ONE SMALL STEP

In order to analyze the work of animator Zhang Shaofu, apart from a series of SONY and Disney animation works, One Small Step is his representative work, which he led the Wuhan team to produce. The 7-minute, 40-second animated film, which took 14 months to complete and was nominated for Animated Short Film at the 91st Academy Awards. One Small Step is a Chinese animation with Disney elements, which is the furthest Chinese animation artists have gone in the Oscar. For Chinese animation, it has a strong historical significance. Next, I will analyze the story and art of the work.

The story is about a Chinese girl, Luna, who was obsessed with aerospace since childhood. Her cobbler father, always did everything he could to encourage her. With the time flow, the daughter grew up and the father grew old. Due to the academic difficulties, the communication between the daughter and her father gradually decreased. She wanted to give up many times, but her father was very patient with her. Until one day, his father died, with his academic difficulties, this is worse for Luna, she became depressed. Later, while accidentally cleaning out her father’s workshop, she found a box containing the shoes she had worn since she was a child, including the space boots given by her father. At that time, Luna regained confidence to start a new life, through her own efforts to achieve what she wanted to become an astronaut. She realized her dream.

One Small Step combined the Disney style with the Chinese style, and I found that Disney’s animation focuses on the expression of characters’ characterization, and the character’s personality is clearly expressed. It can be seen that the character is stable, patient and kind father, and an ambitious and positive heroine. Disney animation attaches great importance to family relations and deeply depicts the description of “family”, which well shows the development of the relationship between father and daughter. In terms of animation performance, the action is distinct, the exaggerated expression is clear, and the rhythm is exquisite. It can be seen that the intention of the protagonist can be expressed every time a paragraph is produced. There’s a lot of twists and turns and a good twist. The work is rendered by 3D production into a simple illustration style, with clear colors and a good use of warm and cold colors to express feelings.

As for the inspiration of the author’s story, Zhang Shaofu has done a lot of research and found that most astronauts come from ordinary backgrounds. Being an astronaut is probably the craziest and most unattainable career for humans. There are only few astronauts in the world. Therefore, the author chooses astronauts as the main material. All these are of great help to the design of my future works. I can apply the style, color, plot and other materials into my future design.