Local animation alive and kicking

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.