Bright Moonlight Stories mark, the character 月 painted in one cream brush stroke

明月光

Bright Moonlight Stories

We make short animated documentaries. One film for each Chinese character. Where the character came from, and the people who lived around it.

Four characters so far Two of us
A switchback road cut into a cliff at night. A line of tea porters walks past a small fire, tiny against the drop, under a snow covered peak and a full moon.
From 山 shān Tea porters on the night road

The films

One character, one film

A character is a small piece of evidence. It was drawn by someone, for something, a long time ago. We start there and go and look at the people it came from.

日

rì

Sun

Finished

月

yuè

Moon

Finished

山

shān

Mountain

Finished

木

mù

Wood (Tree)

In production

Half a minute each

Where to start

It all started here
Natasha drawing the artwork
Episode 1  日 rì
A sun message, three thousand years and still here
Episode 2  月 yuè
The moon smacked the hare
Episode 3  山 shān
You are made of a mountain

These are teasers, about half a minute each. The films themselves run fifteen to twenty minutes and they are all on YouTube, where you can subscribe.

Get an email when a film is out

Close on an older porter at night. He carries a wooden load frame of pressed tea bricks on his back, holds a staff, and breathes out into the cold.
From 山 shān. A porter, his load frame and his staff.

How we work

The character is the way in

The films are short. They are drawn and animated, not archive footage.

What we keep coming back to is the people. Someone walked that road at night with a load on their back. That is the part we want to draw.

Mark, in a dark shirt against a pale wall, looking past the camera.
Mark, Manchester
Natasha at Xijiang Miao Village in Guizhou, wearing a tall silver headdress with hanging bells and a wide silver collar.
西江苗寨 Xijiang Miao Village, Guizhou

Who makes them

Two people

It is a small outfit. There is no studio floor and no room full of desks. Two of us make the films. We live and work in Guernsey.

Natasha K. He

From Guiyang, in China

Natasha shapes the artwork’s direction and style, influenced by Chinese ink painting; Natasha designs the sets and the staging, works on the research behind each story, and runs everything the films do online.

Mark Flynn

From Manchester, in the United Kingdom

Animation and music. Mark builds the films out of Natasha’s artwork, using AI tools for the motion, and cuts them together.

An ink drawing of Nicky Yue at a microphone wearing headphones, with an incense burner on the desk beside her.

The voice

Nicky Yue

Nicky reads the films. She is the voice on every episode, and she helps with the work behind them.

She is not a person. Nicky is made with AI, and Natasha drew her so that the narrator would be someone rather than something. We would rather say that plainly than have you wonder.

Where the films live

Watch on YouTube

The films are free and they are all on the channel. Subscribing there is the thing that helps most, because it is how the next one finds people who have not heard of us.

Subscribe on YouTube

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