But one of the discussion tread I felt was really useful and interesting came from Harry and Henry Zhuang who runs Weaving Clouds, a local animation company.
And that is actually about
Producing Animation locally..
This topic came about from another comment that we need more producers.
I have screen captured their comments below with their permission and will credit them as co-writers of this piece since they literally wrote it. Lol.
________________________________________________________________________
" I have always wonder why animation schools isn't teaching students on producing for animation. I can understand that maybe companies are not really hiring animation producers, but i think its a crucial role. I think animation producers need to understand the labour involved in an animation production, and also understand the value of animation.
I think producer who are not trained in animation either learn it from books or from 'behind the scene' videos. Which can be dangerous because these books and videos are based on huge budget production which local production companies cannot afford the luxury - Unless they have a huge war chest. What we need are producers who are sensitive to the man hours involved in each stage, and be able to be creative in reducing workload or cut corners in animation production.
Take storyboarding as an example. An inexperience producer might be inspired by Pixar's storyboards and choose to insist in using an additional 2 weeks to clean up a storyboard that was already done. While his intention might be to be extra careful in managing the details, the rough storyboards were actually good enough for the animators to work on it. If the director is going to be working closely with the animators, was is really necessary to spend 2 weeks to clean up the storyboards?
Another example is script writing. A lot of film producers insist that script should be locked before commercing production. However, I don’t think that is the only way to do production. The animatics stage is the part where script get rewritten. Take Hayao Miyazaki’s work as an example. He usually do not have a final script when he starts productions. He just storyboards the entire film. Animatics is the stage where the creators get to see how images and dialogues work together. Wes Anderson also realize this unique aspect when he was directing Mr Fantastic Fox. He end up rewriting many times even after script is finalize.
This results in re-recording etc, which burn his budget.
There are a couple of items in the usual budget can be skipped or trim. For example, since the editing is already done in the animatics stage, do we still need an editor to edit the film? Or if the budget is low, hiring a concept artist can be a luxury - each time George Lucas flip the pages of concept art for starwars is $$$$ down the drain. I am not saying it is not important. But certain aspects of the pipeline production can be a luxury that most SEA production cannot afford. And the question is: Are the creators really exploring ideas or are they just procrastinating? I've seen and read animation production using up all their budget in just creating concept arts or trailer. These projects eventually got shelved. What a waste. If they have used that money to make the actual film instead, they might had finished it already.
The other important quality an animation producer is their ability to understand the Value of animation. Animation has the freedom to do any imaginative story (Miyazaki’s way of seeing animation)
and style (look and how the characters move too). Each type has their own audience and market. Producers who have a weak understanding for the medium for animation would push for projects that are not worth doing or monetise in the wrong way. Knowing the right distributor and broadcaster is key to making the business sustainable. This will allow them to raise funding without giving empty promises to investors."
________________________________________________________
I agree with everything they are saying and its really valuable insight that I hope producers that work with animation houses or even producers in post houses understand more.
My own opinion is that audiences have been used to a certain look and expectations of how animation should look and feel. And they are comparing it to Pixar or Disney or anime which is a shame because that is just undermining the power of animation. This was also discussed in the comments and I definitely will write about.
If you guys have a topic or something to contribute to a post, just let me know. Its always good to have differing opinions and view points.
Fuck that.. I am just glad if there is even a conversation at this point.
