One of Malaysia’s largest 2D animation studios, Inspidea, held an industry talk at Limkokwing University in Cyberjaya on 27 March 2018.
Inspidea Animation Studios Co-Founder and Managing Director, Andrew Ooi, opened the session at the Hall of Fame by showing the students a video of what the company had done in the past, as well as future projects.
International presence
Andrew received a big round of applause from the crowd when he spoke about Inspidea’s work in one of Cartoon Network’s most popular cartoon shows, Johnny Bravo.
“With Cartoon Network, we produced a show called, ‘Johnny Bravo goes to Bollywood’. Except for the script, music and voice-overs, everything else was done by Inspidea,” he said.
Inspidea is highly involved with various international clients, producing and co-producing some amazing edutainment-based shows, such as Mustang Mama, Mat Kacau, Akis, Ko-Bushi and the list goes on.
These were list of shows that received good reviews and were instant hits.
Coming from a background that has no relevance to animation, Andrew said “I am doing this because I can do it”.
He holds a Masters Degree in Urban Planning from Universiti Sains Malaysia.
A new start
The 1998 Asian Financial Crisis was a major setback for Andrew and his business partner, CJ Lee, but in a way, he said this opened a new pathway to venture into a business that is doing really good now.
“We were quite ignorant of what to expect in this business at first, with a mindset of accepting whatever that may come is for the good,” said Andrew.
At the event, Andrew said that 2002 was a major breakthrough year for them as the company produced it’s first ever animated series, ‘Johan The Young Scientist’.
The idea of this series was to educate kids, aged 4-8 to learn Science through television. The word ‘Johan’ means champion in Malay.
The company’s airing network evolved since it’s establishment, from Free TV – Pay TV – Broadband.
“At Inspidea, it is all about positioning,” shared Andrew.
Mastering animation
“Animation is not easy, neither it is difficult,” said Andrew as he shared his thoughts with the students.
According to Andrew, animation in Malaysia still has a lot of room for improvement, but among the highlights were technical experts in executing pre-production processes.
“We are lacking creative resouces which is very important in the field of animation,” shared Andrew.
Andrew also said that, comparatively, 2D is harder when it comes to drawing, whereas in 3D, the challenge is when rendering the files.
“Ultimately, software is just a tool, the principles of animation is fundamental,” said Andrew.
“In animation, nobody wants to look for someone who can do everything, they want someone who can do something like a mastermind,” shared Andrew.