Interview with Yibi Hu - Josie's Lalaland

Yibi Hu is a visual artist, animator and filmmaker. He works on his own concepts and has created an exceptional portfolio of short films including, A Friend I Know, KEG, A Day at Dunjanez, Josie's Lalaland and Palingensia. Among these films many have won prestigious awards. His film KEG won a 2005 Adobe Design Achievement Award and Palingensia has won this year's top prize at the iStock Future Now! Contest.In 2006 Yibi was invited to compete in Reelideastudio at the Cannes Film festival where he won Best in Show. His other works have been shown in numerous film festivals, such as Onedotzero, Bitfilm festival, Bristol International Short Film Festival, Sundance Festival and many others around the world.

Yibi is also an experienced and awarded broadcast designer and works full time at UK's leading broadcast design company Redbee Media in London. Prior to working at Redbee Media he worked for BSkyB in London and SHMDS in Shanghai. As a broadcast designer Yibi has created many title sequences, content and on air idents on BBC Sport, BSkyB Sport, Shell, BBC Prime, UKTV, RTE, BBC World Wide and BAFTA among many others.

IT'S ART: Could you tell me a little more about the history of Josie's Lalaland?

Yibi Hu: I first heard about a 14-year-old girl who was a blood cancer patient from one of my friends over in Asia. After 4 years of life in a hospital she stopped treatment and I was deeply moved by the girl's courage.I began to research children who are in the same situation as her and one day I read the story of Josie Grove in the newspaper. Josie was 16-years old and had been a leukemia patient for many years. She had two bone marrow transplants and a course of anti-cancer drugs, all of which were unsuccessful in beating Josie's cancer. When Josie was told that her condition was terminal she decided not to undertake any further treatment and went home to reunite with her family and enjoy a normal teenage life for her last 3 months. Not only because of similarity of two stories, but also the courage of these two different young individuals, I was inspired to create something that would capture such a spirit.

IA: Why have you chosen to relate this story using to video and C.G.?

YH: First, being a visual designer I naturally chose a visually rich route as my priority and CGI was an off the shelf solution.

Josie's Lalaland