Zehao Xue’s “Currency Affairs” clocks in at 3 minutes 52 seconds. But the time Xue spent working on the award-winning film went beyond what he said to be the usual timeline for student projects.
“Currency Affairs,” which won Best in Show at the Shorttakes Student Film Festival, hosted by the undergraduate student government Campus Events Commission, follows two anthropomorphic dollar bills that, after spending time together within the shelf of a cash register, are separated.
Xue, a graduate film student, said he started production on the short in January 2014, while participating in a storyboarding class.
“Normally, people will finish a film at the end of May for (the School of Theater, Film and Television’s) animation festival,” Xue said. “But in the middle of April, I was still working on the story.”
Xue said the conception of “Currency Affairs” stretches back to his childhood, with inspiration coming from both personal and workplace experiences he had before his time at UCLA.
“The idea from the beginning is that they both travel around,” Xue said. “With a dollar bill, it’s being carried around the world, from France to China, Japan and back to New York – I think of the journey as from west to the east.”
Xue was educated throughout his life with a background in science. He studied computer animation at Beijing Forestry University, and earned his first job out of college as a 3-D animator. Xue said learning to do what he loved was a strange, but rewarding experience.
“I just found out, when I was 10, my parents got me a book for a 3-D program I did something with,” Xue said. “I didn’t know that. It feels like I’m going back to what I have been doing and thinking about doing before. I really enjoy it.”
However, the story behind “Currency Affairs” harkens back to more than Xue’s technical skills. Xue said it also pays homage to a girlfriend he was classmates with in junior high school and the memories that came with being away from her.
“We got separated after and went to different schools,” Xue said. “One time, she wrote me a note, and that was the very beginning of the idea for this film. She wrote about two pieces of currency coming out of a pipeline.”
Similarly, “Currency Affairs” details the story of two dollar bills with nearly identical serial numbers. The short depicts both of their journeys via split screen as both traverse through the hands of the world in different ways.
Xue said, in a storyboarding class he took fall quarter, he came up with the full idea for his film and its split screen design by drawing the pieces of money on note cards side by side.
“That was the first time I drew something down on paper for the film,” Xue said. “I had two panels for each scene, so I ended up with around 200 panels, taking a whole wall out when I was pitching it to the class.”
Xue said the creation of his film’s dual montages was inspired by his interest in playing with time and simultaneous events. Eric Cappello, a UCLA alumnus who composed the music for the film, said the distinction of the film’s two stories are reflected in the score he and Xue created, wherein different instruments represent the two characters.
“The cello is for the male character and the female is more the flute,” Cappello said. “Using music, we emphasized the passage of time in certain moments. You imagine that this story lasts many years in that way.”
Sierra Wiley, a second-year undeclared student and a Campus Events Commission member, said Xue’s interesting story structure brought extra emotion to the film, helping the short appeal to the broader crowd.
“Being in the audience, a lot of people were ‘aww’-ing and ‘ooo’-ing,” Wiley said. “It was really cute, and having that connection really made it one of the best pieces that was shown.”
Xue said showing his piece to Jan Pinkava, director of Oscar-winning animated short “Geri’s Game,” which also plays with a split story structure, was a significant moment in his UCLA career. He said although “Geri’s Game” did not have a direct impact on his film, its creativity has a lot of meaning to him.
“At UCLA, we’re thinking about stories all the time and how people feel about them,” Xue said. “Hearing those opinions from animators and filmmakers is really helpful for me.”