Creative spark who starte

The older generation will probably be familiar with the series shown on RTM in the 80s.

The funny and educational animation, running from four to six minutes, focused on with his friends such as the monkey, rabbit, crocodiles and other animals.

Societal values were well presented in these short clips, and Pak Hassan was the main man behind them. It was among the first locally-made animation series, back when the local animation industry was practically non-existent.

The series was not his first. Prior to that, Pak Hassan did several short educational animation clips for Filem Negara, such as and

In those days, the Government used television and colourful animation to educate the public.

Pak Hassan also directed

Malaysia’s first animated feature film, back in 1995.

A love for his craft also prompted him to pen books and journals, both locally and overseas.

published Pak Hassan with the drawings of the Sang Kancil dengan Buaya in 1986.

The Sang Kancil series.

in 2013, is a historical effort and an analysis of Malaysian cinema from the first film screening in 1897 right up to 2013. His latest book is

Pak Hassan has conducted film and animation workshops on story development and visual storytelling in many countries and is also a jury member for numerous local and international film festivals.

For his contributions, he was awarded an Honorary Masters in Creative Technology by UiTM.

How did a kampung boy with no formal education in animation and film industry become so successful in animation, so much so that his skills are recognised not just in Malaysia but in countries such as Norway, India, Sudan, Brunei and Singapore?

THE EARLY YEARS

Unlike today’s animators and filmmakers who are aided by high-tech computers and software, Pak Hassan only had the passion and the will to learn and explore new things when he first started doing animation in the early 70s.

“As I said earlier, I was not good at drawing in school but due to my interest, I learnt by copying drawings. After a while, I became good at it,” he says.

The animation work that Pak Hassan used to do back in the 70s and 80s are nothing like those today, he adds.

“Everything was done manually. It was a painstaking process. The artwork was done by hand from paper to plastic. We made outlines and used paint to colour the artwork,” he says.

The clips, which runs for mere minutes, took six months to complete. These days, they can probably be completed in a couple of days.

Pak Hassan’s drawing and painting skills didn’t come from the animation work but from his previous job before he became an animator.

“I first came to Kuala Lumpur in 1964 and got a job at Robinson Department Store, doing window display and commercial art,” he says.

Incidentally, Robinson was the only department store in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur at that time.

In 1968, he joined Filem Negara Malaysia, drawing film titles. Four years later, Pak Hassan got the opportunity to do animation.