"I'm so numb! I'm on the stage to receive the Emmy Award!" Recently, a video on Xiaohongshu has become a hot search. Shi Min, a girl from Nanjing, is a member of the title designer team of the popular American drama "The Last of Us" One of them won the 75th Emmy Award for Outstanding Title Design. Recently, in an interview with a reporter from Upstream News (report email: [email protected]), Shi Min said that the production cycle of this one-minute title sequence is more than a year, and he is one of the very few to win the highest award in the American television industry. Chinese, after winning the award, she couldn't help but have red eyes.
The title designer team of "The Last of Us" received the Emmy Award. Shi Min is the third from the right. According to the Emmy Awards official website
The Emmy Awards are the highest awards in the American television industry. Together with the Academy Awards (movie awards), Grammy Awards (music awards), and Tony Awards (drama awards), they are also known as the United States Four awards in the entertainment industry. On the morning of January 16th, Beijing time, at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards 2024, HBO's game adaptation of the popular American drama "The Last of Us" received 24 nominations and finally won 8 awards. Among the six-member team that won the Best Title Design Award, the Chinese names of several designers attracted the attention of netizens, including Shi Min from Nanjing.
Shi Min delivered an acceptance speech after receiving the award. Picture provided by the interviewee
html On the morning of 018, an upstream news reporter contacted Shi Min who was far away in the United States. She told the reporter that she had liked painting since she was a child. "From the infancy of painting to studying art, my parents have always supported me unconditionally, so in my acceptance speech after winning the award, I especially thanked my parents for giving me this opportunity."
Shi Min holds the Emmy Award. Photo courtesy of interviewee
Shi Min graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 2014 with a bachelor's degree in drama, film and television art design. In 2015, he went to the University of Southern California Film School to study for a master's degree in animation and digital arts. After graduating in 2018, he started working in Hollywood. After briefly working as a visual design intern at Sony Pictures, he then joined elastic.tv, one of the top media production companies, as a designer. The title titles of classic American dramas such as "Westworld", "Game of Thrones" and "True Detective" were all produced by the company. .
"I am mainly engaged in the packaging design of American TV series titles, including advertising design and game title design. In the past five and a half years, in addition to "The Last of Us", I have participated in American TV series such as "Pantheon", "Mindhunter" and "" "The Gilded Age " and the movies " Mulan " and "Captain Marvel" etc." Shi Min introduced that before winning the Emmy Award, the title sequence of "The Last of Us" won the 2023 New York Art Directors Council (ADC) Annual Award. , the titles of "His Dark Materials Trilogy" and "Catherine the Great" she participated in were also nominated by the British Film Institute in 2019. In addition, the advertisements she participated in the production also won the Clio International Advertising Awards (ciloawards). .
Shi Min said that the production team of "The Last of Us" is very international, and the main creators are mainly Asians, which is very rare in Hollywood. After receiving this award, he couldn't help but blush, "The six main creators were designed by the director It is composed of designers and animators, and more than 20 other team members also include producers, editors, binders, etc.”
reporter noticed that another award-winning Chinese designer Zeng Xiaolin (zaoeyo) is from Hunan. He is recognized as one of the c4d masters in the industry and has produced many hard-core science fiction short films. Shi Min also said that in Hollywood media companies, there are not many Chinese designers doing title design, but there are actually many Chinese artists in the post-production of film and television special effects, and they have made many outstanding achievements.
Shi Min said, "The main work of Zeng Xiaolin and I on the title project of "The Last of Us" was the early concept design, which included modeling, materials, lighting, and screen composition. To put it bluntly, it was designing what the things in the screen would look like. To be more specific, what are the styles and colors of the various fungi and the composition of the pictures they form? Because "The Last of Us" is an American TV series adapted from the game, the theme of our title is also based on the title of the original game. A visual expansion and extension."
The opening of "The Last of Us" shows the Cordyceps fungus that causes human infection, paired with classic guitar music, vividly reflecting the process of its mutation and spread. "What I wanted to do at the time was a wonderful visual illusion effect. Through this Fantasy uses symbols and metaphors to highlight some important plots and character relationships in the play. For example, viaducts made of mycelium and city skylines made of bacterial colonies represent the surface of human civilization. The map of the United States formed by the crazy expansion of hyphae metaphorically spreads to the social level. The final shot is the silhouette of the two protagonists transformed into fungi. It can be clearly seen that the last two protagonists are standing at a certain distance, which represents the emotional relationship between people, which also slowly appears with the virus infection. gap. "
What surprised upstream journalists was that the short title production cycle was comparable to the TV series itself. Shi Min said, "It is very difficult among the projects I participated in, because the film crew found us before they started filming. Discussing the production of the title sequence, it is quite challenging, which is why the production time is relatively long. The production alone takes 10 months. If you add in the six months of preparatory work, it will take more than a year. "
"The Last of Us" has been praised by drama fans and game fans since its broadcast. It received 24 nominations at the 75th Emmy Awards, including "The Lord of the Rings: Ring of Power" nominated for Best Title. "The Fantasy of Guillermo del Toro" and "White Lotus Resort" and other popular dramas, "I personally like the opening of The Lord of the Rings, but this year, everyone's discussion on the opening of "The Last of Us" The ratings are extremely high, and most gamers resonate strongly with the title sequence. Most of the external reviews are very positive, so I was quite looking forward to winning the award, but I didn’t expect it to come true. "
Before taking the stage to receive the award, Shi Min fell down in the aisle of the auditorium and was also captured by the camera, "I can't tell what happened, but suddenly I became nervous, and I fell over in a panic. I only remember seeing the camera at that time. At that moment, my eyes went dark, and I had been thinking silently in my heart: Don't fall, but maybe the psychological suggestion was too strong, so I fell instead. I regretted it very much, but I couldn't undo this embarrassing scene, haha!
Netizens also comforted Shi Min in the comments: "It's okay. I won't be nervous when I win the award next time!" "It's so cute, very real, and a unique experience." "Everyone will only be excited for your excitement when they see it." Happier. "
Shi Min introduced that he has left his previous company to become a freelancer, and is still participating in some film and television drama projects, but because they have not been broadcast yet, it is inconvenient to disclose according to the confidentiality agreement.
In 2019, a Chinese female director born in Chongqing Shi Zhiyu won the 91st Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for his animated short film "Bao Baobao", and later produced the highly acclaimed animated feature " Youth Metamorphosis ".
Shi Min said that he also admired Shi Zhiyu very much Yu's works, but the career direction I want to try in the future is not necessarily limited to film and television production. "In fact, I personally would prefer to make my own art works, and develop in the direction of pure art or even sculpture installations." "It is reported that Shi Min's personal art works have been exhibited in New York Times Square, Image Shanghai Art Fair, art021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, etc. At the end of 2021, a digital art work she created was auctioned on the digital art platform trlab.
Upstream news reporter Tang Hao, intern You Zihan
