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  • fuckedgaijin ‹ General ‹ Media Fix ‹ Anime & Manga

Foreigner Works On Otomo Anime

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Foreigner Works On Otomo Anime

Postby Mulboyne » Mon May 14, 2007 10:25 am

[floatr]Image[/floatr]Straits Times: S'porean anime enthusiast realises his dream in Japan
EVERY self-respecting fan of Japanese anime (short for 'animation' in Japanese) will have seen Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, a classic animated movie that made its debut in 1988. When Singaporean Vong Yonghow first saw Akira in his primary school days, it triggered off a burning desire to become an animator one day. Now 28, Mr Vong is possibly the first Singaporean to be involved in a major animation project in Japan. He is one of the 40-member team at Sunrise - a leading Japanese animation company - that is behind the Freedom Project. This is a six-part video animation series about a child who stumbles upon a secret that could change the very society on which he depends. It was commissioned by Nissin Cup Noodles to mark the instant noodle's 35th anniversary last year. Three parts of this hit series, in which Otomo himself designs the main characters and the 'mecha' or mechanical objects, have been completed so far...more...

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Postby Mulboyne » Mon May 14, 2007 10:26 am

(Continued)

The US (international) version of the first part is due to be released on June 26. Together with a more senior person on the team, Mr Vong is in charge of the lighting for the animation. The computer-based animation process produces three-dimensional pictures. But in keeping with the style of Akira, which was in 2D, Mr Vong's task is to tweak the lighting to simulate a 2D effect. That he has come this far is no surprise, really. A recipient of the Takashimaya National Arts Council arts scholarship, he has spent the past three years in Tokyo learning Japanese and studying film-making at the Toho Gakuen Film Techniques Training College.

While in his final year at Toho, he landed a job with Sunrise - where he has been since last November, although he officially graduated from his course only in March this year. He is not only the first Singaporean to work at Sunrise, but also the first foreigner. At Victoria School, he had taken subjects related to the creative arts, including ceramics and photography. He then joined Temasek Polytechnic where he majored in animation. His final-year project at Temasek was a four-minute video called Shinjuku Dreams, a combination of traditional hand-drawn and computer-based 3D animation, for which he was given a Young Designers Award by the Design Association of Singapore.

'I was motivated to work on the video after watching a Japanese animation music video called Survival by Japanese pop group Glay back in 1999,' said Mr Vong. 'It was a huge surprise and honour when I found out that one of my colleagues now had worked on Survival,' he said. Working on the Freedom Project, Mr Vong has sharpened not only his animation but also his communication skills. 'Being able to speak Japanese is good because my colleagues can communicate with me and accept me readily as one of them. But when it comes to very technical or esoteric terms, my level of Japanese is sometimes not good enough. That can be quite a big challenge,' he said.

Nothing beats the thrill of working among the best animators in Japan. 'For a Singaporean, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to work on a Katsuhiro Otomo project,' he said. 'Many of my colleagues were involved in famous animation films like Akira, Jinroh, Ghost In The Shell and Steamboy, films that I grew up on as an animation student. 'To be able to work with these people is nothing short of a dream come true for me.'

But there is a downside to working in Japan - the long hours. 'I mean really long hours, like straight 15- to 16-hour days for weeks on end. Public holidays and overtime pay do not exist in our dictionary,' he said.
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