It's a bleak outlook. So why is Xing-Xing Digital's Becky Bristow still smiling?
既然前景那样的渺茫，为什么幸星的Becky Bristow女士还是以微笑面对呢？
 
Xing-Xing's Secret Weapon
幸星的秘密武器
 
Senior VP Creative Bristow has a breezy laugh and an easy-going personality. That is, as long as you aren't one of her students. "Oh, I'm relentlessly demanding," grins the California native, a veteran producer, educator, and animation director for The Wild Thornberrys and The Rugrats. "It's never good enough. I always ask my animators: do you think Pixar sits around and says 'that's good enough'?"
        Bristow女士（她是美国加州人）在幸星公司担任副总裁0兼创作总监职务，她的微笑非常爽朗而且有着平易近人的性格，这是她生活中的一面，可是如果你是她的学生你就可以体会到她也是很严谨的，正如她笑着所说的：“哦，我其实是很严格的，而且是毫不客气的”。她是位有着几十年专业经验的专家、制片人、教育家而且是《原野小英雄》和《淘气小兵兵》的动画指导。她说：“永远都不可能做到足够好。我总是对我的动画师问这样的问题：你们觉得皮克斯公司的人员都是坐在那里然后说“做得不错了”，是这样么？”
 
Bristow would know - she and Pixar founder John Lasseter were classmates at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), arguably the most prestigious and competitive animation program in the US. While Lasseter went on to revolutionize 3-D animation (and Disney's bottom line) with films Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and Finding Nemo, Bristow started to teach and train some of the finest animation talent working today for Disney, Dreamworks, and of course, Pixar itself.
        她和皮克斯公司的创始人John Lasseter是加州艺术学院的老同学，那所学校拥有美国公认最著名而且最有竞争优势的动画专业课程。Lasseter先生随后去从事变革3D动画（以及迪斯尼的底线）的创举，代表影片有《玩具总动员》、《怪物公司》、《海底总动员》，在此期间，Bristow女士开始了教学还有培训工作，她的一些动画专业的优秀学生目前正在迪斯尼、梦工厂、当然还有皮克斯工作。
 
But the former Chair of the Character Animation Department at CalArts, jurist for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and founding member of Women in Animation has set her sights on something bigger - developing China's animation frontier. In 2003, she became founding Chair for the Digital Art and Design program at Beijing University, Wang was technical advisor to the program. They soon realized they could do a lot more good in the private sector.
        可是，这位曾经是加州艺术学院角色动画系系主任、电影艺术与科学学院的法理学家以及《动画界女性》创始人的Bristow女士，她把目标锁定在更大的发展上，也就是要做开发中国的动画产业的先行者。2003年，她应邀成为北京大学数字艺术与设计专业的创始人，那时，王利锋先生是该项目的技术顾问。他们很快就意识到如果双方合作的话，他们一定能创造更多的价值。
 
"Think of Japan's car industry: at one point, there were 6,000 car manufacturers in Japan. Today how many are there? Just a handful, but they are strong companies. The competition and the weeding out, trying new ideas, and seeing which things work and fail - this is not only good, it's necessary," says Wang.
        王利锋先生说：“我们可以想想日本的汽车产业，在历史上某段时间里，日本出现了6000家的汽车制造企业。可是目前还有多少家呢？只有那么零星几家了，可是这几家都是很有实力的企业。竞争与淘汰、不断的研发、目睹哪些事情是奏效的而哪些是失败的，整个这些过程不仅仅是有益处的，而且是必要的。”
 
So what makes Xing-Xing different?
到底是什么使幸星如此与众不同呢？
 
"I think of our strategy as a two-legged approach," Wang says, "When you walk you need to use two legs -- and one leg moves first. For the first leg, our service leg, we'll go into the international market as an outsourcing company. For the second leg, we'll then do our own content, movies, TV, games."
        王先生说：“我认为我们的策略就像是两条腿走路的方法，当你走路的时候，你需要用两条腿配合才可以，一条腿先迈出，关于这第一条腿，也就是我们提供的服务，我们将以一家制作公司的角色进入到国际市场，至于另外一条腿，我们会制作我们原创的项目、电影、电视以及游戏。”
 
Wang and Bristow are using the service leg to help them build the right fundamentals for their team - software skills, certainly, but with Bristow on board they will also teach their team to discern between merely acceptable rendering and the holy grail of animation - universally-appealing characters and stories.
        王先生和Bristow女士以他们的服务来协助他们的制作团队建立起必备的基础条件，比如软件使用技巧，当然除此之外，在Bristow女士的加盟指导下，他们还将教授制作人员如何分辩仅仅是单纯的渲染出可接受的动画内容和经久不衰的品牌动画的区别，后者体现的角色以及故事情节对于全球的观众都是难忘的。
 
"Ultimately, it's content that is interesting," says Bristow, "Look at Disney: the value of their company is built on branded content they created years ago. But it takes time to build the fundamentals, hone the right creative instincts. It's happening - but it's going to take time."
        Bristow女士说：“最终吸引人的亮点应该在内容上，看看迪斯尼，他们公司的价值是建立在他们好多年前制作的那些家喻户晓的内容基础上的，但是建立起这样的基础是需要时间的，实施那些富有创造性的灵感也需要时间。我们现在做的就是要达到那样的成就，但是这一切都需要时间。”
 
With the average production cost of a US-animated feature film approaching US $100 million, Bristow is excited by the possibility of affordably creating animated content in China. "Art can't expand if you don't have the luxury of possibilities. And as tiring as no infrastructure is, it's better than a tired infrastructure closed to possibility."
        制作一部美国本土的动画电影的平均制作成本接近1亿美元，鉴于这点，Bristow女士很兴奋，因为她看到了在中国制作能承担得起的动画项目的可能性。她说：“如果你没有足够奢华的可能性的假想的话，艺术是不可能有所发展的。虽然没有好的制作流程系统是痛苦的，但是比较来说，这样的情况也比虽然有固定的运营模式但是没有可畅想的空间要强一些。”
 
So far so good: in the seven months since Xing-Xing opened its modest headquarters in Beijing's "Silicon Alley" area of Haidian District, it has grown to more than 50 people, and they've amassed an impressive roster of international clients, providing a broad range of bread-and-butter projects on which to sharpen their team's skills. Recent projects included animation for the upcoming Fantastic Four feature film, 3-D holographic tequila bottles, a CGI TV pilot, and a proof-of-concept piece for interactive TV. 
        目前进展一切都好：在幸星成立的第七个月，员工数量就已经超过了50人，公司位于北京市海淀区“硅谷”地带，而且他们拥有的国际客户名单让人惊叹不已，这给他们制作人员提高自身技术水平提供了广阔的基于项目的实际操作的平台。近期制作的项目包括给即将上映的电影《神奇四侠》制作动画，全3维龙舌兰酒瓶子，一部电脑制作的电视剧测试片，还有一部给互动电视节目做的测试项目。
 
"That is what is going to make the difference here - not just being an outsource for rendering huge quantities on the cheap, and not just joining the gold rush for how big the market is here, but being able to unleash China's creative potential," says Bristow. "This is the action is."
        Bristow女士说：“这就是我们与众不同的原因，我们不单单是一家能制作数量庞大的项目而且收费合理的公司，也不仅仅是因为看中这里市场的巨大潜力从而加入“淘金”者的行列，而是要发掘出中国具有创造性的人才，并让他们发挥出自己的水平，这才是我们所关注的。”