AM I ORIGHT – Yen Liang Chen Interview | I’M FINE! – UK/Ukraine Season
In the words of Yen Liang Chen, his 4-minute short film AM I ORIGHT was made to ‘indicate the author’s actual experience of getting lost, growing, and transforming in the process of the creation journey’, which made it a perfect addition to the I’m FINE! programme.
As a collaboration between Skwigly and Ukraine’s LINOLEUM festival, I’M FINE! is a project that focuses on the ways to maintain mental health and stay motivated and productive in a world that changes every minute.
The programme itself is a reflection on the emotional burnout from the best independent animation creators. In addition to animation film screenings, Skwigly will be featuring a series of interviews and podcasts with artists who share their experiences of going through emotional burnout. Today we present a conversation with Yen Liang Chen about his 2017 experimental short, AM I ORIGHT.
Could you introduce yourself and briefly describe the circumstances of how the film was made and where the concept came from?
I am the director of AM I ORIGHT, a 2D film which was made by digital hand drawn animation. [The film] is an abstract animation and it is talking about myself in three parts: the childhood, the chaos, and the last part where I become a better person.
It was based on sound [and] music. For the sound part, I recorded, edited it together, and listened to this whole sound; and then began to draw the visual arts for the film. So the beginning is the sound. I was reading this paper about how music creates a very unique feeling for everyone. Even when we both listen to the same music or sound, we got different feelings, because we have different experience in our lives. So we can have different stories. So this idea is coming up, and I was thinking that maybe I can just translate this sound to have a different visual.
I didn’t draw any kind of classic animation storyboard, because this film doesn’t have that process – I just listened to the sound and drew one by one, day by day, sound by sound.
When it comes to filmmaking and time management, do you find that the process of animation or filmmaking has any therapeutic value? Does it help you put your thoughts in order, or help you cope with life in general?
It was very enjoyable making this film. Maybe the first part of this animation is the [about] happiness as a childhood, and then I put myself into the chaos, and then after that it was about growing up.
But the whole animation process was very enjoyable, I have to say, because there’s no stress of time. I was [able] to put myself into a playground and because the sound was based on my feelings, I just put my imagination into this film. So I was just like a child, who is playing with the animation, the artwork!
I didn’t have any kind of bad feeling about how the storyboard was, or that I have to draw [a certain way] – I just followed my heart and my feelings at the time when I was drawing the clip. So every day drawing like this was very fun, interesting and enjoyable. It was a journey to learn how to feel the sound, how to open up my mind to the new landscape of my imagination. So, yes, it was a very happy journey!
It’s usual to work to deadlines, either for clients and employers; or if you’re working on your own projects you may have a self-imposed deadline. Do deadlines have a positive or negative impact on how you structure your time in approaching a creative project?
[The film did] have a deadline! I had a schedule, and I just followed my schedule day by day, month by month, and just try to reach the goal I have. Maybe [I was] a little bit stressed about the deadline, but not very much, because I know that I was trying to do my best. And, every time I showed it to my professor, he didn’t have any kind of negative opinion – he knew that it was an experimental animation and it was based on [my] feelings. He just gave me courage and said ‘keep going, keep going’.
There was a little bit of stress about the ending of this film! My professor gave me this homework: you have to add a recording about how you made this film, then the audience will know what are you doing, how you did it, how you made it. So this little bit of the last clip of my film was kind of a different thing. My friend helped me to re-record this sound, and I was very awkward at the time, because I had already recorded it in the beginning of the animation, but I had to just act like I was making it [for the first time]. So it gave me some kind of stress, yeah!
AM I ORIGHT
Burnout – the point where you feel like you’ve worked so hard on something you just can’t carry on, or you’re emotionally exhausted – have you ever experienced this? If so, how were you able to overcome it?
I think two years ago, there was a project which I had as a freelance. My friend introduced me to this project and, I have to say, I was very foolish that I wanted to [do the project] on my own; because I wanted to finish this project and earn all this money.
I call myself is foolish because I didn’t know the ability that I had at the time. After I finished the proposal for the project, I had to do the animation. And then I figured out ‘oh no, I don’t have the time or ability to finish this all on my own’. So it was a very stressful situation that time, and I blame myself partly and I say to myself ‘You’re a selfish person. You’re foolish. Why did you want to earn this whole money on your own? Why didn’t you think about this situation in the future?’
So I asked my very good friend and was pleased he could help me out on this project; he helped me a lot. And then I didn’t care about money, how much I earned. I just wanted to quickly finish all these projects and let the customer be happy. I didn’t want to care about how much money I have.
But this kind of a situation gave me a lesson that before I choose [a project] I have to think very clearly about if I have the ability, do I have the time, do I have another path if this doesn’t happen? If this doesn’t happen I won’t do it, because I know that it will make me very stressed out.
AM I ORIGHT
Yen Liang Chen’s film AM I ORIGHT is part of the I’m FINE! animation screening that will be taking place at:
- Bolton International Film Festival – 7 October (UK)
- MEGOGO screening – 10-30 October (Online, geo-blocked to UK and Ukraine)
I’M FINE! is a project by the LINOLEUM Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival and Skwigly Animation Magazine. It is implemented with the support of the British Council within the framework of the UK/Ukraine Season of Culture.