What do people think about the local scenario?

Local digital effects and animation in local TV and movies
By Hazimin Sulaiman

THIS year marks a new beginning for the digital special effects and animation industry in Malaysia, with a slew of projects finally supposed to come to fruition; including the much awaited first fully featured Geng: The Adventure Begins by Les Copaque in May, 2008. Or might it also be an uneventful year? For example the much awaited Toy Story III has been put on hold until 2010, much to the disappointment of many 3D animation fans.

We conducted a street poll exercise to ask the general public of how the digital special effects and animation seem to be doing this year, especially in local movies, TV programs and animation. The overall response of over 90 per cent, is that things are improving on the whole. Here are some comments from the people who had their responses recorded:

Xybase, systems engineer and big-time anime and animation fan, Maulviridha Abu Bakar, has noticed a marked improvement. He has working experience with companies which create 3D animation and digital special effects before and notices great improvement in the local animation scene. "There's much improvement compared to previous times. For example, we have come far since the early Usop Sontorian animation days; which by today's standars is very outdated. I've also noticed that montages and in between scenes for TV programs such as Puteri, now look much better," Maulviridha observes.

Child development expert, Mec Cheah, who is busy with nurturing and teaching pre-schoolers has hardly anytime to watch television nowdays but notes some improvements. "I hardly watch any TV nowdays and we don't depend on such medium for teaching. But I personally have noticed more digital special effects in local programs. Recently I saw some effects for a local ghost story on television, which is better compared to a few years ago," she says.

Perodua engineer, Dzulhilman Sulaiman, who is also an avid animation and movie buff says that the overall impression that he has seen in local programming and movies is that local special digital effects are improving. However, there are tendencies that he says the content creators should avoid. "If the CGI is used to further enhance the story to make it believable, then its fine, but excessive usage can actually make things look very fake- especially when something does something which it isn't supposed to," Dzulhilman says.

Public relations executive, Livan Bai also observes that there has been a marked improvement in local programs and movies in terms of using digital special effects. "There's been a lot of improvement in the use of digital special effects in local TV, movies and 3D animation. One example is the work by Les Copaque which has been aided by MIMOS' grid-computing technology. It's a growing market, but we're still at an infant stage. With more technologies coming in we can have a wider industry. Now it is still quite niche," says Livan.

UiTM law student, Noraisyah Bahrim observes that animation such as Les Copaque's Upin & Ipin shown last Ramadhan on Channel 9, appeals to a lot of children and definitely shows off the potential of local animation. "It definitely means that we will be seeing the same if not better quality of animation this year when the full featured 3D animation by Les Copaque comes out."