We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Siyu Wang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Siyu below.

Hi Siyu, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start big picture – what are some of biggest trends you are seeing in your industry?

The Midjourney AI drawing software, created in 2022 under the leadership of David Holz, has taken the drawing world by storm since its introduction. It’s so powerful that just by entering commands via Discord, you can sift through the works that most closely resemble your vision in a short period of time. Almost at the same time, the young crowd around me panicked, and every week I hear questions like this in my art teacher’s office:

“Sir, do you think AI will replace some artists?”

“Sir, will we face unemployment?”
If the covid-19 is a dry well into which young artists fall, making it difficult to find employment, the intrusion of AI artists is like a rock in the hands of someone standing at the edge of a well, making one feel constantly threatened by being targeted.

I was among the young people who asked questions.

I asked teachers in the U.S. and China separately and came to similar and different conclusions. This phenomenon is very interesting. Because it implicates different corporate and creative philosophies.

“AI painting will not replace artists, because the AI’s creativity itself is an appropriation of existing artists’ works to rearrange and combine them, and is not an original product.”

The American teacher summed it up in just one sentence. He is an outstanding storyboard painter and show runner. the animation creative field in the US focuses on the fun of design, practicality, and there is enough awareness of property rights, as well as powerful labor unions for protection. This makes it very difficult for AI drawing to replace artists.

And after getting the answer from the Chinese teacher, I realized that AI artists are totally our imaginary enemies.
If the American teacher’s words were like a heartening pill, the Chinese teacher’s words made me deepen my understanding of what AI painting software really does.

“What is most easily replaced is not creative work, but so-called creative work that is itself as unoriginal as assembly line work, and cloaked in creative skin thereby avoiding being scrutinized by strict and objective testing standards like assembly line work.”

Here’s how he puts it.
Based on the different animation creation environments in China and the U.S., due to the lack of systematic guidance and government subsidies, many animators have jumped ship to the game field for a more lucrative salary. The crowd left behind is basically for the love of power. Looking at the production line, the company’s main projects come from foreign outsourcing, and of the only remaining original projects, senior management and creative staff are basically invited to Japan, Korea, Europe and the United States. This phenomenon is a good explanation of the root cause of Chinese students’ anxiety due to AI – the lack of opportunities to touch real original work.
In recent years, through my interactions with fellow art students in China, I have found that most of my peers do not know what they need to do, and in their anxiety, they blindly practice the basics of pure painting and participate in purely technical art competitions such as the GGAC.

This kind of competition brings up two issues: design concept and copyright protection.

The problem with the design concept is that students from different majors blindly enroll in online classes and training to compare their skills. This results in very similar styles of drawing, with few students being able to break out of the shackles and stand out. For example, animation students and game students are almost identical in terms of drawing style elements, while those who know the industry know that characters in games are more suitable for aesthetic splendor and pile up a lot of décor in order to stimulate consumption/perform fewer actions. Animated characters, on the other hand, involve frequent and complex body movements and the viewer’s eyes need to be rested, so the settings of game characters cannot be copied to animated characters. This clash of design philosophies stems from a failure of information, i.e. students are not aware of the division of labor in the animation industry.

Another more important issue is the weak awareness of copyright. Since the GGAC competition is again rumored to be a seeding competition for the big studios, it can be very competitive. To add a personal edge, many students/employees copy and carry other people’s work for secondary creation. Posts with real names can often be seen on social media. On a macro level, this large arena has been extended into smaller AI fighting rings, where humans are doing AI’s work and constantly worrying about AI taking their jobs. Copyright laws need to be popularized urgently, which can alleviate some of the anxiety.

Overall, I predict that AI art in the U.S. will help some artists to find the feelings and painting more effectively, and will not replace artists as long as people protect copyrights; while in China, it will make artists stratified, the lower level artists are responsible for optimizing the shortcomings and bugs of AI painting, and do the modification work, and the advanced level artists are responsible for making more original and usable elements, and redistribute the labor force and work with the help of AI.

Siyu, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Every artist needs a “surprise box.”

After independently completing Rebirth, my first animated film in life, I noticed an interesting phenomenon in that my work habits went from tight to looser. I realized that this change was due to an entertaining personality test I took – the MBTI – and the ratio of attributes in the “planning” and “looking ahead” columns of my personality went from 9:1 to 4:6. It sounds incredible. At first I analyzed the reasons for the change and didn’t fully believe it, but it was only when my friends and family commented on how much lighter and more resilient they felt when they met me that I was convinced I should appreciate making movies.
Making a movie is different from preparing a candidate’s portfolio in that it’s filled with more uncertainties. Some of them are surprises, for example, when I finished the pre-production storyboard, concept design and mid-term 2D animation, and entered the post-production AE compositing, I realized that there were a lot of deficiencies in animating that only I could observe, but with the addition of camera moving and perspective, the picture was very harmonious, and the previous nagging problems were solved. Of course, there were also many scares, such as the software suddenly and frequently flashing back, resulting in accidental loss of files, good animation due to changes in the storyboard had to be discarded, Maya may always appear unknown problems (e.g. the formation of particles disappeared), etc., and I was always faced with the problem of re-doing the version and changing the plan.
This one year experience has improved my time management and mindset. I became more flexible in my time management, and I began to anticipate and allow for possible delays in each part of the process.
In addition to this, I became acutely aware of the fact that the attitude of process does not always match the result, i.e. “effort does not equal efficiency”. I used to sit at my desk and stare at the palm tree in front of my window, if my sight is a beam of light, there should be a huge burned hole on the brunch of the tree. Although I tried so hard, I haven’t think of an idea that I really satisfied with. However a month later, during my trip to Japan, Kyoto, I saw a kind of mushroom that spore and create a sound like singing. This inspired me a lot on my first version of storyboard and let me create a story of during the end of the world, how does a group of spirit climb onto the mushroom, hang themselves as suiciding in order to launch their souls as thousands of spores into other planets to keep surviving.
I began to realize the importance of relaxation in creative work. Inspiration doesn’t just come to me with effort, I need to make time in my life to cater to some serendipity and serendipity. It’s often full of the unknown and adventurous, such as chatting with strangers over dinner, or practicing activities that people call pointless, sitting in a shopping cart in front of a church and eating crepes in a daze, going to the park and picking up lots of leaves …… This kind of time can not be understood as complete relaxation, my subconscious mind is still working, but ready for the moment that inspiration comes. It is a third space between work and relaxation, which I named “surprise box”. I think this is the space that every creator needs.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Be kind is one of the most important key to build up reputation in the market. Character and grooming has always been a part that has been undercut by young workers. Especially when one is ambitious. Many people default to the idea that talent, hard work and responsibility will save the day. In truth, it doesn’t. The animation industry is a small world where people pass by today only to reunite and work together tomorrow. Many of these people are potentially valuable people.

Naturally, my film composer Peter Zongting Li and I went from collaborators to friends.
In just a few months, he generously shared many potential issues with me that young filmmakers need to be aware of, such as the importance of uploading films to the MBDI website, the workflow of composing a film, the bond between directors and composers, and so on. I was very grateful and even flattered at one point. It wasn’t until a casual conversation that he talked about how one of the main reasons I made him want to help was because I was “kind and willing to take care of people.”
This took me back to the beginning of our work together, when I didn’t define the boundaries of our relationship as co-conspirators, when we explored history, philosophy, AI, and art as friends, and when I positioned him as what seemed to be a good friend from the very beginning. And I gave him the support and care of a friend. It wasn’t until I got a lot of help and valuable advice from him that I really realized how much and how unpredictable kind and reputation can help a person, as mentioned by my previous teacher.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

One of the book that inspired me the most during the time I managed my film and cooperate with different people from the beginning to the end is called ANTI-FRAGILE by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I took a lot of risks in my film REBIRTH. For example trying to shorten a long story I like rather than a short but common story within a very tense time. The courage I have is actually brought by this book. It said “ there is no stability without volatility.” Although there’s still a lot of space to improve. But I’m proud of myself that I had a try and realize more problems that I can notice next time. Getting out of one’s comfort zone is hard but it’s worthy.
Some of the ideas from the book are:

1.It is not those who have tried to help us but those who have tried to hurt us but ultimately failed to do so who give us the greatest benefit.
2.If you are brave enough to take risks and face your destiny with dignity, nothing you do will devalue what you do.
3.Few people know that procrastination is our natural defense instinct, the instinct to let things run their course and exercise their anti-vulnerability.

Same as in fact people always seek success through negative methods, for example, chess masters usually win by not losing; people get rich by avoiding
People get rich by avoiding bankruptcy.
The brain is so loaded with complex techniques that it tends to lose sight of the basics. When you seek order, you get only apparent order; When you embrace randomness, you grasp order and control the situation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://siyuwang.wixsite.com/my-site-3
• Instagram: seafridge _eeee
• Facebook: Siyu Wang
• Youtube: Siyu Wang

Image Credits
Photo by Chen Yuzhi