Singapore Animation Fiesta `98
by Mark Langer
 |
| Jubilee Hall. Photo by Mark Langer. |
I settled back
into my seat on the flight to Singapore, happily anticipating the second Animation
Fiesta. The
previous Fiesta was the first international animation festival to be held
in South East Asia. Singapore is a movie town, and the event had been a success,
with enthusiastic audiences. But with the dramatic downturn in Asian economies,
would this year match up to the high expectations created by the last festival?
The Singapore economy might be languishing, but you'd never know it from attending
Fiesta `98. Most shows were completely sold out, with the restored turn-of-the-century
Jubilee Hall venue in the historic Raffles Hotel filled to the rafters with
locals and animation professionals from around the world. As many as five
programs a day were presented at this three-day event, although only a few
of the highlights will be discussed here.
Screenings and Lectures
The Animation Fiesta is distinguished from most animation festivals in
its policy of accompanying almost all screenings with lectures, giving programs
more substance and context than the norm. The festival began on Friday, June
19 with a program of Warner Bros. animation presented by Kathleen Helppie-Shipley,
senior vice president of Warner Bros. Classic Animation. Helppie-Shipley talked
about the impact of television, video, CD-Rom, cable, theme parks, etc. on
Warner Bros. animation since the films were first broadcast on television,
accompanied by examples of Warner animation from early theatrical cartoons
to recent commercials and other productions. Helppie-Shipley ended her presentation
with samples of other animation divisions' work, such as the Feature Animation
and the Television Animation divisions.
 |
| Kampung Boy. Image courtesy of Matinee Entertainment. |
Later that day, a new animated series, Kampung
Boy was shown. Kampung Boy
is based on the work of Dato' Mohd Nor Khalid, who is better known as Lat.
For over 30 years, Lat's comic books and cartoons have been wildly popular
in Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere in South East Asia. I began to catch
on to the fact that this might not be a completely Malaysian project when
I noticed producer Frank Saperstein and animator John R. Dilworth's names
in the end credits. Kampung Boy is a co-production using talent from
several countries, including the United States, which has had some effect
on the series. One audience member wondered why the Malay family depicted
in Kampung Boy seemed so much like The Simpsons. According to
Saperstein, distribution in the U.S. market is encountering difficulty for
reasons of culture as objections have been made to the use of traditional
Malay costume and locales. This is unfortunate, as Kampung Boy easily
rivals anything shown on American television and would be a welcome alternative
to most TV fare.
Cultural problems were the subject of comments made in a later session on
Asian animation by <Ram Mohan,> the "father of Indian animation."
Mohan's career goes back to the late 1950s with the Cartoon Film Unit, Government
of India Film Division, where he received training from Disney animator Clair
H. Weeks. Mohan's major interest in animation is as a tool for social development.
His films done for international agencies, often in co-production with other
countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines, deal with such
topics as the value and dignity of women. Mohan was also co-director (with
Roichi Sasaki) of the Indo-Japanese feature film Ramayana - The Legend
Of Rams. In his talk, Mohan acknowledged that animation is one of the
most competitive industries in the world, but cautioned Asian filmmakers about
forsaking their cultural roots in the rush to international markets. He called
for the establishment of indigenous animation industries taking advantage
of "rich cultural traditions with many stories to tell" and referred
to his Ramayana as an example of how Asian countries can co-operate
with one another in this respect. Mohan's talk was followed by samples of
animation from Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and South Korea, showing
the diversity of production done in the region.
 |
| Ram Mohan. Photo by Mark Langer. |
Day Two Dawns
The next day began with director Kunihiko Ikuhara presenting a program
of his work on Sailor Moon and La Fillette Revolutionnaire, Utena.
Ikuhara gave an overview of Japanese animation history, starting with the
beginning of animated television series and the shift from imitating what
he called the "Disney style" to the manga style of expression. According
to Ikuhara, manga has created a unique animation culture in Japan, with its
own expressive traditions. This was demonstrated during a Japanese/American
co-production about ten years ago, where there was a difference over a shot
lasting about five seconds. The Japanese staff wanted the only movement to
be the character's mouth, while the Americans wanted physical gestures. Ikuhara
claims that American animation is always intent on generating greater audience
appeal and thus, creates characters in constant motion, accenting the fantastic
and differentiating animation from live-action cinema. The Japanese are influenced
by manga, where a character is shown in a still image while the reader reads
the dialogue. Ikuhara then went on to discuss his work on Sailor Moon
and Utena, which differs from traditional "girl series" in
that fighting, rather than romance, is the central premise. Ikuhara also outlined
the importance of merchandising to Japanese animated series, where story lines
are devised to introduce new products, such as the best-selling Sailor
Moon pendants, modeled after those in the series used by the characters
to transform themselves. The high demand for such series has created a shortage
of properly trained workers in some job skill areas, such as the use of digital
technology, as over sixty locally produced animated series are screened in
Japan each week.
 |
| Left to right: Frank Saperstein, Kathleen Helppie-Shipley and Karen Goulekas at the Singapore Animation Fiesta. Photo by Mark Langer. |
Next, I introduced a program of recent animation from
Canada, ranging from films and ads from Dynomight Cartoons and Cuppa Coffee
Animation, to high-end computer generated productions from Mainframe Entertainment,
Nelvana and Alias/Wavefront. This was followed by a discussion of local Singapore
animation, and then a presentation by Karen Goulekas, former Digital Domain
employee who most recently supervised Visual Effects for Godzilla.
Goulekas, tanned and rested from a month-long vacation in Thailand after finishing
Godzilla, spoke of the difficulties resulting from coordinating the
efforts of different production teams (animation, CG and effects, lighting
and rendering, compositing) and using incompatible software programs to create
the effects on the film. The highlight of her presentation was a detailed
account of the Brooklyn Bridge sequence, which Goulekas characterized as "the
sequence where we pushed the envelope." The goal of the special effects
animator, said Goulekas, "is to seamlessly mix models, live-action and
CG." What lies in the future of computer animation? Said Goulekas, somewhat
tongue in cheek, "Photo-real humans--you'll scare the shit out of all
the actors!"
 |
| The author, Mark Langer, on the left, with Jean-Michel Blottiere. Photo courtesy of Mark Langer. |
Our Final Day
The final day of the festival began with a combined program by Jayne Pilling,
who discussed European avant-garde in terms of how the films differ from mainstream
animation, and Jean-Michel Blottiere, the director of Imagina,
who presented the most recent winners from this European computer graphics
and animation festival and spoke about current developments in computer animation
internationally. Ricky Orellana, of the Mowelfund Film Institute, presented
a fascinating look at Philippine animation, revealing an active independent
scene in a country better known as an inexpensive labour outsource for American
television production. The final presentation was by David Flack, vice president
of Creative Services of MTV Asia, who showed highlights of international production
from MTV's local Singapore service.
These presentations were punctuated with other screenings throughout the Fiesta.
The most notable was a hysterically funny program done for the U.K.'s Channel
4 called Gogs, depicting the imbecilic antics of a Stone Age family
in stop-motion clay.
As at the last Fiesta, extraordinary hospitality was shown by the organizing
staff (including Wahidah Jalil, Ben Cowell and Ernest Paul) to guests, with
frequent breaks for tea at the Empire Room, receptions, and an intimate atmosphere
that encouraged schmoozing. This, combined with the wonderful Singapore audiences
who stayed to talk with guests after each screening, has made the Fiesta a
favorite among festivals, and well worth the effort to attend.
Mark Langer teaches film at Carleton University in Ottawa Canada. He is
a frequent contributor to scholarly journals and a programmer of animation
retrospectives.
Note: Readers may contact any Animation World Magazine contributor by sending an e-mail to editor@awn.com.
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