From school dropout to Academy Award
winner
Animator Nickson Fong's passion for film
puts him on road to Hollywood
Mr Fong will receive the Technical Achievement Award as
part of a three-man international team. The technique they
developed allows for more life-like movements and subtle nuances in
facial expressions. -- ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE
By JANICE TAI
WHEN animator Nickson Fong becomes the first Singaporean to pick
up an Academy Award next month, he can look back with pride to the
moment that inspiration struck.
He had been working on visual effects for the movie
Godzilla in 1998 in the wee hours of one morning when he took a
seemingly uninteresting algorithm - or formula - that a recent
college graduate used to bend cylinders and applied it to muscle
joints and facial expressions.
The technique - dubbed Pose Space Deformation -
allowed for more life-like movements and subtle nuances in facial
expressions.
It was a game-changer in the film industry.
Hollywood blockbusters like Spiderman, Avatar and The Lord Of The
Rings all used it for their 3-D characters.
Fifteen years later, Mr Fong, 43, will receive the
Technical Achievement Award as part of a three-man international
team.
The certificate, to be presented at the historic
Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, did not come easy.
The first film that Mr Fong used the technique on
was Stuart Little in 1999. He had to mimic human-like expressions
in talking cats and come up with natural fur movements. "It was so
new and companies tend not to trust new techniques, so we just
sneaked it into the movie without them knowing," he said with a
grin.
His pluck has helped him prove many naysayers wrong
about him. He was a school dropout who flunked his exams every
year.
"Your son is useless. If he can find a job in
McDonald's earning $1 an hour, please find him a job," his
principal at St Andrew's Secondary told his weeping mother.
Instead of hitting the books, he would spend
after-school hours loitering in shops reading movie magazines.
On weekends he would be at the cinemas catching the
latest action flick or animated film.
It helped that he had artistic talent. The only
subject he excelled in was drawing. After winning many art prizes,
he secured a spot in the master's degree programme at Savannah
College of Art and Design in the United States after getting his
diploma from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
His thesis project for the course was a short film
which found its way to a prestigious animation festival, the
Siggraph 1996 Electronic Arts Theatre.
The work impressed heavyweight studio DreamWorks
SKG. He was one of the first few animators it recruited for its
first animation feature film, Shrek, which became a global hit for
its illustrated realism and humour.
Mr Fong commanded a six-figure pay cheque per
project and lived in a two-storey house with a three-car garage in
California, but decided to return to Singapore after working on The
Matrix movie series in 2004.
The father of two said: "I felt obligated as a
Singaporean to come back and share my experience. I know I can do a
lot by offering opportunities and much-needed training for the raw
talent here."
Little did he know then that he would face many
roadblocks here. The production firm he started in 2004 - Egg Story
Creative Production - folded in 2010 after the economic
downturn.
It had been working on a $50 million animation film
called Kung Fu Gecko, initially tipped as a possible global hit,
much like DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda. But it did not take
off due to a lack of funds.
In 2007, Mr Fong opened Egg Story Digital Arts
Academy to train Singaporean animators via a two-year diploma
course. He sold it to a partner two years ago to concentrate on
production work but it has since ceased operations.
His family lives in Taipei but he remains active
here with another start-up, Egg Story Studios.
That is why he is keenly tracking the progress of
animation brand names DigiPen Institute of Technology and Lucasfilm
Singapore, which have chosen to set up shop here. "We have a
growing animation scene here but it is still in its infancy and it
remains to be seen if it will flourish," he said.
"We do have the talent but there is a need for
resources such as funding, training and opportunities."
Mr Fong's Academy Award is not actually an Oscar,
which is the name given to the famous statuette. Last year, there
were eight recipients of scientific and technical awards
represented by 28 people. One group won the certificate, six
received a bronze tablet and one group won the Oscar.
Home, The Straits Times, Thurday January 24 2013, Pg B10
