Thailand Project (Animation)

Thailand is one of the ASEAN countries in which Japanese animation is held especially in high regard. In terms of the number of overseas contracts with Japanese animation studios (broadcasts, screenings, videograms, delivery and commercialization etc.), Thailand ranked 6th after Korea, the United States, Taiwan, China and Canada, based on a survey in 2014. Among other ASEAN countries, the country stood out, having more than three times the number of contracts as Singapore or Malaysia.

On the other hand, when speaking of the production side in Thailand, although the production of TV commercials is active and has received high global praise, it would be false to say that animation and films have fully developed as an industry. Of course, there is the world-renowned live-action filmmaker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and three feature-length animation films have been produced in Thailand since 2006. The industry has been successful to a certain extent but it is undoubtedly still in its developmental stages.

In the animation field, the tie between Thailand and Japan has been strong for quite a while now. Kantana Animation Studio of the Kantana Group, which is known as Thailand’s largest and oldest film production studio, started as a subcontractor for Toei Animation Co., Ltd. The company then shifted to 3DCG production, and in 2006 produced Thailand’s first feature-length animation, “Khan Kluay”. They have since produced two feature films and a TV series.

When speaking of human resources development, in recent years, universities around the country including the national Silpakorn University, have started offering education in animation. The abovementioned Kantana Group also established an educational institution called the Kantana Institute in 2011. It is highly possible that the younger generation who have received such education will be able to stimulate the growth of the Thai animation industry in the future.

Based on these backgrounds, in this program, we dispatched to Thailand a team of front-line Japanese commercial animators and gave a practical workshop to the local students which focused on the basics of “expression in animation” through hands-on learning.

The curriculum and teaching methods were based on the “Animation Boot Camp” which has been implemented as a domestic media arts program by the Agency for Cultural Affairs since 2012. In Thailand, rather than offering advanced technical guidance, the team aimed for a fundamental education that is essential in building the foundation of an animator. By conveying up close just how devoted veteran Japanese animators are in expressing through animation as well as their professional attitude and thought process, the workshop was intended to inspire the local youth and to gain their deeper understanding of Japanese animation.

Through this program, we sowed the seeds of international co-production and technical cooperation in the animation field, and aimed for the promotion of future international cultural exchange.

Japanese side
Lecturers	Yoshiaki Kyogoku (Animator / Director)
	Takayuki Goto (Animator / Character Designer, Production I.G., Inc.)
	Yoshiharu Sato (Animator, Nippon Animation Co., Ltd.)
Directors	Koji Takeuchi (Animation Producer)
	Taruto Fuyama (Professor, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Program Producer	Mitsuko Okamoto (Professor, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Program Manager	Asako Eguchi (Assistant Professor, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Interpreters	Nuchanart Rungtrakool (Production I.G., Inc.)
	Chayanit Kiatchokechaikul (Tokyo University of the Arts)
Planning/Operation	Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts
General Management	UNIJAPAN
Program Supervisor	Takenari Maeda (Director, International Promotion Group)
Program Manager	Mayu Honda (International Promotion Group)

Thai side
Local Cooperator	Silpakorn University
Thai side’s Program Producer	Akepong Tritrong（Dean of Faculty of Decorative Arts）
Thai side’s Program Director	Chanisa Changadvech（Chair of Visual Communication Design Department）
Staff	Chaiyosh Isavorapant（Faculty of Painting Sculpture and Graphic art）
	Chitchai Kuandachakupt (Product Design Department, Faculty of Decorative Art)
	Pratimol Boonprachak ( Graduate Student, Faculty of Painting Sculpture and Graphic art)
	Chanintorn Sookjaroen (Faculty of Decorative Arts)
	Chotiwat Punnopatham (Visual Communication Design Department)
	Atiwat Wiroonpetch (Visual Communication Design Department)
	Supitchaya Khemthong (Visual Communication Design Department)
	Kanitta Meechubot (Visual Communication Design Department)
	Sutasinee Vajanavinij（Visual Communication Design Department)
	Mintra Assadathon (Visual Communication Design Department)

Participants’ Schools
Silpakorn University
Faculty of Decorative Art
Faculty of Information Technology for Design
Chiang Mai University
Kantana Film and Animation Institute
King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
Mae Fah Luang University
Mahidol University
Rangsit University
Srinakharinwirot University（
Sripatum University
University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce

《Program name》

Animation Boot Camp 2015 ASEAN

《Schedule》

Saturday, 19th December, 2015
Sunday, 20th December, 2015

《Venue》

Silpakorn University (Wang Tha Phra Campus)

《Time Table》

19th December

9:30 – 9:50    Opening Remarks and Orientation
9:50 – 10:10  Introduction (Observation of Pantomimes and Walking)
10:10 – 10:40 Lecture on “Walking”
10:40 – 12:45  “Walking” Workshop
12:45 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30-14:00 Feedback
14:00-17:00 Box Animation Workshop
17:00-17:30 Demonstration of Professional Works
17:30 – 18:00 Interim Feedback
 

20th December

9:00 – 12:00 “Box” workshop
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:00  Feedback
14:00-15:00 Film Screening (“Wasurenagumo”)
15:00-16:40 Question-and-Answer Session
16:40 – 17:30 Certificate Presentation and Closing Ceremony

《Participants》

Number of the participants: 25 persons

Participating students and their schools:

Silpakorn University: 13 students
Chiang Mai University: 1 student
Kantana Institute: 2 students
King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi: 2 students
King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang: 1 student
Mae Fah Luang University: 1 student
Mahidol University: 1 student
Rangsit University: 1 student
Srinakharinwirot University: 1 student
Sripatum University: 1 student
University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce: 1 student

※Silpakorn University contacted educational institutions all over Thailand and teachers of each school recommended the students, thus accounting for 12, or half of, the participants.

《Languages》

Japanese, Thai (consecutive interpretation)

《Introduction》

At the beginning of the workshop, the director, Mr. Takeuchi, said to the students, “I hope you will gain something through your experiences in this two-day workshop. In order to do that, it is important that you come up with questions of your own. Please feel free to ask those questions to the lecturers.” In relaying this message, he expressed his desire for the students to be involved actively, not passively.

After that, Mr. Kyogoku gave a 10-minute session on pantomime performances and let the students try it out as well. Pantomiming is a very simple and effective training in “visualizing movement” and also an ice-breaker to loosen the tension by getting the participants to move their bodies.

Following the pantomiming session, Mr. Takeuchi gave a short session of about 10 minutes on the “observations of walking”. All of the participants walked in harmony with a metronome, during which they observed the movement and strides of their feet. Colored tape was attached to some of their shoes in advance to demonstrate what part of the feet becomes visible when walking and to get a better grasp on the act of walking.

《Lecture and Workshop on "Walking"》

After these introductory sessions the students moved on to the animation workshop. First, Mr. Goto gave a 30-minute lecture on the basics of drawing walking movements. Then he gave the first assignment of animating one to two walk steps using the provided key frames.

“KOMA KOMA”, an iPad application developed by Director Fuyama, was used to take pictures of the students’ drawings and check them in sequence as soon as they were finished. The lecturers gave specific advice and guidance while viewing the animation together with the students. One of the features of Animation Boot Camp is that the lecturers demonstrate their points by making their own drawings, a method which was used enthusiastically in this Thai program as well.

Although most students had sketching skills, their animation proficiency was uneven and many students struggled to animate even a basic walking cycle. To complicate matters, none of the Japanese – Thai interpreters were professional interpreters which made it difficult for them to translate instructions from the directors and lecturers to the students accurately and smoothly. This resulted in a slight delay in the schedule. (To address this problem, we switched to using English as often as possible in the afternoon)

Even though there was a 30-minute extension from the original plan, the three lecturers taught the students elaborately and tactfully, sometimes using gestures to communicate their ideas, and helped all of the students complete the one to two step walking animation.

All of the students’ walking animation was then uploaded to a server and was laid out on a large “KOMA KOMA” screen for comparison and review. In the feedback session, Mr. Goto picked out some of the students’ works and offered advice for improvement.　

《"Box" Workshop: Assignment》

After students understood the basics of animation by animating “walking”, namely the transition from key frames to in-betweens, they moved on to the main task of this program, the “box” assignment. The specifics of the “box” assignment are as follows:

• A group of five students creates a single sequence together based on the 5-scene storyboard provided by the instructors
• Each of the five students is responsible for one scene
• Unspecified acting and objects in the storyboard are to be decided by the students
• Using the model sheet as reference, students are to draw the character in proportion, although the drawing itself can be rough

The main character is a small boy. The sequence consists of a series of actions involving the boy and the box.

The content of the box is to be a “watermelon” or a “balloon” of which the students get to decide. In this case, the majority of the students chose “watermelon” so all of the groups used a watermelon as the object inside the box.

It should be noted that the assignment was based on the one used in the “Animator Training Program Trial Case”, which was held in 2011 in Fukuoka, as a predecessor of the Animation Boot Camp.

《"Box" Workshop: Teaching method》

The directors let the lecturers know beforehand the essential points of their instructions during the workshop. Mainly they are:

• Based on the storyboard, the students themselves should decide what acting should be included and they should physically act them out as well
• First, they must clearly visualize in their minds the movements before attempting to draw them
• At the very least, the students should come up with some expressive poses

It is clear that rather than stressing technical accuracy and animating skills, the focus was to help students grasp the underlying methodologies.

During the actual animating process, the three lecturers gave instructions as needed to their assigned groups. When giving guidance, the lecturers respected the action the students were trying to express and showed them how to animate it effectively by demonstrating with drawing samples. Students observed with such intensity while the lecturers made drawings for them, it was as if they were their disciples trying not to miss anything the master did.

Another important aspect of the Animation Boot Camp is the pursuit of expressiveness. In order to check whether or not the students were successfully relating the action they envisioned through their animation to the viewer, they took pictures of their drawings using the software program “KOMA CHECKER” developed by Director Fuyama which replays them as an animation reel. With “KOMA CHECKER”, it is possible to edit and adjust the timing of a frame, therefore, if there is a part in which the movement is too quick or confusing, longer exposure can be assigned. Students were able to brush up their scenes so that they became more expressive, vivid. Each student was encouraged to take part in this procedure of reviewing his or her work.

Assistant staff members from the Thai side were allocated to each group and helped facilitate these tasks for the students. Most of them were graduates of Silpakorn University and were already working as professionals. They were very competent and contributed a great deal in carrying out this workshop. As described above, insufficient interpretation skills did cause some problems, however, because the assistant staff members were fluent in English, many of the language problems were solved later on. Instructions to the participants were first explained by the director to the assistant staff in English, then they transmitted them to the students of their assigned groups. After switching to this way in the afternoon of the first day, information was communicated relatively smoothly.

Students spent approximately six hours on the “box” assignment, from the afternoon of the first day to the morning of the second day. All of the teams were able to complete the task. Some enthusiastic students voluntarily continued working on their scenes even after the first day’s program ended.

During the last feedback session, the work of each group was played on a large screen and the lecturers gave comments on each of them. Unique ideas and acting were evident in many of the sequences and there were bursts of laughter all throughout the screening.

《Demonstration of Professional Works》

A corner was set up at the end of the first day where a variety of copied materials actually used in the production of Japanese animation films were displayed. Students were able to browse through them as they wished, an attempt by the organizers to cultivate greater understanding of the processes involved in creating Japanese animation.

Thanks to Mr. Goto, these materials were borrowed from Production I.G. Inc., which were used in the production of the film “Wasurenagumo”. This work was made for project “Animemirai” conducted by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2011. From the countless documents, around ten scenes from the film were selected and copies of their layouts, key drawings, in-betweens and time sheets were made available for the students.

The purpose of showing these materials was to reveal to the Thai participants the production process of Japanese animation. Furthermore, it was intended to have students realize that the assignments they were tackling in the workshop leads to the actual animator profession. Students looked through the materials enthusiastically and asked questions to the lecturers about their function and the steps needed to create them.

《Film Screening》

After the assignments were successfully completed, the afore-mentioned film “Wasurenagumo” produced by Production I.G. Inc. was screened. Unfortunately, the film was only in Japanese; however, due to this fact, it seemed the students were more focused on watching the film to get the meaning of the story through the visuals. One negative result was that in the subsequent question and answer session, there were several trivial questions on the “Wasurenagumo” story.

《Questions-and-Answers Session》

The question-and-answer session was conducted in a friendly atmosphere with Director Takeuchi and the three lecturers answering questions from the students. In addition to the questions about “Wasurenagumo” as described above, students asked specific questions related to the Japanese animation production process. Examples of the questions asked were as follows: how long it takes for the production of a feature-length animation film, how many people are involved in creating a scene, how many hours people normally work each day, whether or not paper is still used for drawing animation, and what kind of software is employed.

There was a question about what the lecturers thought of the transition to digital animation in the future. Each lecturer talked about his affection for the analog method as a professional animator. On the other hand, Mr. Takeuchi talked about the benefits of digitization from his perspective as a producer, accompanied with specific examples. Furthermore, there were questions from a few students which seemed to stem from their desire to work in Japan, such as “How can I become a background artist?”, and “How busy are the professionals in Japan?”

《Certificate Presentation Ceremony>》

When the curriculum was completed, the completion certificates  were presented to each of the students. The certificate and the booklet given to the students were designed by staff members of the Visual Communication Design Department of Silpakorn University.

Unlike Malaysia, Thailand is not promoting the growth of the animation industry on a national level. It also does not have an established western style animation education system like Singapore. Thailand would have to be considered as not having a very active animation culture and industry. However, judging by the fact that feature-length animation films have been produced domestically from ten years ago, it is safe to say that they have considerable potential. But still, there are not many universities or vocational schools that provide professional animation education and Thailand yet has to build a concrete animation education system.

Under such circumstances, this program was organized with the belief that a basic and practical animation education would be effective and fruitful. Thus, a workshop-style educational program was held in the same manner as the Animation Boot Camp which has achieved a sufficient performance record in Japan.

Upon reflection, this approach yielded great success considering the positive response from participating students and local staff members. Many of them asked for a similar workshop again next year and in the years to come.

An issue that will need to be solved in the future is language, if the program is to be conducted in Thai. An experienced Thai – Japanese translator with knowledge of animation is vital to ensure smooth operations.

Lastly, if there is to be one most important factor to make this program successful, it will be to develop a strong relationship with the local educational institution and/or company that will be the local host and acquire their full cooperation. This would be a necessity required not only of Thailand but of any other country.