wasn’t entirely sure whether using a medical record to document a story of healing both illness and heart would be interesting or overly abstract. Later, I discussed it with Chen Liaoyu(Showrunner of Yao-Chinese Folktales), and he thought the pretentiously serious approach was quite interesting.

The title also has a backstory. “Rongchuan” pays homage to Tang Rongchuan, a TCM master I greatly admire, while “Qiu” was a surname chosen by the writer. Together, they formed “Qiu Rongchuan”.

​Chen Lianhua: During the production of Season 2, we held numerous gatherings. From initial concepts and storyboards to the near-final cut, everyone would come together to discuss, share progress, and give honest—even sharply critical—feedback. Meanwhile, seniors from the SAFS Art Committee would regularly review our work and provide feedback.

For me, the most important and crucial suggestion was to emphasize the mother’s “whistling” action.

Initially, when designing the storyboards, we didn’t highlight the whistling enough. Seniors from Shanghai Animation Film Studio, Showrunner Chen Liaoyu, and Zhang Junjie, director of Bai Shan, all pointed out: Whistling is a pivotal plot point. Audiences must see it clearly and understand it. If they miss or don’t grasp that Xiao Xue is whistling, the narrative falls apart.

Taking their advice, we put immense effort into adjusting everything from visuals to sound design, finally making that key action stand out.

​Chen Lianhua: First, from a screenwriting perspective, introducing multiple characters prevents anyone from feeling too flat. We needed another child and neighbors for contrast, so we placed another family on the floor below.

This family actually serves as a secondary thread in the design: a household with more parent-child interaction and likely stronger affection. The parents dote on the child, making toys like kites and fish lanterns, but it’s a normal giving dynamic, so the child doesn’t project excessive emotional attachment to any single toy. Thus, during the Lantern Festival, the kid putting the fish lantern in the temple isn’t a big deal.

In contrast, the protagonist Xiao Xue’s son holds a special fondness for the fish lantern, considering it extraordinarily precious. Overall, this family primarily serves as a foil, subtly conveying the idea that “other children might not value these things as much.”

02 Production & Craftsmanship: From Sketches to Screen​

​Xiao Hua: Lilliput is a team focused solely on stop-motion animation. Our core creators are two people: Da Li and myself, Xiao Hua. Initially, we specialized in stop-motion promos for gaming merchandise, like cotton dolls and figures made for games. After shooting a lot of them, we gained quite a reputation in the industry.

You could say that—we’re probably the best at filming cute cotton dolls across the entire internet!

Besides that, we have some original characters and a podcast called “Lilliput Chat”. Basically, we’re a stop-motion studio that wants to try everything!

We were also curious about how Teacher Chen found us, because our past style differs significantly from Xiao Xue.

​Chen Lianhua: At the time, I researched various domestic stop-motion teams and watched Lilliput’s previous work, including some small puppet animation test clips. I could sense that they were capable of expressing the characters’ inner worlds, which is very different from styles purely focused on martial arts actions or external flair. That was my primary reason for choosing them.

Another crucial factor was that I’d seen their videos and listened to their podcast. The content they discussed and their thoughts on stop-motion animation aligned perfectly with mine. I felt right away that this team would work well together. It might sound a bit “presumptuous”, but it turned out I was right.

​Xiao Hua: Thank you so much for your trust, Teacher Chen! Xiao Xue is arguably the largest-scale project we’ve ever undertaken.

​Chen Lianhua: The production of our film was divided into pre-production, mid-production, and post-production. While working on the storyboards, I invited partners like Da Li and Xiao Hua to join early on, adjusting the boards accordingly based on narrative, technical implementation, cost, and other factors.

During the mid-phase, the storyboards were basically finalized, and we moved to performance design. We first recorded live-action performances, spliced them into the storyboards, and evaluated whether the narrative flow was feasible and costs acceptable. This stage actually involved revisiting pre-production adjustments, creating an iterative loop. Essentially, once the performances and storyboard tests with actual acting were locked, nothing changed.

​Xiao Hua: That’s the workflow for Teacher Chen, but ours was more complex. Even before seeing the storyboards, only with a synopsis, we had to conduct character style tests first. Afterward, we built scene models based on the boards, simulating the entire animation process to check for logical consistencies or flaws.

Since Teacher Chen’s film pursues long-take blocking within scenes with very little montage editing, long takes cannot skip steps, demanding precise choreography. Normally, our stop-motion shots stay under 5 seconds, cutting every one or two seconds. A 20-plus-second take like in Xiao Xue is rarely seen and typically requires a week or two to shoot.

​Da Li: We used live-action tests mainly to verify blocking feasibility. Once the scenes were roughly built, we calculated dimensions for each set, filmed test animations, measured character stride lengths and frame counts, and finally locked the storyboard timings. So the 2D storyboard, live-action performance boards, and test animation boards all differ slightly.

The first test shot we filmed: Xiao Xue chases the doctor down the stairs. The doctor stops at their doorstep, and Xiao Xue catches up and bows respectfully.

There was a troublesome issue: I needed both Xiao Xue and the doctor in the frame simultaneously, but Xiao Xue couldn’t catch up to him or go out of frame. Their relative distance had to remain consistent—yet their strides and frame rates differed. The doctor marched forward angrily with wide steps, while Xiao Xue, constrained by clothing and gender, couldn’t stride as broadly. We constantly calculated step frequencies and frame counts, ensuring Xiao Xue stayed perfectly within bounds when the camera tracked the doctor. Extreme precision was required.

​Chen Lianhua: Correct. Xiao Xue emphasizes in-scene blocking over montage, demanding extremely high precision in staging. In 2D, computers can stretch or compress time, but stop-motion’s time and space are fixed. We rely entirely on blocking, which presents a massive challenge for the shooting team.

​Chen Lianhua: Actually, hand-drawn character designs and the final physical puppets are fundamentally different things.

In my past paper-cut animation work, I could maximize the hand-drawn feel because it essentially unfolds drawings into components—whereas puppets in 3D stop-motion are a completely different medium. So I initially sketched the main characters of Xiao Xue in my mind, clarifying their faces so everyone could grasp a three-dimensional understanding during scripting and storyboarding, even though they’d inevitably differ vastly from the final puppets.

Then I discussed it with Xiao Hua, who drew her envisioned version of the puppet. Afterwards, we made numerous adjustments between “my drawn puppet” and “Xiao Hua’s crafted puppet”, eventually shaping a fitting look for Xiao Xue. This process was like a “translation”.

​Xiao Hua: Yes, there has to be a “translation” phase. Because Teacher Chen comes from 2D animation, many of his line treatments follow 2D logic, but those lines are hard to realize in 3D puppets. We know better what can be physically achieved versus what can’t or will lose its flavor. So I had to draft my own vision of the puppet first, then merge it with Teacher Chen’s requirements into a buildable blueprint.

​Chen Lianhua: In the original design, the doctor wore a hat. But during practical puppet-making, we noticed the wool felt surface has a fuzzy pile; wearing a hat made the head look disproportionately large, feeling completely different from real-life hat-wearing. So we ultimately decided to drop the hat entirely, indoors or outdoors. This is an example of a design change driven by material properties.

The doctor’s appearance went through several revisions too. Initially, everyone thought the design looked too much like me, but I didn’t want the character to resemble myself completely, so we kept tweaking it.

​Xiao Hua: The front and back panels of the qipao used regular window mesh. Its thickness, stiffness, and moldability were just right.

Stop-motion moves frame by frame, so drapable fabrics need stabilization to maintain crisp shapes and prevent unruly skirt movement. Many similar solutions exist domestically and internationally: thinner fabrics can be starched and hardened for shaping, while conventional skirts use wire petticoats. But Xiao Xue’s qipao didn’t suit either method.

The qipao had moderate thickness and would wrinkle after washing; pure wire mesh was too stiff. So we settled on window screen material, which is softer. However, the aluminum wires in screens are extremely fine, frequently pricking the animators’ fingers during posing—a truly brutal process.

​Da Li: In the shot where Xiao Xue cries, the tears were made using nail polish glue.

Many stop-motion productions use slime for tears, but slime is too soft and sticky, making the tears look cartoonish. It wouldn’t match the tone of Xiao Xue, and audiences might even laugh at that shot.

So we chose adhesive used for nail art. It’s highly viscous and has inherent rigidity, making it easy to shape. We used tweezers to pull it into threads thinner than a millimeter, then attached them to the wool felt to create delicate tear streaks.

Actually, many nail art materials are exceptionally suitable for decorating puppets' outfits.

​Chen Lianhua: Absolutely. Standard puppet animation uses large hands for sturdy skeletons and easier posing, but Xiao Xue is a serious piece; oversized hands would make it look like a children’s show. So we altered the proportions, insisting on extremely small hands with articulated joints. This definitely brought huge challenges to the production team.

​Xiao Hua: Teacher Chen’s requirements were stylistic, while we had to account for animation needs. Hands needed to be small yet durable, unbreakable after a few frames, and capable of complex movements. Embedding just a single aluminum wire wouldn’t snap after a few poses, failing animation demands. Wool felt also posed a challenge—it gains strength and shape only through felting/poking. Making it cling tightly to the metal skeleton without gaps, while still leaving room for poking, was difficult. We tested various glues and mediums through numerous trials before succeeding.

​Da Li: We also built a dedicated oversized hand prop for shooting specific scenes, like the fishmonger catching fish, the mother caressing sheets, or the doctor writing notes—all requiring hand close-ups. Even so, we produced numerous backup puppets. Take Xiao Xue: with four shooting stages at the time, she had four heads. Because walking sequences drained skeletons rapidly, we custom-fabricated three steel armatures for her, plus three spare aluminum wire skeletons.

After all, genuinely reliable, cinema-grade steel armatures are highly labor-intensive and expensive; cheaper alternatives are sturdy but far less pliable than aluminum wire, unable to produce the delicate, micro-movements we desired. They’re better suited for skeletal-heavy shots. We also modularized Xiao Xue’s skeleton: if a hand broke, I could quickly reattach it without affecting other parts.

Stop-motion practically functions like a live-action set; our puppets, sets, lighting rigs, and animators all operate on separate schedules. So adjustments happen mid-shoot. For instance, if one animator finishes a shot early to move to the next stage, but the animator scheduled there isn’t done, schedules “clash”.

​Xiao Hua: This explains why Xiao Xue has so many heads and bodies. One head per animator, plus a backup body for each. Hence, the number of bodies is double the heads.

​Chen Lianhua: There’s a funny thing: whenever people see the actual sets, they exclaim, “I didn’t expect the sets to be this big!” But in reality, the sets are scaled according to the characters.

​Xiao Hua: Exactly. Xiao Xue stands 30cm tall, and the doctor is nearly 35cm. These heights are considered highly exaggerated in stop-motion. Typical stop-motion puppets hover around 25cm—a comfortable height for animators that keeps set sizes manageable.

Why scale them up so much? Because our puppets’ facial features simply couldn’t get any smaller. Don’t let the eyes fool you; they’re actually triple-layered: a white fabric base, embroidered eyeliner stitches, and individually attached eyeballs. Stack these layers and shrink further, and construction becomes impossible.

Xiao Xue’s pupils measure only 2.5mm in diameter, while extras’ eyes might be a mere 1mm. Swapping expressions requires tweezers to pluck them out. Eyes are incredibly easy to misplace; even with numerous backups, loss rate stays high. This dictates the minimum viable puppet size at around 30+ cm, meaning the house we see now is already at its smallest functional scale.

In the final wide shot where Xiao Xue plays in the temple, spanning over seven meters horizontally, it stretches across our entire studio. Her home’s walls are exceptionally tall; during the scene where the son stands on the second-floor windowsill, our tallest animator had to stand on a ladder to shoot. For every single frame adjustment, he’d climb down to hit record/stop on the computer, then climb back up to pose the next frame.

​Xiao Hua: Honestly, very few domestic studios specialize in stop-motion auxiliary equipment. The technology itself is highly complex, and machines are exceptionally pricey; overseas, usually only major corporations can afford them. Given stop-motion’s niche status, track systems are rarely used unless tackling cinematic projects requiring extensive long takes or motion shots.

We turned to veteran equipment specialists in the industry who had developed relevant tools themselves. They designed our track lengths and instructed us on installation. Thanks to their guidance, we could utilize so many long takes in the film.

​Chen Lianhua: Primarily, it served narrative necessity. This segment marks a major turning point, symbolizing the divide between the physical world and the psychological realm.

Technically, it’s a sequence of 2D frame-by-frame animation, where a new puppet had to be manually poked/felted for every single frame. Without 3D printing, it’s rather “clunky” and required tremendous effort.

​Da Li: We referenced a previously shared wool felt 2D animation titled Dialtone, which uses felt to sculpt light and shadow. We loved the piece and tried adapting its technique for Xiao Xue. However, the two actually differ significantly.

Visually, that work still maintained a “relief-like” spatial depth, whereas Xiao Xue was crafted thinner and more translucent, pursuing a watercolor-like texture.

In production, Dialtone was a solo directorial effort made by an animator felting and shooting simultaneously with no division of labor. Our sequence required collaborative splitting, so we pre-felted over 50 layered “son” puppets before staging them.

Regarding lighting, we initially used flat lighting, but Teacher Chen felt it looked too cartoonish. We switched to backlighting, using it as the key light to outline the wool felt edges, then filling in with other lights—for instance, the fire glow from the fish lantern was actually a handheld small lamp placed underneath.

​Xiao Hua: But this lighting approach somewhat diminishes the inherent texture of the wool felt, so we adjusted its thickness further during shooting.

​Da Li: We did consider saving effort at times. For the son’s sequence, we previously tried pushing the camera inward, but found the result rigid. When the subject lacks variation, the frame becomes dull. So we opted for frame-by-frame felting instead; this ensures the son changes slightly each frame, yielding a lively feel akin to 2D animation outlining jitter.

​Xiao Hua: This enhances the underwater atmosphere. Additionally, while felting the son, we stuck to his original colors, but during shooting, we applied four different blue tones for environmental coloring and white wool felt for splash effects, allowing the puppet to seamlessly blend with the watery background.

​Chen Lianhua: First, stop-motion inevitably carries influences from traditional American performance systems—the Disney-style squash-and-stretch mechanics—making characters appear to “nod and sway”. But in my view, that style externalizes everything, leaving audiences disconnected from characters’ internal worlds. What we aimed for was a performance that evokes the “inner life”, which is actually quite rare in stop-motion.

Secondly, animated performance is heavily influenced by each animator’s personal interpretation and temperament. This film highlights that distinctly. We conducted animation tests where everyone shot frame-by-frame clips of Ruan Lingyu’s The Goddess. Right then, we noticed differing approaches—young animators projected differently than mature ones, easily distinguishable. An animator capable of capturing these subtleties inherently crafts exquisitely nuanced characters.

​Da Li: I faced similar dilemmas before, as American performance mechanics aren’t naturally intuitive to me. So while shooting Xiao Xue, I actively explored performances aligning more closely with Chinese kinetic logic. Xiao Xue’s torso exhibits minimal motion, focusing instead on details like fingers and eyes. Yet her core can’t remain entirely static, lest she appear rigid or wooden. Every subtle movement was meticulously staged by our animators.

​Chen Lianhua: Endowing mundane, everyday gestures with dramatic meaning—this effectively summarizes our philosophy on movement design.

03 Release & Resonance: From Details to Empathy​

​Xiao Hua: The audience is incredibly talented. Many interpretations never crossed our minds initially. For example, the doctor plays the flute narratively, but viewers commented, “The doctor’s also in a band?”, treating him as a modern musician—quite fascinating.

​Da Li: Including the son. Viewers noted his athletic talent, exceptional breakdancing skills, even nicknamed him “Board Kid” due to his frequent floorwork in the film. All such comments are delightful.

​Chen Lianhua: Two points particularly surprised me. First, viewers found the fluffy fish incredibly adorable, with unexpected danmaku requests for identical plush toys.

Second, regarding the flute-playing detail. Knowledgeable viewers noticed every finger position was anatomically/musically correct, surprising and pleasing me. During filming, we hired a flute specialist to record reference videos, which animators painstakingly replicated frame-by-frame. It confirms that viewers indeed scrutinize minute details.

​Xiao Hua: Audience appreciation for the underwater sequence thrilled me! Seeing your painstakingly crafted shots leave viewers amazed validates all the effort poured into them.

​Da Li: Someone mentioned crying alongside Xiao Xue upon seeing her weep—warming my heart.

​Xiao Hua: I teared up watching it for the first time too, viewing the earliest music-less demo cut. Though I knew Da Li was posing it, I still fully absorbed Xiao Xue’s emotional weight.

I hope Xiao Xue joins the ranks of discussed stop-motion classics, becoming a reference point whenever the medium is conversed upon.

​Chen Lianhua: For me, the takeaways are immense. Firstly, despite monitoring stop-motion chronically, this hands-on involvement taught me vast photographic knowledge of the medium. Such expertise can’t be gleaned merely observing finished pieces. Future projects will draw renewed inspiration from this, spawning fresh ideas.

Secondly, collaborating closely with a team offered experiences I’d never encountered, accumulating irreplaceable interpersonal synergy skills.

Thirdly, academically, I continuously pondered what defines stop-motion’s uniqueness and irreplaceability. This film deepened that reflection. The authentic materiality of a “puppet” delivers sensory and spiritual realism—that’s its unreplicable essence. Puppets carry an inherent uncanny eeriness; this sensation penetrates humanity’s deeper recesses, embodying stop-motion’s charm.

Lastly, I deeply admire the women on this team for executing such meticulous craftsmanship!

​Xiao Hua: Thank you, Teacher Chen, truly too kind! He’s already a highly mature artist with a distinct style. We’re thrilled to collaborate with him. Without this partnership, accessing such aesthetics would’ve been unlikely. Creating work is most joyful when exploring uncharted stylistic territories.

Since Teacher Chen lacks prior 3D stop-motion experience, his storyboard and textual designs continually delighted and challenged us, especially through poetic expressions and long takes. Many doubt whether tangible stop-motion can convey poetry and ink-wash sensibilities like 2D animation can, but I believe it absolutely can—and our collaboration with him proved exactly that.

​Da Li: Previously, we mainly shot cute puppets or environments with low narrative stakes. Xiao Xue’s scale and depth were entirely foreign territory for us. Though fraught with production hurdles, its exceptional storytelling multiplied the sense of accomplishment.

After producing Xiao Xue, I feel our studio broke through significant barriers in aesthetics, technique, emotional perception, and narrative expression. Revisiting other animation projects now feels remarkably effortless. Not formally trained in animation, accompanying Teacher Chen in refining storyboards, dissecting character emotions, and analyzing narrative logic marked my first real lesson in crafting stories—an invaluable learning journey.