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After two years of production, audiences finally get t to taste Seefood.
IT took two years of love, passion – and d not to mention buckets of sweat and endless obstacles – for director Goh Aun Hoe and his trusted team to finally release their animation movie in English entitled Seefood, which follows the adventures of Pup and his friend Julius.
Pup is a bamboo shark with the ability to remain on land for 12 hours, and Julius, a whitetip shark that devours just about anything.
Since Pup can breathe on land, he embarks on a roller-coaster mission to rescue his siblings when a group of poachers kidnap the egg sacs from the coral reef they call home.
Julius, geared up in an aquarium-like robot suit, goes after Pup when he is persuaded to look for new food sources on land. When Julius is captured by a greedy fisherman, the hunter becomes the hunted, and Pup must race to rescue his friend.
Coming along for the fun ride is a combination of colourful marine creatures, including Mertle the turtle, Octo the inventor (an octopus, of course), Spin the stingray and a trio of pilot fish named Larry, Curly and Moe.
To the untrained eye, Seefood, which is co-produced by Silver Ant Malaysia and Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (JCC), and distributed locally by Grand Brilliance, is a flawless piece of work. It offers breathtaking views of the underwater world and presents some amazing, often eerily realistic, animation.
It looks like the 35 animators of Silver Ant know the underwater environment very well and this is evident in their work.
There is much contrast – the bright and sunny coral reef scenes and the dark and murky underwater cave scenes – both are a sight to behold.
The movie, funded partially by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and Multimedia Development Corporation (Mdec), will surely be a hit with children who will enjoy the vivid characters and brilliant animation, and the adults who will appreciate the witty localised humour and human themes. But rest assured, the movie has a universal quality to it that anyone can relate to.
Just in case you were wondering, Seefood means “seeing food”.
Billed as a family comedy, Seefood, which was launched at MIPTV (Palais des Festival) in Cannes, France, last May, was released in Slovakia, Czech Republic and South Korea. It will be released in Germany next month and in China in June.
Nobody is more proud of the release than Seefood director, Goh.
“I’m very happy now that Seefood is finally here for movie-goers,” said Goh in a phone interview.
“The journey with Seefood was exciting, yet rough, given the challenges we faced on several fronts that are known to our industry. Nevertheless, we learnt a great deal during these past two years, and we hope this movie will touch the hearts of audiences around the world as it did for me, my partner and the team.
“I really hope Seefood will open the eyes of financial institutions to lend the animation industry some help,” said Goh, who is also the CEO of Silver Ant, referring to his team’s difficulties ficdifficulties in getting financial assistance anassistance to produce the movie.
Ddue to budget constraints, Goh coucould not get well-known stars to voivoice any of the characters in the momovie.
Aaccording to Goh, 45, Seefood featfeatures an 18-voice cast.
“Wwhen we were designing the animalsanimals, I had in mind what kind of voices certain characters should have. What happened was, I was given a long voice cast list without knowing what each person looked like. It was a lengthy process of selection. Some voices suited the characters perfectly, while a few were close to expectation,” said Goh.
He added that his animation team had put in much effort into studying the behaviour of the sea creatures featured in the movie.
“We have to be sure that they are portrayed in a realistic manner besides projecting human expressions that bring them to life,” he explained.
“I believe in training the animators ourselves and I’m proud to say that what you see in Seefood is a 100% Malaysian production.
According to Seefood special effects director Tan Kare Loon, 32, the team spent about six months in the R&D phase, to actually come up with the storyline and on how to deal with elements such as water, fire and fog.
“We are excited but also nervous to see how audiences will react to it. I hope the public will get the message we are trying to convey,” said Tan, referring to different issues highlighted in Seefood.
The adventures of Pup and Julius serve as a lesson on environmental preservation as kids are introduced to issues that threaten the life and home of these undersea creatures, such as poaching, pollution and the depletion of food sources.
Goh revealed that he and his team at Silver Ant are working on a new and bigger animation movie which he will disclose in due time.
Seefood opens in local cinemas on Thursday.