Culture 03Shenzhen Daily Wednesday June 27, 2018

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Song of the WeekSong of the Week

JerichoRuston Kelly

You can walk, walk to BethesdaThere’s no house on Mercy StreetYou might get lost in the company of angelsIgnorin’ the stones tied around your feet

Yeah, you gotta try for somethin’Bend your knee and fi ght for somethin’Learn how to die for somethin’So you ain’t livin’ life for nothin’

Rivers weren’t made for drowningSouls were never made to failI raised Jericho around meBut these walls were built to scale

I framed a fortress ‘round my heartCarved her name in the old front doorSo she would know that love still standsHere forever even when she’s gone

Love can be a heatwaveLove can be a cold rainShadows at play on the walls of your room

Rivers weren’t made drowningSouls were never made to failI raised Jericho around meBut these were built to scale

Yeah, you gotta try for somethin’Bend your knee and fi ght for somethin’Learn how to die for somethin’So you ain’t livin’ life for nothin’, no

Rivers weren’t made for drowningSouls were never made to failI raised Jericho around meBut these walls were built to scaleThese walls were built to scaleThese walls were built to scale

BackgroundRuston Kelly’s highly anticipated full-length debut “Dying Star” will be released September 7 on Rounder Records, and “Jericho” is the album’s lead track. Of the album, Kelly comments: “A lot of my music is focused on suffering, or trying to understand the human condition through the lens of suffering which probably sounds totally depressing, but it’s actually the fl ipside of that. Sometimes you’ve gotta go into that darkness — you need to get lost and then fi gure out for yourself how to fi nd your way back. That’s the only way we can fi nd pure joy, and really be thank-ful for the life we’ve been given.”

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The LiftersTwelve-year-old Granite Flowerpetal, hero of Dave Eggers’ fi rst book for children, is having a rough time. His mechanic father is struggling to make enough money to support the family, which also includes Granite’s mother, who uses a wheelchair, and little sister Maisie. Dad’s solution is to move hundreds of miles to the town of Carousel, where things start going wrong as soon as they arrive.

Granite is worried about being the new kid at school, and hopes to make that easier with a slight name change, from the hard-edged* moniker* given to him by his father to balance the family surname to “Gran.” But nobody is interested in his name, or anything about him, and before long he discovers that something strange is going on under the surface of Car-ousel, literally so.

A dangerous, wind-like magical power called The Hollows is carv-

ing out tunnels beneath the town. This creates massive sinkholes into which houses fall, as well as most of the school. The town’s, possibly the world’s, only hope is a force of guardians*, the “Lifters” of the title. They use magical handles, known as lifts, to enter the tunnels and prop up the ground, but they’re fi ghting a losing battle.

Granite decides he wants to be part of the struggle, although it means having to persuade his spiky* class-mate, and secret Lifter, Catalina Cata-lan that he’s up to it. He wins her over through his courage, but it also turns out that a past connection between his ancestors and the town could provide a real solution. Cue plenty of tension in a desperate race against time.

There is nothing new under the fan-tasy sun, of course, and “The Lifters” is a familiar kind of tale for 8 to 12-year-olds, one where a family’s unhap-

that threatens to destroy everything. Yet there is a distinctly original feel to the way it’s told that sets it above many other examples of the genre. The characters are strong, well-rounded and engaging, and there is plenty of pace in the telling.

And Eggers can’t write a boring sentence, with “each word clicking into place as if she were making a puzzle out of glass.” Now that’s memorable, and so is the whole book. (SD-Agencies)

Ruston Kelly

Dreamworks Animation announced in 2017 that it had cancelled production on “Larrikins,” an animated musical feature set in the Australian outback featuring a bilby* (rabbit-bandicoot) named Perry. But Perry and some of the other characters will fi nd an audience via a touching new short, “Bilby,” which premiered* at the close of France’s Annecy International Ani-mation Festival two weeks ago. Now sights are set on awards season.

Also set in Australia, the dialogue-free short follows Perry as he tries to protect a cute little bird named Kylie from the dangers of the outback.

Containing both brisk action and emotive characters, the short was written and directed by Pierre Perifel, JP Sans and Liron Topaz. The directing trio came from “Larrikins” animation department, and as Topaz explains: “The assets existed, and we started to think about how we could turn this into a short fi lm. The environment that he was in was the most dangerous place to fi nd a cute furry animal. That was already a pretty interesting contrast. We thought, ‘How can we tell a story about the relationship, not giving up and doing what it takes to protect her?’ It grew into more of this character

becoming a father, or part of a family, from being on his own and just trying to survive.”

“He was very independent. He was a survivor,” Sans explains of how their protagonist* begins in the short. “But Perry’s heart is stronger than anything else. Before you knew it, he made this emotional connection that he just can’t walk away from.”

Without dialogue, the storytellers relied on creating emotive characters, as well as a score from their composer Benjamin Wallfi sch.

“The music was very important because there’s no dialogue,” says Perifel. “It moves from very powerful music at the beginning, very primal, to something much more lyrical when Kylie joins the story.”

The production was also used to test some new software that will be used for upcoming feature production. That includes Moon Ray, a light rendering* engine; Sprinkles, a tool for scattering debris; Locomation, an animation tool for creating motion; and an upgraded wind system. (SD-Agencies)

Bilby Bilby 《兔耳袋狸》《兔耳袋狸》

A scene from “Bilby.” A scene from “Bilby.” SD-AgenciesSD-Agencies

bilby 兔耳袋狸 premiere 首映 protagonist 主角 rendering 渲染 hard-edged 锋芒毕露的 moniker 绰号 guardian 保卫者 spiky 易怒的