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We were fortunate enough to be able to catch up with some of the creative talent behind the F8 short film. This time we had a great interview with writer Howard Wen.

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What was the biggest challenge for you as a writer?

One of the toughest things about scriptwriting is that you have to focus on telling the story in a very visual yet appropriate way. The big no-no in writing scripts is that you shouldn’t have characters conveying the story solely through their dialogue but by their actions. With f8, this rule was even more important since my brother didn’t want any spoken dialogue in the film. Everything about the plot had to be told by what you see on the screen, and, especially, by the actions of the characters.
That was really a major challenge for me. Dialogue helps to establish certain things about a character — the way they talk, their outlook on life, a glimpse into parts of their history which defines the person that they are. But in f8, the main protagonist’s character was developed, I think, through many subtleties — the way he takes his first breath after putting on the face, the expression of cocksuredness that he gives off when he’s about to confront an enemy, and the defiant look he gives as he’s about to escape at the end of the story. Through this, we can see that there’s an inner strength about the hero, but at the same time a bit of overconfidence, which, perhaps, is what causes him to lose in the end.

Were you responsible for the look of f8?

Admittedly, a lot of these developments of the character were not written by me. But in most scripts, these expressive traits are up to the actor to interpret. In the case of animation, whether it’s CG or traditional 2D cell, this interpretation lies in the talent of the animator. Thus, in terms of visuals, I think it’s really best to leave most of that work to the animators, and production designer, when it comes to establishing the look for an animation. A writer is better off keeping the description of things, like the characters and environments, simple and open to interpretation. The writer’s job is really to focus on establishing when and where certain events happen, and what things about the character need to be revealed as the story runs its course.

How did your approach help the production?

Because of this approach, there were many, many visual layers added to f8 that I never would have conceived — things such as how the characters look, or more enigmatic elements like the icons scattered throughout the settings which clue the viewer in on how the society of f8 functions, for example. Sure, maybe a writer can come up with things like these, too, but I think if the visuals are left open enough, the animators and artists will dream up something that neither the writer nor director anticipated originally which enhances or adds to the story. It also keeps the people who handle the “visual stuff” passionate about the project since they’re encouraged to add to the overall story being told. Keeping visual elements subject to interpretation is really the number one rule for animation scriptwriting, I believe.

How do you feel about action sequences?

Another lesson that I learned through f8: Action is really difficult to do in animation, particularly CG animation, well. All too often we see attempts by both amateur and professional CG animators to imitate the look and feel of action blockbusters. The original draft for f8 featured a lot of gunplay and fights, in fact, but Jason wisely chose to delete all these sequences out. His own reasons were because he was personally tired of gunplay and fight sequences in movies. I’m kind of the same thought nowadays, too, but my primary concern was whether such action sequences would even be interesting to see in computer animation. I think part of the appeal for the kind of stuntwork you see in John Woo’s movies, for example, is getting to see human beings perform unreal moves — pulling off physical feats as if they are, ironically, cartoon characters.

There’s something really cool when you see a very talented human being, like Jackie Chan, do what he does on screen. But what’s the big deal if an animated human character pulls off the same feats? There’s nothing special about it because we know that the animated character isn’t constrained by the real-world rules of physics. Perhaps I’m a bit jaded, but I never could get into any of the action sequences from the Final Fantasy movie. I was more interested in the character and story development, but the action sequences — while beautifully conceived and rendered, no doubt — felt rather inert to me. The Pixar guys are much better at pulling off action, especially in the original Toy Story. But maybe action sequences work best, or are easier to do, in computer animation if the characters aren’t supposed to be human beings.

Do you feel that creating action is the challenge?

Maybe that’s what the general appeal of movies is: The ability to watch the impossible. In live-action action flicks, the challenge for the director, writer and other creative people is to make the human beings become sort of like animated characters. Conversely, in computer-animation flicks, like f8, the challenge probably lies in making the actions of animated characters become, if you will, more “human.” A computer-animated character performing stunts and actions as if it were a real human being doing physical feats as though it were an animated character… besides making my head dizzy, it sounds quite redundant and like a pointless endeavor.

If you would like to read more about f8, be sure to read our past articles:

Interview – F8: Creating the Film
F8 won the Jury Honors Award at the Siggraph 2001 Electronic theater. Jason tells us a little more about the “behind the scenes” of his 3 1/2 year solo project.

Interview – f8‘s Setup Lowdown
After a huge buzz and emails of visitors on TSP, we decided to get a bit more in depth information about this amazing solo project. Jason was very generous in sending us not only images of his workspace, but also what was used in creating the film.

Interview: f8‘s Music Maestro : Casey Hess
F8’s siggraph debut has cause lots of buzz around this short film. Jason Wen, F8’s creator hooked us up with an interview with the talent behind the music on his film. Check it out!