Genghis Khan （1993）
In May 1993, Genghis Khan, the first U.S.-Mongolian
co-production, premiered at the Annecy Animation Festival in France
and went on to TV stations around the world. It was an animated
collaboration about young Temujin, by myself and a young Mongolian
director, Miagmar Sodnompilin, and funded by Italtoons in New
York..
The first week of production in Ulaanbaatar presented us with
difficulties. Ulaanbaatar intellectuals tore into the storyboard,
saying that the texts from which we had drawn the details of our
story were by Russian historians. Only “The Secret History
of the Mongols” would be an acceptable basis for reality. They said
that young Temujin would never have ridden with a little girl, but
our Executive Producer in New York told us that cutting the girl
would cut the viewing audience in half. The compromise?
We had Temujin, several boys and one girl riding together
at the beginning, while Temujin is proudly alone most of the later
film. From New York we were instructed that if Temujin must
hunt an animal to bring back to the ger (tent), it could not be an
animal adored by American children. In Ulaanbaatar, we were
admonished that the animals left in Mongolia after excluding
(rabbits) Bugs Bunny, (deer) Bambi, and (pigs) Porky Pig were not
considered edible by Mongols. After long discussions we
settled on a wild boar.
Studying the art from the historical period at the Ulaanbaatar
museum, Miagmar and I decided that normal cel animation, expected
by TV programmers, with neat outlines and bright colors, would not
fit. It was too smooth, too slick for the rough feel of the
life the Mongols faced, especially during the winter months, when
our story takes place. We wanted harsh black brush lines on
a light brown rice paper with no color. The compromise?
Rough slashes of black and brown slightly softened by intermittent
pastel surfaces, all drawings done on thin textured paper.
As horses would play a major role in the film, Miagmar and his
artist, Tegsuren, set about designing a new, more authentically
Mongolian musculature, bone structure and movement that resulted in
the elevating of Temujin's horse to a stature equal to Temujin
himself. Half the film takes place during a freezing wintry night
on the steppes, with the wind blowing fiercely over the snow.
The rough strokes that had earlier served to define the
leathery faces of the Mongols now came alive as torrents of wind
and sleet, and in fact, no cel animation could have yielded the
tremendous power of nature that is felt in this film.
We used authentic Mongolian period music for all but the
introductory title sequence. All sound effects were created by
Darmasuren, a brilliant foley artist in the Ulaanbaatar film
studio, with none of the technical computer equipment of the modern
studio, but with only his voice, his body, and a few rough
instruments.
After two months of drawing from morning to late evening in a
living room 3m x 3m, we completed most of the artwork, the drawings
were filmed by our colleague at the Shanghai Animation studio, I
did the final edit and lab work in New York, and our
Mongolian-American baby went out into the world.
