Time Writer | clory is eager to praise pop culture.

I still remember the animated film Inside Out released by Pixar in 2015, which personified people’s five basic emotions and made people re-examine their emotions in laughter.

This time, Pixar applied the creative idea of "everything can be anthropomorphic" to natural elements, bringing a brand-new fantasy story-

Crazy element city

Fire, water, wind and earth live together in a dream city.

They seem to repel each other, but they can influence each other, colliding with crazy and interesting chemical reactions, and even bringing a love story of "fire and water are incompatible"?

On the occasion of the upcoming film release this Friday (June 16th), Time Jun will take you to see what new elements Pixar has brought to the audience from the picture to the story.

Technical force explosion

In fact, the idea of anthropomorphizing elements is not novel. After all, many people have played the flash game "The Man in the Forest" in the computer room:

But to present this idea perfectly on the big screen requires an extremely professional industrialization process and world-leading technical force.

In this regard, we can always trust Pixar’s technology-

When the gate of Element City is opened, you are greeted with a visual feast that you can enjoy to the utmost.

Absent-minded clouds that come and go freely have injected a trace of cure and accident into the city:

The soil looks dirty, but it is the hero who built and supported the whole urban structure:

Hot and active fire, with a steady stream of energy and energy, provides a solid foundation for the city:

Water full of curiosity always protects and nourishes the natural environment of the city;

In these special urban residents, we can feel that Pixar has created a new height for the presentation of dynamic effects.

For example, Pixar has made great efforts to describe the movement track of "fire", observing the flame in the real world, looking for inspiration, and then performing artistic processing.

So, you can see that when the fire is moving rapidly, sometimes part of the body disappears and rises again:

The audience can feel that this is really a group of "fire people", not a person with "flame skin".

Of course, it takes explosive technical force to make all kinds of elements lifelike, but it takes imagination and sincere observation of life to make these elements truly "characters" and have their own lives in a logical way.

In the trailer, we can see a lot of people who can’t help but sigh "so imaginative, but so real!" The details.

Fire Baby’s stroller is an oven, and milk powder is engine oil;

Fire can also make a hot air balloon heated and take off for a romantic air date:

When water glides on the surface of the lake at a high speed, it can stir up spray and hang a rainbow on the horizon:

Of course, sometimes jokes will be made, such as the fire accidentally hitting the soil wearing a "turf coat" and burning him bald in an instant:

The elements live in this city, and every interaction between them can collide with interesting events, which makes the world truly convincing.

Stimulation of technical strength and imagination, sincere love for life … These "creative elements" complement each other, which is the reason why Pixar animation touches people’s hearts again and again.

Fire and water love

In the gorgeous and magical element city, the classic story of "boy meets girl" is also staged all the time.

However, the two protagonists of this love story are fire and water, Xiao Yan and A Bo.

The gap between the two is so deep that it seems to span an entire periodic table, and it is completely impossible to have a happy ending.

Xiaoyan lives in a traditional family and has the responsibility of inheriting the family business.

Her family has always taught her that "elements are incompatible" and excluded other elements. She has also been taught and has never left the fiery town where the fire elements live.

It was not until Po suddenly jumped out of the burst water pipe that a bigger world slowly opened in front of her.

Contrary to Xiaoyan, A Bo lives in an optimistic family, free and unrestrained, and Xiaoyan is also welcome to outsiders.

The acquaintance with A Bo made Xiao Yan curious about the larger element world, bravely took the step of exploration, and began to pursue his true inner desire.

This is not only a romantic love story across ethnic groups, but also a story of finding self-identity and embracing more possibilities.

In Pixar’s past classic feature films, love rarely served as the main narrative theme, but through some descriptions with little ink, the innocence and sincerity among them have moved the audience to tears.

For example, in Travels around the Flying House, Grandpa Carl and his wife were childhood friends, and the montage clip of their love for a lifetime was tearful to the whole world, explaining what is plain and true:

The pure love between Wali and Eva in Robot Story has also brought happy childhood memories to countless people, telling us that true love may not need the pretense of words:

As for the love between fire and water in Crazy Element City, can Pixar bring us another romantic adventure?

I look forward to how they can overcome many obstacles, know each other and love each other, turn compatibility into compatibility, and turn the impossible into possibility.

Asian perspective

As Pixar’s brand-new feature film masterpiece, Crazy Element City is in full swing and has assembled a gold medal team.

There is a core team that once created Soul and other excellent works with high scores, the chief creative officer of Pixar Studio, and Pete Docter, who directed Inside Out’s Travel Around the Flying House and other Oscar classics, as the producer.

As for Peter Sun, an Asian director who once participated in the production of Summer Friendship Day and Travel Notes around Flying Houses, many people may not be familiar with him.

Most of the time, he is active in animation as a voice actor, and his voice (Ganke Lee) is in the recently released Spider-Man: The Vertical and Horizontal Universe.

He is a new director, but he also has impressive works.

For example, in 2009, the animated short film "Violent Clouds and Crane Delivery" recounted an ancient western legend with a bold and unconstrained style and healing warmth.

For more than five minutes, the soft and changeable "violent cloud" made people feel warm:

What makes people smile is that we can also see the lovely cure of the same paragraph in the "wind" in "Crazy Element City":

In Crazy Element City, we can see Peter Sun’s Asian perspective and narrative about cultural conflicts.

The love story of Xiao Yan and A Bo, which is "incompatible with fire and water", comes from his marriage.

Born in a Korean family, he has been shouldering the responsibility of continuing the tradition since he was a child. Grandma’s expectation for him is "marry a Korean!" .

However, he fell in love with a white woman and got married, which caused many dramatic events in two families.

A small detail can be seen in the trailer. A Bo tried to eat very hot food and burned himself to deformation.

The details of this life also come from the director’s emotional story. He took his wife and her family to a Korean restaurant, but as a result, her wife was not used to eating too spicy food and made some accidents:

At first, the two could only associate behind his parents’ backs, but fortunately, in the end, true love prevailed, and both families finally accepted each other, and they also found many things in common in this marriage with different skin colors.

From this, we can also see that individuals who seem to be "incompatible with fire and water" can actually merge into one as long as they have love to cross obstacles, bringing incomparable touch.

Besides the love story, the setting of Element City also comes from the director’s life experience. As the son of immigrants, the residents in Element City are very different, which obviously refers to the ethnic diversity in the city.

It can also be seen from the choice of directors that Pixar attaches importance to and encourages Asian groups.

From "Metamorphosis of Youth" to "Crazy Element City" today, new directors are boldly used, and the audience can witness more works from Asian perspectives.

In both works, there are themes about the "heavy love" of traditional East Asian families and the identity of immigrants, which are quite cordial to East Asian audiences.

Of course, I also expect these Asian directors to bring more narratives that are not limited to identity, so that audiences all over the world can resonate.

Editor’s Note: 2022 is the year of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the centenary of the founding of the Communist Youth League of China. A nation will prosper only when its young people thrive If the younger generation has ideals, skills and responsibilities, the country will have a future and the nation will have hope. Red Net Moment News will launch the column "Strugglers are Youth" from now on, telling how the contemporary youth passed the torch of a century of youth, and what kind of youthful blood and passion they used to meet the party’s 20 th victory.

Xin Yang, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor, School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University.

Red Net News Reporter Liu Zhixiong Zhu Liping Intern Hu Xinghai Changsha Report

If the integrated circuit field represented by CPU is the "brain" of modern equipment, then the power semiconductor chip is the "heart" that provides power. After returning from Cambridge University, Xin Yang, a professor at the School of Electrical and Information Engineering of Hunan University, devoted himself to the research of power semiconductors. He wanted to build "China Core".

"Our country was 30 years behind in this respect and was stuck in the neck for too long." Xin Yang said with emotion.

Xin Yang’s concern about power semiconductors stems from a teacher’s words during his undergraduate period. "Power semiconductors are the core of electric energy conversion, and a generation of power semiconductor chips determines the performance of a generation of equipment." It also originated from Xin Yang’s "China Heart". Since childhood, parents have taught Xin Yang to be an indispensable talent for the country.

Previously, the research results of the subject with Xin Yang as the first author were published in a top international academic journal of physics. This achievement provides a new idea for solving the serious oscillation problem of new power semiconductor.

"This achievement can give full play to the advantages of fast switching speed and low loss of the third generation semiconductor devices, which is of great significance for the development of high power and extremely high power density converter equipment." Xin Yang introduced.

Semiconductor components used in experiments in Xin Yang.

Power semiconductors are widely used, ranging from high-speed trains to mobile phone chargers.

"Almost everything involving electric energy conversion requires the participation of power semiconductors." Xin Yang said, "But our country once lagged far behind Europe in power semiconductor devices including IGBT (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor)."

IGBT has long been monopolized by developed countries. In 2009, in order to learn advanced semiconductor knowledge, Xin Yang studied for master’s degree and doctor’s degree in Imperial College London and Cambridge University.

During his stay at Cambridge University, Xin Yang firmly decided to return to China in contact with CRRC Zhuzhou Institute and related companies. "Many of our own technologies are not advanced, so we have to look at others’ faces. That feels terrible. " Xin Yang said, "At that time, I felt that the country urgently needed this technology, and it was time for me to realize my self-worth and serve the motherland."

Yang Xin takes students to work in the laboratory.

In 2015, Xin Yang returned to his native Hunan from Britain. In 2018, he was hired as a professor and doctoral supervisor at the School of Electrical and Information Engineering of Hunan University. Hunan University’s relatively complete incentive system for young teachers and the free and open academic environment at the foot of Yuelu Mountain have given Xin Yang great impetus.

In recent years, Xin Yang has presided over or participated in several national scientific research projects, published more than 40 high-level papers and applied for more than 20 invention patents.

"I went out with an initial intention to study for my country. After I came back, I felt that the country, especially Hunan, attached importance to talents. Only by redoubling efforts and making achievements can we live up to the expectations of the party and the people." During the conversation, Xin Yang said many times that he wanted to contribute to the country’s breakthrough in key technologies.

In Xin Yang’s view, his academic achievements can not be separated from the support of relevant national policies. He was selected into the relevant national talent plan, and his learning experience in the team of Luo An, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, also benefited from the Hunan Young Talents Support Program.

Xin Yang is with his students.

Nowadays, the importance of chips to modern industry is becoming more and more prominent, and talents are the key to technological leadership. Xin Yang pays special attention to the matter of taking students, and his latest research results include many master students. "Academician Luo An has given me a lot of help. As a teacher, I should also teach my students what I have learned without reservation. The happiest thing is that my students are better than me academically."

In the next six months to a year, Xin Yang will focus on building a new reliability evaluation method for power semiconductors. "At present, the evaluation of power semiconductors is still relatively extensive. We hope to reach the degree of calculation reliability and know the service life of IGBT components more accurately, and then deduce more advanced and reliable power semiconductor packaging technology."

In addition to constantly pursuing the optimization of chip performance indicators, looking to the future, Xin Yang wants to make some subversive achievements in originality theory. "Time is still tight." Xin Yang ridiculed his increasingly backward hairline. After devoting himself to scientific research, Xin Yang almost had no entertainment activities. "But doing research with students is very happy, and I don’t feel tired when I work overtime."

"I hope that when the country stands at the forefront of the world in the field of power semiconductors one day, I can be proud to have contributed a little to it." Xin Yang said.