Producing for animation in Singapore

So my previous post about the state of our industry triggered quite a vigorous and in depth discussion in the facebook's comments section.

Which to me was bloody awesome. It covered quite a good range of topics and gave me lots to ponder and write about in future. Please have a read through because to me its all useful stuff and I do hope it can continue a conversation with other animators.

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.

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" 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."
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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.

Where did it all go wrong with the singapore animation industry 2020

Its been almost 4 years since I posted about surviving our animation industry. And 9 years since I posted about our dying industry.

I think its time to do an update especially during this Wuhan virus pandemic.

What prompted this was a discussion on whatsapp with a friend about the rapid growth of the Malaysian animation industry. And more importantly success they are having despite the ongoing political turmoil. Their companies are developing and selling movies and TV shows as well as a service provider for many overseas shows and game titles too.

Then I turned and look at Singapore.....We had a 25 year head start and what locally produced movies we have? Sing to the dawn (made in batam) or Zodiac Race (5 guys made that movie. The rest were marketing and managers) ?

My friend said "I dun even think we have an industry. We have a fucking pond"

LOL. We had a few false dawns over last 25 years and especially after the big push around 15 years ago when Lucasfilm/ILM, Ubisoft  came and Dneg came and left , we are left with Lucasfilm, Ubisoft and a bunch of smaller companies.

So, what went wrong ?

1.)  Cost - We cannot compete on cost against other countries. Salary and rent is a the number one killer and this pandemic has exposed the frailties of the economic model that our country runs on. Especially in the creative line.

2.) Ecosystem and Infrastructure - For any industry to succeed, it needs both. But here, these are severely lacking even after all these years. From education to skill transference, we are severely lacking all of this.

I use rigging and coding as an example. A crucial and technical component in a production pipeline. But it is not taught at the polys to a level where they can be employed as a junior rigger or coder. Why ? Because there are no instructors or lecturers that has actually have experience with that.

So you have circle of students that cannot rig or code going into an industry that lacks that expertise that they will need to import. Those that actually managed to learn, leave because there are better opportunities overseas.

This means companies locally cannot invest in a pipeline that allows them to be more efficient since the cost of that is not worth it for the type of budget needed. Your whole company can be held ransom by the pipeline engineer because nothing will work without him.

Another example, if you quit or contract finish at ILM you either leave the country or work at the smaller shops but those smaller shops do not have the technical infrastructure or pay scale to afford you. Or not even your area of specialism. So you either take a pay cut or leave the country or just change career. Guess which one wins. This also means locals inside ILM are afraid to leave or speak out because the consequences can be huge.

And that is just the production side. If you are a freelancer, you have very little legal protection or knowledge against rouge amd unethical clients. Eg. request for free pitches and ideas with the IP belonging to them.

We are also not teaching storytelling in animation for diplomas. How do we cultivate an interest and develop IPs or stories without introducing them and getting them interested as they step into animation. Can you blame most of the ideas to be poorly developed. I am seeing this even in local TV shows.

Then there is a whole post here about the mindset and attitude of students. 

3.) Political Will - All the above is of course tied to our govt. Predominately EDB and MDA. And actually after so many attempts, I think they have given up on this industry and decided its not a growth industry. Compared to MDEC (Malaysia's version of MDA) who have people going out to overseas to tempt back Malaysians working in the big studios to come back and develop the industry.

Which obviously fucking sucks when the prime mover for this industry does not believe in it.

I think it is safe now to say their strategy sucked ass. There were so many issues that went wrong. But essentially their highest priority was controlling and regulating the media landscape in Singapore and the people running it did not have the industry experience and knowledge nor were they invested to make sure it succeed. It was a box to tick.

Its like we tried, didn't work. Move on. The issue is if you ask a sheep to a pluck a banana, it will never work. But hiring a monkey would disrupt the status quo because everyone else is a sheep.

So what are the solutions?

You. Or more accurately, us. All of us. Keep creating. Its hard. Fucking hard. To be developing stories, learning to be better artists while worrying about money. Worrying if this career is the right one. Worrying about your future. Its a fucking lonely fight against seemingly impossible odds.

But then again, so is everyone else. Not just here. But everywhere else. Like in Nigeria

Problem we have is we use all these obstacles as excuses instead of motivation. What you need is a support network. Support from peers, from each other, other people locally. Create your own group with friends and peers.

The internet is a valuable resource not just for cats and memes. Tutorials and artists are all great resources. Do it not for the company but think of it as investing in yourself.

ILM Sg have proven it is entirely possible. It is compromised of a huge number of local talent that has proven that given the right opportunities and time, they can compete against pretty much anyone in the market.

The other thing you can do and probably the MOST important thing, Vote for change. Because obviously how we were going isn't working. Not just in animation but the whole country as a whole.

Vote for a change in our govt that hopefully recognise animation not just as an economic driver but also as an art form and part of the creative industry that should be given more focus to create and promote work as reflection of society and us as a people.

Or you can just chug away in a zombified industry just waiting for the double tap.