Local Animation Industry
I seldom lament about the industry in which I operate but once in a while I take one step back and reflect. The struggle is quite real. For a country with a population of 30 million sometimes, we do lack the critical mass and this is extremely important in terms of marketability. There are a few market that is available for every animation studio and if the source of income can be broken down, it can be as follows:
- Sale of animation
- Ownership of the intellectual property right
- Licensing (to agents for promotional works)
- Merchandising
Many of us are focussed on the sale of animation and failed or refused to develop on other source of income. Whether the sale is directly to cable network or normal national satellite television. That makes the entire industry a relatively competitive one. The first competition is the fight for survival. To rely on only one source of income can be extremely tough especially with other competitors around.
If taking a slice of a small pie is what it takes to survive, no real animation studio with a good staffing of approximately 70 people can ever make it. Today most of these animation studio very much like mine are surviving on government grants. These are financial aids given by the government to build on the creative industry in Malaysia.
Other Animation Studios in Malaysia
There are countless of other animation studios that is operating in Malaysia but they service other countries. Malaysia is probably a an extremely cheap setup with ready infrastructure, good talents, ready facilities and people do generally converse in good English.
So we find more and more companies are setting up their businesses here but to do servicing works as we call it for other bigger companies based in Europe and America. This is one possible avenue for an increased exposure.
We Have the Talents
The problem that I always see is that local talents are abundant but they are not able to sustain themselves and they do not see a future in this industry. I really can't see any difference in terms of quality of animation when it comes to the likes of Disney and Pixar studios with our local production. Take this for example.
I can say apart from creating a more attractive script, the animation is almost on par with industry standards, but with a much lesser budget.
The Funny Mental Perimeters
The funny thing about Malaysian animation is this, the entire industry is centered to a particular culture and joke. That is good for a target market. But it is bad to capture international audiences. It is not possible to save this merely be changing the script because the entire animation is focussed towards that direction.
The other funny thing about Malaysian animation is while the animation is top notch, but there is very little emphasis on the script writing and voice talent. To me, the voice that gives life to the characters is equally as important to the character development because that is how the audiences find that link to relate on a deeper level with the creation.
My Wish List
If there is a wish list that I can probably send to Santa for 2018 I wish to see the following:
- Retain good talents
- Replace the dependency on grants and but focus on more incentives for the creative industry in Malaysia
- Build on supporting industries like voice talents, back end production, scripting and marketing
- Increase the critical mass to make animation and marketing more appealing.
