Industrial trip in Wuhan!

13 September

Today we went to Wuhan digital media company.  This was the industrial trip that I have been looking forward to.  At one glance nothing about this particular building calls out to you. A friendly security guard directed us to the 3 floor of the building.  We walked into the animation company and there a man from the production team greeted us. He led us to view the animations that the company had recently made. A few of my favourite works were the story about a pig with a star on his forehead as a birthmark and another animation called 7 Celsius.  The works and the animation I believe is no less inferior to the animations that I watch in Singapore, in fact I recognize some of their work being broadcast on Okto (The kids channel in Singapore). 

We later had a quick tour of their working conditions. There were the “working cubicles” which was what I had expected, but what I did not expect was how barren the room looked. It looked almost as colourless as the exterior of the building it was situated in. The room was grey with some Japanese anime posters stuck on the wall. There were about 9 people present that were working away. I remembered this particular lady using a bamboo fun and touch and she was using Photoshop to digitally colour she works. It appears that this company specializes in using flash animation. It was a pity my mandarin was not fluent and it was hard to carry the conversation, instead I stood silently by her side as she continued with her colour rendering.  It was rather odd to see that these cubicles had little personal items. There were no pictures of family or any little toys or notes, just paper after paper filled with drawings.  A quarter of the production team had huddled into a cubicle and chatted away about their work, occasionally pointing wildly to their sketches before speaking in perfect mandarin at an astounding pace.

We than proceed to their meeting rooms or what I call the brainstorming room. Inside it was almost exactly like the rooms of a preschool. The room had many bright pictures on the walls with little stools and many shelves filled with children books. Naturally all the books were in Chinese but what interested me was that the books looked as if it was painted using watercolours. We basically had a good time playing with books that created quaking sounds and snorting noises.

It was time to leave and we took a quick group shot and were ushered out of the building and back to the bus. This industrial trip was an eye-opener for me. I was impressed by their work yet I was not thrilled to work in a place that looked so grey. It seemed as if the rest of the group shared a similar view. I had a brief chat with Ying Tong and she said that the A3DA trip to Tiny Island production was more inviting as the production team had lots of space to put their personal items and they even had a room to keep their pet hamsters! The room she said had bright windows and colourful walls. It was very different from the grey walls that I saw today. I wished the school of ICT had allowed the MMA students to go to Tiny Island production. I wonder if we did feedback to the school perhaps the next batch of MMA students may be lucky enough to go to Tiny Island production.

Later in the day we had a quick lunch and Miss Anita began lessons. The urge to go to Tiny Island made it hard for me to concentrate during TCC class. We learnt the different palettes such as the standard colours, intense, delicate and old master’s. Afterwards we had a short briefing and we went off to pack for the trip to Lushan Mountain next day.   I had a quick dinner and called my family. When I return to Singapore, the first thing I want to do is to have a meal with my parents and my siblings. Dinner feels lonely without the people who you care most beside you. The company I have here is precious but nothing beats family. As for the trip to Lushan Mountain, I sure hope it’s going to be really fun with lots of amazing sceneries!