The Comedy Creation Special Class (Phase 1) of Jilin Animation Institute officially commenced on March 22. This phase specially invited the renowned Hong Kong comedy director and Honorary Dean of the School of Film at Jilin Animation Institute, Lee Lik-chi, to deliver the lectures. Centered on the theme "The Birth of a Film," the program constructs an immersive onset creation system comprising "Master-led Guidance, Script Refinement, Location Scouting, On-set Shooting, and Achievement Review."
On April 3, three original comedy short films—The Coward Switch, My AI is Named Wang Cai, and Opposite "Sides"—successfully wrapped production, followed by a creation sharing session for the Jilin Animation Institute Comedy Creation Special Class (Phase 1). This event marked the successful conclusion of a two-week immersive, full-industry-chain practical teaching program. Zheng Liguo (Chairman and President), Liu Xin (Vice Chairwoman), and Jiang Ping (First-Class Director of China Film Group Corporation and President of the China Xia Yan Film Association) attended the session to offer their words of encouragement to the students.
At the creation sharing session, Zheng Liguo stated that this Comedy Creation Special Class represents another new model of industry-education integration that deeply fuses classroom learning with practice. This initiative follows the school's—Jilin Animation Institute—implementation of scenario-based teaching reforms and the establishment of brand programs such as "Artists on Campus" and "Master Lectures." He expressed his hope that faculty and students would treat this special class as a new starting point, actively communicating with and learning from masters to create more masterpieces of the era.
During the session, Liu Xin paid tribute to Director Lee Lik-chi for his dedication to teaching and his passion for fostering talent within this Comedy Creation Special Class. She further stated that the school—Jilin Animation Institute—will continue to deepen its teaching reforms and aggregate more high-quality resources from the industry. The goal is to build a higher-quality platform for learning and exchange for both faculty and students, ultimately cultivating more outstanding film and television professionals who meet market demands.
This Comedy Creation Special Class, centered on full-industry-chain practice, immersive on-set teaching, and "mo lei tau" (slapstick) comedy creation, serves as a significant practice for Jilin Animation Institute to deepen its "Teaching-Research-Production" integration, advance immersive on-set teaching reforms, and establish a high-ground for cultivating comedy film and television talent. By employing a full-chain closed-loop model, the project bridges the gap between university film education and industry frontlines, achieving a comprehensive elevation from knowledge transmission to work production, and from skill training to professional literacy.
During the instructional phase of this special class, Director Lee Lik-chi used classic works such as Flirting Scholar, The God of Cookery, and King of Comedy as case studies to systematically teach the underlying logic of comedy creation, industry standards, and professional ethics. He explained the core creative essence of "mo lei tau" (slapstick) comedy as being "unexpected yet logical," using absurdity to reflect reality and humor to provide insight into human nature, thereby strengthening the students' artistic foundations.
Throughout the creative period, Director Lee delivered systematic lectures focusing on core dimensions such as comedy structure, character development, rhythm control, and conflict design to stimulate the students' creative thinking. Students formed cross-major and cross-grade teams to develop works centered on themes like youth growth, technological life, and social observation. Under Director Lee's guidance—and following a process of creative incubation, script table reads, multiple rounds of revisions, and industrialized refinement—the scripts were transformed into visualized shooting plans.
Furthermore, the students entered actual filming locations to systematically learn practical skills including scene adaptation, camera positioning, and shot blocking, achieving the teaching innovation of "the classroom as a film set and learning as practice." Once the scripts were finalized, Director Lee led the students in immersive on-site scouting, effectively moving the classroom into real-world settings. By integrating spatial layout, lighting conditions, and environmental atmosphere, he provided systematic explanations of practical skills such as scene adaptation, camera planning, composition design, and atmosphere creation. He also gave hands-on demonstrations of the fusion between shot blocking and scene narrative, allowing students to intuitively grasp the creative truth that "the scene serves the story, and the lens empowers the emotion."
