Animation – serious, not just funny

Some of the most memorable and highest box-office grossers in the history of visual entertainment have been animated productions. Between the inaugural black and white Humorous Phases of Funny Faces by newspaper cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton in 1906 and the hi-tech, high-explosive world of Transformers today, animated films have grown from mere slapstick entertainment for children to a global multi-billion dollar industry.

It is said that more than three-fifths of the world’s population has seen one or more of the ten best animated movies ever. These include the Batman, The Incredibles, Song of the South, Transformers, The Lion King, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Cars, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Watership Down and Pom Poko.

Who can forget Walt Disney’s boisterous adaptation of Kipling’s The Jungle Book, or the epic-like travails of The Lion King, or the future-retro humanistic. The Incredibles? Or the many mega-budget production houses who churn millions out of such movies? Today, cartoons aren’t just funny, they’re serious business.

This may hold true for the animation business in Bhutan as well; on a much reduced scale, of course. After all, it was not until 2005 that the two existing animation companies were established.

They are KLK anImagine owned by Kinga Sithup, and Druk Vision Studio owned by Pem Tshering. Nerve-wracking as their initial months may have been, today, after more than two years of low-profile operation and experiential wisdom, both see testing challenges ahead.

One of the challenges they already face is the ignorance of people and lack of time because people do not realize that animationm is very time-consuming and needs intense concentration, which may affect the quality of the final product. Unlike conventional motion pictures, it takes more than a re-take to alter a single word.

Kinga, who started animation as a hobby with just one computer along with two friends renting a small room in the attic of one of his friend’s sister, said, “I picked up the taste for animation while watching cartoons and special effects; I was fascinated, or say, inspired by them.”

Pem Tshering is an architect by qualification but he opted to enter the profession of animation,a profession he described as one that “takes constant enthusiasm, determination and the will to never falter.”

The first animation KLK did was for the Health Ministry. It was a two-minute animation for a campaign on rubella in 2006 that took two weeks to complete. The longest one he did was a seven-minute HIV programme that aired on HIV day, 1 December, 2007. Druk Vision Studio did Bhutan’s longest animation for the National Environment Commission, a 10-minute piece on Ozone programme and, as Pem Tshering claims, it took six months to complete with help from friends.

Although Pem Tshering took out Bhutan’s first animated film in 2001, people barely remember it.

KLK’s animation programme on Rubella campaign was the first two-dimensional (2D) animation flick while the first to be produced with a 3D-effect was Pem Tshering’s well known Wai Penjore on AIDS, which took about three months to complete.

There are three types of animation: computer generated image (CGI), traditional animation and the 3D. While KLK usually sticks to 2D, in which pictures are laboriously sketched, Druk Vision uses 3D, where pictures are created in a computer.

Kinga hopes that if things improve in the future, he would love to produce an animated epic, be it of Ashi Nangsa or Drimed Kuenden, to entertain the young and the old.

Pem Tshering, on the other hand, wants to form a group of professionals involved in animation and then come out with a full feature film.

Animation is difficult work because a two-minute film typically takes three people with nine to 10- hour workdays about two weeks to complete. There are many procedures to be followed like script writing (if it is not provided by the client), story boarding or planning of movements and placement of characters and the background. Then comes sketching of characters and backgrounds, scanning, outlining, texturing (applying colours), arranging characters and background scenes and, finally, lip synchronizing and editing.

The development of movements is one of the most challenging tasks because of the standard frames of 25-30. What that means is that each second of animation, whether it involves the mere movement of a single hand or a simultaneous movement of a character’s entire body, requires the drawing of between 25-30 separate frames.

In Bhutan, though, it has become common practice to split 10 pictures into 25 frames or make do with 24 pictures per second.

But the most difficult part of animation lies in recording the voice for characters. This is because, firstly, Bhutan has no trained voice animators. Secondly, as only voice is used with minimal ‘acting’ or body language, it becomes difficult for directors to depict the exact feel, emotion, and mood of characters.

So far, Druk Vision Studio has produced some seven animation films and KLK has done almost 20. The messages they all carried were similar, awareness on different social, economical and political issues. Druk Vision’s most recent production, Ap Naka, which centred on earthquakes, was funded by the UNDP. KLK’s latest job was for the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) conveying the message that every vote counts.

The special effects in the movies are gaining popularity and the first was done for Sumchu Mami a feature film yet to be released. Namgey Retty is the first person who brought special effects into the limelight, his work being recognized in Chorten Kora.

The special effects in Chorten Kora took 26 days to complete because, in the absence of large studios where shooting can be done 24×7, the movie makers had to depend on natural sunlight.

Hollywood movies have moved Namgey but he was more inspired by The Lord of the Rings, in which, he believes, the effects are amazing. In Bhutan too, there are noticeable special effects in movies such as Sangwai Charo, Tago, The Golden Cup, Lengo (Part II), and Tharchen. All movies are said to use special effects in varying degrees.

So, how does animation differ from special effects? Animation involves putting life into artificially drawn characters and making them appear alive whereas, in special effects, works are basically done practically and there is always the tendency to make it look more real and blended with the concept of the story.

Animations include cartoon TV series and films such as Tom and Jerry, Popeye, and Johnny Bravo. Eleven-year-old Pema Yedzin Dorji, a regular viewer of the bi-lingual Cartoon Network channel, wishes to see such cartoon shows dubbed in Dzongkha.

Both the Kinga and Pem Tshering love to watch animated movies. Kinga Sithup’s favourite is Spirit (about a horse), and Pem Tshering’s favourite is Shrek – Part I.

The best part of being in the animation field, as Pem Tshering explained, is that it is an interesting and effective media through which one can express ideas limitlessly.

“We decide everything starting from the gender of a character to the number of trees in the background and the colours used,” he said. “It is very challenging when you consider that you must convey your message with limited dialogue and action.”

Kinga maintains that although the principles used in conventional film and animation were nearly the same, there was a distinct advantage to working without actors – changes in the script hurt no one.

Both Kinga and Pem estimate that at least a decade will pass before Bhutan produces a full-length animated feature film. Perhaps they underestimate the confidence of their juniors and the pace of technological development especially in the field of entertainment.

“Some years ago, one of the ex-lyonpos told us that he would give importance to animation but, it turns out, that was just meaningless banter,” the owner of one of the companies told Observer. “And the unemployment problem gets worse by the day; so I have decided to create employment for 20-50 people within the next five years although at present I have only five employees,” he added.

The world’s earliest sample of animation was found in Iran’s Burnt city where an animated illustration was found in a 5000-year-old earthen goblet. The artist had portrayed a goat that jumped towards a tree and then ate its leaves.

Today, the bulk of animation drawing is usually produced using computers, thus giving the artist new tools not available in traditional hand-drawn animation.

Animated cartoons created using the software programme, Adobe Flash, are sometimes called webtoons. However, there are many types of animation that cannot be called cartoons.

A Bhutanese film director, Kinley Tshering, who has been in the film industry for eight years, believes that Bhutanese people generally know little about visual effects and so think every little trick is neat but, in reality, the industry here is immature – not to say that he does not appreciate the efforts of Bhutanese animators. In fact, he believes that animation, as a film form in Bhutan, is a novelty that attracts attention and so is an effective medium for conveying useful information.

The ECB, which commends animated films as being “programmed better and able to convey messages better,” has made use of animation to educate people on using voting machines and to reinforce the message that every vote counts.

The ECB has more plans for animators to exploit in the future; and, already, the two animation companies have noticed competition in the form of freelancing individuals sprouting up here and there. An IT graduate of 2005 told Observer, “I can do finer animation on my desktop than the existing professional firms but, as I am already employed, I have postponed plans to make my mark in this field.”
|
Looks like the animation business is set for bigger things.