The little Iranian hero in the hearts of the children of the world

Charso Press: We are not exaggerating if we say that the animation “Dolphin Boy” by Tomani Haft Sanar is different from other animations made in Iran. A well-made, unpretentious movie, with an attractive and at the same time fun and happy story, which has the ability to communicate with different ages, and it happens to be one of the best sellers of Iranian cinema these days.. The shape, image and structure of this animation is such that it does not seem to be Iranian at all, and watching it brings to mind most of the products of the Disney company; But what comes to mind after watching this movie is that Iranian cinema, both in terms of storytelling and atmosphere creation, has a lot of creative human potential and it has the ability to compete with world animations. This movie tells the story of a boy who lives in the sea with dolphins. After years, now that he has grown up, he is looking for his mother and his identity, and in the meantime, he encounters various adventures. We had an interview with Mohammad Khairandish, the writer and director whose “Boy of Dolphins” is his first feature film in the cinema, and we asked him about the structure of animations in the world and in Iran..

When it comes to animation, what comes to mind is a range of audiences that do not only include children and teenagers. Do you think that animation audiences should be limited to children only?
Basically, every work of art is made with two purposes; Film or for “target audience» make‎or covers the range of audiences. The “target audience” for animation movies are generally children and for the ages of 9 to 12 years to see and enjoy animations. Young children, 9 to 12 years old, understand most of the forms, jokes and plot, but people older than this age group communicate with the elements and poetry of the film. In the world, animations are usually made in such a way that they are universal and communicate with a wide range of audiences. In other words, the audience is of different ages‎They can watch these movies and enjoy watching them.
Therefore, the movie “Dolphin Boy” is considered universal in this sense, because the story has the ability to communicate with any type of audience..
Yes, our “target audience” for this movie was 6 to 12 years old, but the structure of the movie is such that the non-target audience will not miss watching the movie and enjoy it. I heard from parents who sat down to watch the movie with their children, that they didn’t think that this movie was fun and attractive for their age and they thought that they would have to watch a movie with their child for two hours, but contrary to this mentality of watching a movie Dolphin boy had fun.
Some time ago, I prepared a field report on families and children, in which parents complained that domestic animations and cartoons are not attractive and that their children are not interested in domestic productions at all.. Most of the cartoons and animations are for kids‎they saw, it was foreign; Like Anna Elsa and Panda Kong‎It was fu work and… What do you see as the reason and what is the cause of this unattractive domestic animations?
It is related to two things; First, there is the issue of content. Foreign filmmakers spend a lot of time choosing stories that are attractive to children for the content of their films. But unfortunately, Iranian animations do not have much energy and power to attract the audience. The second point is the discussion of technique, of course, I believe that we have made progress in some sectors and areas in these years..
But without exaggeration, the story of the dolphin boy is attractive to the audience.
We put a lot of energy into the content and the story of the movie at Pasar Delfini. We also focused a lot on the technical aspects of the film, but the story was very important to us. For this reason, the process of writing the screenplay took several years. Of course, I would like to say that both in terms of content and technical discussion, we tried to work in parallel and be uniform. Well, in this direction, we made progress in some technical fields; But our opinion was that all parts of the film should be stylish and uniform. From the design of the characters to the integrated lighting and animation, and the story should have the necessary attraction for the audience along with these parts..
In the past years in the form, we faced animations that are not visually strong and high quality, but Dolphin Boy is not like that. The faces of the characters are attractive and the audience likes these cartoon characters. Of course, the design of the characters is such that Disney animations are evoked in the mind. Were you influenced by these cartoon super companies?
There is a cinematic form in the body of world cinema of animation, which is the leader in the world both in terms of narration and graphics, which also belongs to Disney, and in this respect, Disney, Pixar and Sony Pictures, their models originate from these rules. I want to say that all over the world, in the production design department, all animations in the world follow a model and school that is specific to Disney, and in this way, we also followed the Disney rules in the character design or production design department in the body cinema world. Disney has created this global design and it has been accepted as a graphic format in the world and its works with this format are also very popular. Of course, sometimes Disney deconstructs and changes the graphics in this way. We also used this graphic template that is placed in the same school. But in terms of structural and graphic rules, we did not have any similarity or modeling from them.
We did not want to reinvent the wheel. To make the Dolphin Boy animation, we made our own wheel, but we used the common patterns of the world’s body cinema with the same production design that all the world’s animations are placed in the same format with the same line and connection. The reason for its effectiveness was that when we are among the global models, we face a wide and global audience.
Another problem with the mass of Iranian animations is that they do not have an attractive story. This means that the stories of most animations do not appeal to children. However, the story is the main element in the structure of an animation. In this movie, while you used the child-friendly story, you also presented Iranian concepts. How did you get this texture?
To be honest, I tried to tell stories to children and talk to them in their own language, and at the same time tell them my own story, but avoid manifestos and expressions of worldview and ideology. Another point is that to tell the story, I took the children seriously and spoke to them in a serious language. I didn’t make my voice childish to tell my story, and in other words, I didn’t play pranks to attract them. Some audience members told me that their children were afraid of some scenes in the movie. I explained to this audience that I was honest with the children in this film. Children in real life are also afraid at some moments. In this movie, I tried to put the moments of the story together in such a way that the child can fully enjoy the story of the movie, and again I say that I avoided spoiling for them. I told the children about their dreams and their language. In this film, I valued children and considered them as a valuable audience. I did not talk to the children. I told them a story. so that their value does not decrease. I socialized with them in their own way but seriously. Besides this, it was very important for me to pay attention to the rhythm and tempo of the story. It means that there is no lack of excitement in any part of the story. The pace of the film moves along with the incident. We have different locations in this movie. We talk to children both in the water world and above the water. We arranged an adventure trip for the kids. In the Dolphin Boy movie, a complete meal is arranged for children. Children will encounter various stories on their journey in this movie. In the movie “Boy Dolphin”, the hero of the story takes place in the mind and heart of the audience. However, the story of some animations of foreign countries made in big companies is narrated in such a way that the audience feels that this happened in the backyard of the hero’s house. The stories are very short and without suspense. No concern is raised in them and we don’t see any big events in the movies.
The Dolphin Boy movie is considered a big step in the animation of Iranian cinema‎to be This makes your responsibility heavier and the expectations of your next work more. do you agree?
With respect to other animations that were made in Iranian cinema, such as Filshah and… Yes, I believe that a big step has been taken in storytelling and technique in Iranian animation cinema, but I believe that Iranian children have the right to see the best animations. I believe we can send our culture to the world with the animation industry. Look at how the Japanese transmit their culture to the whole world with global anime. The ancient culture of Japan is known in the world through anime. The quality of Japanese anime is such that in Iran we have otaku for these movies who follow anime in Japanese. Otaku is a term in Japanese that refers to someone who is madly interested in something; Especially in the field of anime and manga. Today, the cultural boundaries of Japan have expanded due to the anime that is published in the world, and the scope of these cultural boundaries exceeds the geographical political boundaries, and what is better than for a country to expand its borders culturally. The Dolphin Boy movie has been seen in Russia and Central Asian countries so far and they are familiar with the sewing and needlework of the people of the south. Also, this film was well received in Turkey and the people of this country got to know the characteristics of the people of southern Iran. The thing about the Dolphin Boy movie is that in other countries the movie is dubbed in their language and the singers of the same countries sing on the movie in their own language. We did this so that the children of the world can see this film and know more about Iran and the characteristics of Iranians.
There was talk of singing in the film. It’s okay to raise the question here, don’t you think Alireza Talischi’s singing is a little inconsistent with the structure of the animation? Since classical music is often placed on animations.
Let me give you an example. Before the revolution, Iranian singers performed western music in clubs. The first person who introduced Iranian music, everyone criticized him, which was not interesting, but gradually in the 50s, no one played European and American music at all, and all the singers performed Iranian pop songs with Iranian music. I want to say that we took this step in the Dolphin Boy animation and we hope that this will happen in other Iranian animations. Until now, people in Iran have liked this type of music and we have not heard from anyone that it is heterogeneous; But let us also tell you that you should consider the limitations of using a woman’s voice in this direction. With these limitations, we tried to use music that is close to the anime form. I should also say that, as I mentioned, music was made in different countries in their own language, so that the film song for each country has its own spirit..
With all these talks, the audience is satisfied with the film and these days the sales of your film are unexpected. Considering that the sales statistics and the box office of the films these days are so unrealistic and fake, according to the filmmakers’ own admission, that when the first rank of the best sellers is awarded to an animated film It is surprising.
You may not believe that we started urban advertising a day before the release. Whatever you see at the box office depends on the audience itself, who promote the film. I say without exaggeration that the audience itself recommends watching the movie‎do I think that the main box office of the film will take place in the second wave. That is, by ordering the audience together to increase sales.