Local animation alive and kicking

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Have you ever seen the Indonesian rock group Padi in their video clip Bayangkanlah (imagine)? The fully animated two- dimensional video clip was designed by Indonesia's own young animator, Wahyu Aditya.

What about the TV commercial of toothpaste Smile Up? The commercial, combining three dimensional animation and live action, shows a team of interstellar explorers braving a space monster with the power of their brilliant smiles. This commercial, too, was made by our very own animator Daniel Arif Budiman.

Indonesian animators arise! For years, animation has been the monopoly of more advanced countries such as the United States and Japan, but the existence of more and more locally-made animated TV commercials and now a real live video clip is absolute proof and a definite sign that Indonesian animators are not getting left too far behind.

"Our people love technology, they like trying out new gadgets, and young people especially are very enthusiastic at trying their hand at animation. The trend is definitely rising towards animation," executive producer of Dementia Animation Deswara Aulia said in a workshop recently.

Indonesians could clearly master the technology, he asserted, and with the computer and software aids getting cheaper, access to this technology is no longer a problem.

"In a way, software piracy has become a blessing for us, because it gives us access to animation software that otherwise we could not afford," the initiator of the Indonesian Animators Forum said with a grin.

However, Indonesian animation never took off with the blast that was expected given local technological abilities, mostly because of a lack of industry support.

"We are being barraged by animated movies from Japan that cost so much cheaper to run on television than our own locally produced animations," Deswara said, explaining that Japanese cartoons such as Doraemon and Crayon Sinchan are regularly shown on television because they cost only about Rp 5 million (about US$563) per episode compared to locally produced animated cartoons at about Rp 60 million an episode.

Besides a lack of industry support, many animators also lack the patience and knowledge to come up with a well-developed and marketable animation concept.

"Many care too much about form, once they come up with a character, they immediately want to do animation but lack a mature concept," Deswara said.

Indonesia has a great number of artists, with a great sense of art, Deswara said, but to create an animated film, a character has to have life and personality, a storyline has to have depth, and that is what is missing in Indonesian animation.

The world's mecca for animation is of course the U.S. with its multi-million dollar animation companies like Pixar, followed closely by Japanese anime studios such as Studio Pierrot.

As a result, the animation styles of both countries are vigorously imitated by animators all over the world, including Indonesia.

"There are three styles of animation that we look up to these days; the Disney style, the European style like that of the cartoon Rugrats, and the Japanese style," Deswara said, asserting that the Japanese anime and manga are what appeal most to Indonesian animators.

Recalling the early 1980s cartoon Si Huma and puppet show Si Unyil, animation is nothing new to Indonesia, but significant progress only began with the advent of private television stations in the 1990s.

"Before private TV stations entered, people could only watch what (government-controlled) TVRI offered because they had no choice. TV commercials were also limited and there was no market for advanced animation," Deswara said.

The establishment of numerous television stations each competing for audiences, and also the development of TV commercials spurred this development, he explained.

Pyramid Image's digital artist Roy Adimulyo agreed that the acceleration of the Indonesian animation was supported by the rapid development of the advertisement industry.

"Indonesian animation at the moment is dependent on the advertising industry. They (advertising companies) are the ones who were bold enough to pay us and aren't afraid to take risks," he explained, adding that some 80 percent of animation jobs are done for advertising companies.

Indeed, animation could be expensive. The cost production for a 30-minute episode of a 3D animation could reach as high as Rp 1 billion, while a 2D production costs between Rp 400 million to Rp 600 million, Roy said.

"And many companies aren't patient enough, creating animation is time consuming work," Deswara said. Wahyu Aditya took about 6 months to create Bayangkanlah, twice as much time as was predicted earlier.

Meanwhile, a full-length animated movie such as DreamWork's Shrek could take as long as four years to make, he said.

Some of the local animated series include RedRocket's Dongeng untuk Aku and Kau (stories for me and you) which runs for 13 episodes, and TransTV's Petualangan Blobi (Blobi's adventures).

What makes animation appealing despite the high production cost was its merchandising, which, if handled correctly, could last for years and years such as the merchandising for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck characters, as well as Japanese Dragon Ball Z characters.

The Asian economic crisis of 1998, however, was a boon for animators as it allowed locals to receive orders for TV commercials from companies trying to cut costs on advertisements.

The kinds of animation used in TV commercials ranges from character animation such as cartoons, or motion graphics, to creating a whole fictional environment using a digital environment, Deswara said.

"We are really skilled at doing digital environments, because most of our animators graduated from design schools," he said.