/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-ASIA: Animation Houses Turn to Cross-Cultural Content

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE, Dec 10 2002 (IPS) - ”With more than 5,000 years worth of conflicts, conquests and cultural developments, Asia’s cultural heritage is a treasure trove of plots and stories waiting to be discovered and brought to life,” said David Lim, Singapore Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts.

He was addressing a three-day Asian Media Festival here last week, which brought together over 1,500 film, television and animation producers, sellers and buyers from Asia and the West.

The event gave much prominence to the fledgling Asian animation industry with panel discussions, screenings and an animation project pitch by some of the region’s upcoming animators.

Many of the participants said the rapidly expanding Asian animation industry could very well be the vehicle to showcase Asia’s cultural heritage. But there was also much debate about whether the industry at its present state is nothing than high-technology sweatshops for Hollywood producers trying to cut costs for their productions.

The panel discussions took off on a somewhat controversial note after Larry Feign, the director of the Hong Kong based STVDIO Media, claimed that Asia lacks creativity. ”Asians have taken over the animation industry, especially in 2D animations … Asian animation studios are cropping up everywhere including Vietnam and the Maldives,” he said.

But he added: ”Here in Asia we are creating the bulk of the world’s animation but we have none of it.” He argued that creativity in Asia is badly misdirected, boiling down to a lack of self-confidence and ”a hysterical emphasis on technology”.

”(We say) we are digital, we’re modern. This is no good for creativity,” warned Feign.

The world’s animation industry is worth some 25 billion U.S. dollars and is predicted to grow at an estimated 20 percent a year with Asia taking a lion’s share of it, according to a recent report from the U.S.-based Computer Animation News People Inc.

The report pegged the Indian animation industry at around 500 million dollars and predicts that it will grow at 30 percent annually in the near future.

With the cost of infrastructure needed to produce computer animation significantly reduced in recent years, Asian countries are now able to produce high-quality animation at low cost.

India, South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore are all pitching in for this business and the Chennai-based Pentamedia Graphics has been ranked third in the animation niche by the report.

Meanwhile, South Korea has set up some 60 courses on animation, the Philippines is offering a four-year degree course in animation and India has also set up a number of training programmes.

Frank Saperstein, the creative director of the Philippine Animation Studio Inc, believes that Asian animation industry is on the brink of breaking away from being service providers to producing original content ”not only for the region but for the world”.

Two Indian companies are already doing just that. Earlier this year, Hyderbad-based Padmalaya Studios started pre-selling its new animation project the Buddhist ‘Jataka Tales’ – a 200-episode series to be run over four years. It is being produced at a cost of 150,000 dollars per episode..

Trivandrum-based Toonz Animation India has just signed an agreement with the Britain-based distributor, Indigo group, to market its 26 episode, 11-minute-each series ‘The Adventures of Tenali Raman’, based on a 16th century Indian folktale.

Indigo sales manager Emma Collin says the series ”has cross-cultural appeal”. Toonz’s director of operations, P Jayakumar adds, ”As more and more Asian providers concentrate on international quality standards, they will find a significant global appetite for our stories and our films.”

Biren Ghose, chief operating officer of another leading Indian animation house, UTV Toons, admits that most of them have started on the sweatshop route. ”We have done it for 10 years,” he told IPS. ”Animators require a great variety of work and experience in order for them to become adept at creating long-form (feature film) animation.”

He argues that it is not a question of exploitation, but initially doing co-production and outsourcing work ”that make the money to build the studios, to build the competence and build the skills to create long-form animation”.

Many Asian industry sources feel that the time has come for this great leap forward.

”Free trade will mean fierce battles between producers and some will die,” warned Deswara Aulia, founder president of Animator Forum, Indonesia. ”Those who win are the ones who have original content and can sell it around the world.”

”Asian producers have been complacent because they have got enough work from the West,” said Michael Loke, senior manager of Silicon Illusions, a Singaporean start-up company. ”Now Hollywood is slowing down and it’s a wake up call for Asia.”

He disagrees with the perception that Asians are not creative. ”I would like to see animation studios in Asia getting together and creating original contents with Asian stories,” he added.

With a start-up grant from the Singapore Broadcasting Authority, Loke’s company has started production on a homegrown animation feature ‘Sing to the Dawn’. Based on a prize-winning novel by Singaporean author Minfong Ho, it is set in Thailand and dwells a young village girl’s desire to pursue higher studies despite objections from her traditional family.

This is an Asian story yet will appeal to a global audience as it deals with tradition and gender discrimination common to many societies.

One of the most successful Asian animation projects has been Malaysia’s ‘Kampung Boy’, which has been shown in some 60 countries since its release in 1996.

Saperstein, who was involved in the project, says the key to international success is ”taking a local story and making it possible for someone living in the United States, Brazil or France to relate to it”.

/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-ASIA: Animation Houses Turn to Cross-Cultural Content

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE, Dec 10 2002 (IPS) - “With more than 5,000 years worth of conflicts, conquests and cultural developments, Asia’s cultural heritage is a treasure trove of plots and stories waiting to be discovered and brought to life,” said David Lim, Singapore Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts.
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