Animating Malaysia for the World
By : Steven Patrick
Here’s the tale behind a local animation powerhouse that’s making waves.
CREATIVE MINDS: Burhanuddin briefing the creative team at the office, (l-r) Mohd Nizam, animation production director Kee Yong Pin, head of audio design Muhammad Anas Abdul Aziz and Safwan. (Main pic)
ANIMATION company Les’ Copaque wants to be as Malaysian as teh tarik. It is creating a niche for itself in international markets with its nationalistic spirit and homegrown tales from the kampung environment.
It wants to create intellectual property that showcases the uniquely Malaysian lifestyle. Its creative works pay no mind to the fast-and-furious Western urban lifestyle; instead its stories tell of the relaxed, unhurried kampung life set to a backdrop of durian trees, cows and chickens.
Mohd Nizam Abdul Razak, creative and marketing director of Les' Copaque, believes international markets will be interested in this aspect of Malaysian culture.
“Famous animation series, such as Japan’s Doraemon, are based on their respective local rather than international culture. We believe we can do the same with ours," he told In.Tech.
That philosophy seems to be working wonders for this three-year-old company. Les’ Copaque won the Best Film Animation award at the Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival 2007 for its Upin & Ipin TV series.
The six four-minute episodes about a pair of twins in a kampung were aired on TV9 during the fasting month last year.
Thanks to the success, the creative team at this MSC Malaysia company has got its work cut out it for the year ahead. It has an agreement with Zhongnan Group Animation Video Co Ltd to produce a 90-minute 3D cartoon feature, called 36 Strategem — Essential Art of War, that will be based on the famous Sun Tzu book.
The deal, worth US$7mil (RM24.5mil), was signed at the MIPTV trade show in Cannes, France, last April. The Zhongnan Group is one of the largest animation companies in China.
Astro, a satellite-TV broadcasting company, is also seeking a joint-venture with Les’ Copaque to produce 13 episodes of a 3D animated series called Pada Zaman Dahulu.
This will be about local animal folklore, which includes characters such as the wily Sang Kancil, whose exploits were entertaining Malaysians long before TV’s MacGyver.
Les’ Copaque is still in discussion with Astro and declined to elaborate further.
In the beginning
Les’ Copaque, which operates out of Shah Alam, develops all its 3D animation on Autodesk’s Maya 8 software, according to Haji Burhanuddin Mohd Radzi, managing director of the animation powerhouse.
It also had a modest beginning, he said. The company was started in 2005 by three Multimedia University (MMU) graduates — Nizam, art director Mohd Safwan Abdul Karim and animation director Usamah Zaid (all aged 25 now) — and Burhanuddin, 52, who used to work in the oil and gas industry.
Burhanuddin recalled that the three graduates, from MMU’s Film and Animation department, came to see him that year, with the intention of making a 3D animated feature film, armed with a seven-minute trailer.
They had won the award for Best Tertiary Student Project at the Asia-Pacific Information and Communications Technology Awards 2005 (Apicta 2005) and a Malaysian Video Award (MVA), also in 2005, for a trailer of Missi Mustahak.
The clip received kudos for being a very credible and creative multimedia effort. But more importantly, it gave Burhanuddin the confidence to give the graduates his backing. Missi Mustahak is about imaginative old folks and the adventures they get into.
He was looking for a new business venture after having his fill of the oil and gas business.
“When my wife and I saw the trailer we liked it. We also saw in it, the determination, teamwork and business sense of its makers.
“They had the right attitude and I believed I could mould them into a formidable force in the animation industry,” Burhanuddin said.
Spurred by the graduates’ passion and talent, he researched the animation industry and decided to take the leap of faith by starting an animation company with them.
“I proposed Les’ Copaque as the company name, which stems from the Malay saying “Last kopek,” meaning the last card you can take in a card game,” he said. “It’s the card you put all your hopes and dreams on. It means giving your everything.”
After three months, the company recruited another five people to carry out research on the methodology of making animated films.
“Today, we have about 40 people. Besides the animators, there are script writers, modellers, rendering artists, and compositors,” Burhanuddin said.
Les’ Copaque plans to expand ever further. “We will be increasing our staff to about 100 by year end because we have to work on Pada Zaman Dahulu and there’s a full 52-episode series of Upin & Ipin to do as well,” he said.
Toy Story influence
Ask the Les’ Copaques creative team what inspires them and they’ll tell you it’s the Disney-Pixar ground-breaking animated film Toy Story. The 1995 movie is the first 3D animated feature film.
Burhanuddin explained that unlike conventional films which have real actors, Toy Story is based purely on imagination. “The film has no boundaries,” he said.
Safwan said he is attracted to Toy Story because it opens up the possibility of turning anything (even toys) into movie characters.
“Toy Story marked the beginning of the 3D animation feature film. It really inspired us because its producers dared to produce the film when no one else believed in it,” said Safwan.
He grew up watching cartoons, like Doraemon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and is still in awe of how far animation has progressed technically. “And now that animation has become digital, the possibilities are endless,” he said.
ANIMATION AWARD: A scene from an animated TV series Upin and Ipin. Les' Copaque won the Best Film Animation award at the Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival 2007 for the series.
Upin & Ipin was where Les’ Copaque built its reputation. Safwan said Upin & Ipin is about two five-year-old twins’ experience in fasting for the first time during the Muslim holy month of Ramadhan.
“We started this short four-minute animation series last year to test local market acceptance and to gauge how it would react to our story telling capabilities,” he said.
"Due to its overwhelming success, we have agreed with TV9 to produce a full-fledged season of 52 episodes of Upin & Ipin for the coming fasting month."
First local 3D movie
However, Les’ Copaque’s magnum opus will be the film Geng: The Adventure Begins. It claims that this will be Malaysia’s first 3D animated film.
The movie is expected to cost RM4mil and will be completed at the end of the year, said Burhanuddin. It is about as Malaysian as one can get and tells the tale of how two teenagers in a kampung go about solving a mystery of missing durians.
There’s even a crossover — they meet Upin and Ipin during their adventure.
The movie has some serious undercurrents, according to Burhanuddin. It promotes Malaysian culture and shows how various races can live in harmony through good and bad times.
Les’ Copaque spent a year on research and another one-and-a-half years producing the movie, with a development team comprising more than 40 animators.
PROMISING: A scene from the full animation movie called Geng by Les' Copaque.
Production will be completed by the end of this month while post-production work, which will be done in Thailand, is expected to take two months.
True to the spirit of Les’ Copaque, Safwan said the whole concept of the movie is to introduce Malaysian elements to the world.
“We plan to release it in local theatres this December while the international release will be next year.
“We are still negotiating with several parties to partner us in releasing the film internationally,” he said.
“Our film is budgeted at RM4mil and I believe it is the highest budget for a local film, save for Puteri Gunung Ledang (RM20mil).
“However, we believe that our film will be the cheapest 3D animated feature film ever made worldwide because the lowest cost on record so far is US$4mil (RM12.9mil) for Singapore’s Legend of the Sea last year,” Safwan said.
But Les’ Copaque is quick to point out that big budgets do not guarantee a hit. “It’s about great animation, memorable characters and good story-telling,” said Burhanuddin.
And, a healthy dose of local flavour-lah.
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