November 23rd, 2018 
Jackson Murphy 
Perry Chen began his journey in the world of animation as a film critic. Today, the 18-year-old freshman at U.C. Irvine is the director of an acclaimed animated short film about the life of his father. Chen is hoping Changyou’s Journey continues to have an impact on audiences and makes it all the way to the Academy Awards.
Jackson Murphy: We were both featured in a 2010 Variety article on young movie critics. What has always fascinated you about film?
Perry Chen: What’s always fascinated me about film is the fact that it’s one of the most appealing art forms to children. I really like that it’s a way to express an artistic medium that kids will enjoy – and universally. It’s about the universal appeal.
Perry Chen’s ‘Changyou’s Journey’ Film Still
JM: You got to work with 2-time Oscar nominee Bill Plympton on a previous project. What was it like working with him?
PC: Meeting him, especially, was a real stroke of luck. I was covering Comic-Con as a young critic, and I happened to sit in on one of his short film showcases for “The Fan and the Flower”. He actually visited that showing and invited everyone down to his booth. I just had to meet him in person, and when I did, he was offering everyone free drawings. I got a drawing and for some reason, I just decided to draw one right next to it. I think it’s because I admired his style so much – I wanted to see if I could imitate it.
After seeing that, Bill Plympton and his friend, Kevin Sean Michaels, were a bit impressed… and wanted me to work on a film with them. Overall, my experience with Bill Plympton on the making of that film, Ingrid Pitt: Beyond The Forest, was that he was a really supportive mentor… surprisingly considering at that time he didn’t have any kids of his own. He was very encouraging. He pointed out ways that I could improve. He was always really supportive of a young artist trying to make something great.
JM: That’s so nice to hear. You love to hear good mentorship stories. I have to congratulate you on “Changyou’s Journey”. It’s about the life of your dad, who passed away in 2012. At what point did you decide that you wanted to tell his story?
PC: I wanted to start telling his story the moment I heard he had two weeks left to live. At that point, the purpose of making the film, to me, was to give him hope that he could live a few more days. And with each scene, I would draw each day, would be something for him to look forward to in the darkest hours of his life. That’s really how it all started. There have been a lot of ups and downs during the course of the making of the film, but that’s how it all began.
Perry Chen receiving Scholastic Art and Writing National Gold Medal in Film & Animation, Carnegie Hall (photo by Scholastic)
JM: That is powerful. Did you go to family members to get their perspective on your dad – for some research on all that he accomplished?
PC: Absolutely. With the support of our donors and friends and family, we were able to fund some trips back to China. I was able to visit some of his old colleagues, his family back in his remote village – to really have long in-depth conversations we recorded about their experience with him and the different roles he played in each of their lives. He was a biotech CEO back in China, and he had a lot of… workers. It was really cool to see how the way they looked up to him was so different from how I looked up to him as a son.
JM: You can tell in watching Changyou’s Journey how personal this is for you. And one of the key elements to making it all work is that you didn’t use any dialogue. Was that a difficult decision or something you decided right out of the gate?
PC: It wasn’t really a difficult decision because… being an animation critic, I’ve watched hundreds of animated films, especially animated shorts. And a lot of those don’t use dialogue. It’s easier to make a silent short film than a feature film, as you know. So it felt like the right thing to do.
JM: I was really impressed with the music. How did you find the right tone?
PC: I worked with our composer and co-producer David Arend. A lot of the music was done with me talking it through with him in many hour-long discussions. I would go through scene-by-scene all the way down to the second. And I think that was really helpful for him, seeing as he was working on it scene by scene. A lot of these short movements that can switch moods pretty quickly, based on the animation. For this film, I made a temp track, but I chose not to share it with him because I ultimately wanted to see the creative direction he took on it completely without any of my influence, as a non-musical person. Ultimately, he performed better than I ever could’ve expected.
Film poster, designed by 17-year-old fellow YoungArts and Scholastic award winner Cynthia Zhou
JM: The short has beautiful hand drawings. When you’re doing them, do you get a sense of power and freedom in hand-drawings, as opposed to people doing something like CGI or stop-motion?
PC: I really enjoy hand-drawn animation as a medium, and I feel that’s part of why I chose to do hand-drawings for the animation here – also because of my experience. This film was not animated by me, but it was done by… our animator, Matt Fisher. But as a whole, I really love the medium of hand-drawn animation. But there are things you just really can’t convey in 3D animation, no matter how advanced the technology. Like in the movie Aladdin: how the Genie moves from one second to another.
JM: I don’t know how Disney is gonna pull-off his movements in CGI with the new, Will Smith version next Summer. So since this is such a personal story for you, how do you want other people coming into this story to feel by watching Changyou’s Journey?
PC: While making the film, I never thought about what kind of impact it would have on others. I honestly started making the film as a pure, personal project. So I never imagined it would have this kind of impact, and I never really intended it, either. But I think it’s such an incredible thing how a film – once you make it – can take on a life of its own and resonate with the audience. It’s striking a chord in ways I personally could never have predicted.
JM: You’re going to so many different places screening the film, including the Toronto International Film Festival, where it was selected for the Kids Division. How has it been traveling to all these places with the film?
PC: It’s pretty incredible to see that my film – this little film I created that was birthed in my mind and through my own personal experience – was able to touch the lives of audiences in Toronto. That was the first one and probably one of the most meaningful ones for me. After the film’s showing, seeing the audience come up to me and tell me about their own experiences with grief and loss of a loved one. I’ve had that all over – in all sorts of different film festivals, where people tell me how this film has a personal meaning to them, with the loss of their father, brother or son – or any loved one in general. That’s not something I ever could’ve expected.
JM: And you’re not only getting this film out there, but you are hoping for an Oscar nomination in the coveted Best Animated Short Film category. What would an Academy Award nomination mean to you and your film?
PC: I actually never thought of that because I never expected to get that far. But that’s a good question. What that would probably mean to me is that I’m really doing something right – that the art I’ve created has a much bigger… purpose behind it and a bigger meaning.
JM: I think you’re already experiencing some of that impact. I also heard your mother is making a documentary on the making of this film. So how has that process been?
PC: That’s been really incredible. I can kind of feel what it’s like to be a parent, seeing your child grow artistically, except a role reversal. I see my mom’s growth artistically, and I think that’s really incredible. It’s such a rare thing for anyone to see their parent grow in a completely different direction than you ever could’ve expected. I think we often see our parents as… fixed permanent beings in our lives, but we have to remember that they’re people, and their creative perspective is very valuable as well. I’m going to be taking a far lesser role in the creation of her documentary film, A Journey of a Thousand Miles. Most of the help I provide will be in the form of teaching her what I learned in my filming experience.
For more information on Chen and the short, go to changyousjourney.com. Changyou’s Journey is in the Shorts Competition Program #3, December 2nd, 2018 at noon at the Los Angeles Animation Festival on Dec 2nd, 2018.
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