Water, Water, Everywhere…
“Water, water, everywhere, nor a drop to drink…”- The Rime of The Ancient Mariner.
Everytime I have to look for a new animator, modeller, texture artist, CG artist or whatever, its a nightmare. Its hard work looking for good help. Its literally digging for diamonds in every sense of the word. Sometimes, you have to go through a whole mountain of reels just to find a diamond in the rough. Taking a shot of the Loch Ness Monster might be easier. In my recent posts, I think some people might have felt offended by my opinions. I am sorry, but its not a personal attack, just my view of the situation.
The system is broken and it needs fixing. The lousy students, dispirited lecturers are just part of the large symptoms of the disease. But like any institution in this country, acknowledging the problem is hard enough, to even think of fixing it is near impossible. For acknowledging a problem in the first place would be an implicit admission of failure. And far be it for our ministers, scholars, civil servants, school bureacrats to admit their failings. Golden rice bowls are at stake afterall.
Singapore Poly offers diplomas in creative media, interactive and games development.
Ngee Ann Poly has a film school that also offers diplomas in film production and digital visual effects.
Nanyang Poly has a school of interactive and digital media that offers diplomas in digital animation and games development.
Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts offers a diploma in multimedia which among other things teaches CG and animation.
Lasalle College too offers a diploma similiar to that of Nanyang.
Nangyang Technological University has a school of art, design and media.
And these are just the publicly funded schools which offers some form of digital media education in one way or another. On top of these, you also have private education centers like-
SAE Institute which has courses dealing with animation, CG and games development.
Intense Animation Studios which has all sort of courses dealing with CG.
3D Sense which also has various diplomas in CG and design.
Orita Sinclair which has diplomas in art and new media.
And over the horizon, two heavyweight north american schools is about to setup campuses here-
Digipen Institute
Sheridan College
Now take a deep breath and let this settle in your mind for 5 minutes.
This is a big assed fucking mindblogging amount of schools and private institutions offering some form of digital media and design education in one shape or another. I challenge anyone to find another academic discipline that even remotely approaches this insane amount of choices and options. Japanese language courses, maybe, I don’t know. And you’d be tempted to think singapore must be really some kind of digital media hub with singaporean or singapore trained digital media artists spread out across the globe making our mark in these areas.
Of course nothing could be further from the truth. More often than not, we have to go overseas to recruit new talents just so we can staff our team with adequately trained artists. Many studios will tell you the same thing. Its hard to find talent in singapore dispite all the schools, hype and media attention.
And so our misguided deluded bureacrats continue to fund more programmes, build more schools because if the studios can’t find talents, than it mus be because there’s not enough schools. And if the industry have difficulty finding talents, than it must mean the digital media industry must be booming because there’s a labour shortage.
Talk about a double whammy.
WE DON’T NEED MORE SCHOOLS BECAUSE THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TALENTS. AND THE INDUSTRY IS NOT BOOMING BECAUSEÂ WE CAN’T FIND TALENTS.
Its simple, not even rocket science. Maybe if the schools and polys can do a better job training people for the industry, than we wouldn’t have so much trouble finding talents. Unfortunately schools are not training people for the industry. No. They are too busy trying to pump up scores and not failing students, producing substandard graduates so they can look good for our education minister. Inside of a syllabus that emphasizes industry needed skills, the polys more often than not has a grades based syllabus which only produces graduates with a nice looking transcript. I mean what do they care if the studios have a hard time finding people. The harder a time we have finding talents, the better it will be for the schools because then, they can argue for more funding pointing to the shortage of talent in the industry. And if the industry can’t find talents, ergo, it must be because the poly trained graduates are in such hot demand. And those deluded ministers, civil servants and scholars will continue to think what a huge success this whole big digital media hub is and sprained their arms trying to pat themselves on the back.
And everyone lives happily ever after.
Except for the studios trying to find artists.
Except for the barely trained graduates armed with a barely adequate demoreel suddenly realising all their As and Bs in poly don’t mean jackshit.
Â
14 Comments so far
The gov wants to be HUB OF EVERYTHING. All these are artificially created smoke screens. Gather the big names, use the big names, broadcast the big names, then become world class.
Then, at the end, digits are screwed, left and right. There are no passion in promoting media industry. Everything is about money. All ministers want to impress the big boss and come out futuristic ideas.
Learning CG is tough, CG business is not easy. CG is about talent. Even if you have a lot of money, no talent means no talent. You cannot clone talent, you need to nurture talent in the right and conducive environment.
In Singapore, it is about dollars and cents.
What environment?
It’s an open secret
Maybe the two foreign schools can improve the situation since they have their own syllabus and stuff unless they are being ‘controlled’ by the MOE or some sort.
Same for NUS, I graduate with Bachelor in Computing and I can say almost 80% of the things I am doing now is self-taught and learn through self exploration and daily reading. In the area of software, IT,design, etc, these are the things where you cannot use grade to measure them because they are being “consumed” (either used by end user in terms of software or appreciated by consumers in terms of CG and film), and thus they should not be GRADED by a pointy hair prof.
The 2 foreign schools could also easily pull a UNSW if enrollment figures don’t meet expectations. This is one of the biggest danger with foreign institutions. If they fold, what will happen to the students?
It has happen once before with The One Academy. At least students were given the option of continuing with the programme in malaysia. If the these 2 schools fold, does that mean students have to fly across the globe to the other side of the world to finish their courses?
This problem exists throughout the education sector. Secondary school teachers have to write positive testimonials for even their most misbehaving students, because their principals and HODs demand that they do so (otherwise they won’t get their performance bonus). It’s complete bullshit. The HODs do not know the students personally. The teachers do. So what right do the HODs have to insist that all students get a positive report? Why should the teachers be compelled to lie for students who, frankly, don’t deserve it? It’s all down to the obsession with image. Institutions don’t care about the actual quality of the students they turn out, as long as the institution can look good, so that those in charge of it can get their promotions, etc. This is endemic even in the so-called ‘top’ schools. I went to a ‘top’ JC where the principal was happily closing down CCAs that did not earn enough CCA points for their students, regardless of how active and productive those CCAs were in ways that could not be measured by the ludicrous CCA points system. But of course. Why should the school care about intangibles that they cannot boast about to MOE?
Mmmmm, quite a number of interesting perceptions presented as fact in there. I’d have to ask “are you sure?” or is it just something you think? I’m a creative director of a design agency. Believe me, when I’ve needed a designer there have been no shortage of local applicants. Flash action script programmers? No problem. Video cameramen, photographers, multimedia designers? No problem.
There’s no lack of people with skills in this country, but the skills are certainly in the wrong areas. Anyone will tell you it’s easy to find a DI artist. But everyone will also tell you that what the industry really wants is people who have larger, more abstract skills. Conceptualisation, strategy, “the big idea” etc. It’s almost impossible to find something as simple as a designer who has a basic understanding of marketing or understands the role of his design in a client’s “bigger picture”.
So, as it has always been, we have people who are very good at using their computers, very good at working technology. But an understanding of typography? The vision to find an approach that cuts through the clutter and works magic? An inkling of the psychology of why something might be better to use than something else? Now THAT is hard to find.
We’re not recruiting overseas to find desktop publishers, we’re recruiting overseas to find people who’ve been trained to think.
=) Marc
1. I wouldn’t be writing this if I weren’t sure.
2. If you don’t believe me, you can trying asking other studios if hiring qualified animators, modellers and artists has ever been easy. Maybe its because I am picky, but everywhere I’ve work, it has been tough. And when you compared it with the number of schools that are suppose to be training new talents, than it doesn’t make sense at all.
3. Maybe I am mistaken, but what you’ve written seems to be pretty in agreement to what I’ve written. I’ve never said finding applicants was difficult. It’s finding one who can do the job that’s difficult.
You’ve already said finding a designer who have thinking skills, ability to conceptualise and an understanding of typography is hard. Well, isn’t this what I am alluding to. Find a qualified candidate who can do the job.
You yourself have said you need to recruit overseas, well if the polys are doing their job, than why are you recruiting from overseas, if there’s such a huge abundance of talent here?
[...] Daily Discourse – Legal Janitor: Be careful when you wish for black and white – Yawning Bread: Fun with FOI – Insane Polygons: Water, Water, Everywhere… [...]
You wrote:
WE DON’T NEED MORE SCHOOLS BECAUSE THERE’S NOT ENOUGH TALENTS. AND THE INDUSTRY IS NOT BOOMING BECAUSE WE CAN’T FIND TALENTS
I say:
Well said – I read your with a bitter chuckle, actually. It’s a real pity that the belief of throwing money into some deep end (in this case, starting up school after school) can inadvertently crete talent persists so strongly in our environment.
Be it in sports (sports school anyone?), anything that starts with “bio-” or something that’s vaguely computer-related, talent is something that is not made on-demand.
And neither can it, truly, be bought.
The gov love to engineer and formally breed talent through credential and qualification. But the result is always the same ! There are just minority of true talent dedicated and committed to the art of game and digital media. What is needed to grow the industry is not some kind of crappy planning system, but rather intrinstric motivation though passion and love.
No wonder, even though we have the greatest technological infrastructure, we are just like what our strait time => Rank among the top ’starting from the last’
Singapore is the greatest SCAM HUB on earth. Nothing beat the scam out of it ! Not even China !
Everything hub this and hub that, and finally where’s the talent ? They are just pay to dig their smelly nose !
hey Insane Polygon,
Your talent belongs very much to the world. The world’s your oyster. Let this smelly government continues to scratch their ass with dollars. They might think 42 years is a long record for them to continue to hoodwink & squeeze the people (local & foreigners from developing countries). But don’t let it discourage you. This piece of shitty government is losing respect & losing $$$ from bad investments like crazy. They are fattening their asses and tightening their control even more as the old man is counting down.
It will be over once the old man goes.
[...] If you’re a student or planning to be a student hoping one day to step into the wild woolly world of CG in singapore, don’t worry, the world is not ending. Its not the end of the line. At the risk of discrediting myself, sometimes you don’t have to take everything you read too seriously. [...]
Hiya IP
Sorry, yep, I was kind of agreeing with you, hope it didn’t sound like I wasn’t… my bad opening paragraph I think.
But I hope your assumption that it is the schools that are causing the situation (and that Digipen and Sheridan slide right into the same groove), turns out to not be the case. Although if it’s not the schools, then the dilemma unfortunately becomes more complex.
We all came up through one system or another. Some of us worked hard at it for one reason or another: because we wanted to learn, we were into what we did, it was our art, we knew we could be good. Others didn’t. Are good people in the design industry born or made? Most definitely no doubt that there is some degree of “made” component… a good foundation/education is important and a good teacher could change your life. But somehow I think there’s a talent component too, not to mention a need for self-motivation.
And often this seems to be lacking when I talk to fresh grads. Where’s the personal projects? Where’s the experimentation? Where’s the thought? Graduate exhibitions here can be scary visual demonstrations of “group think”.
If someone’s technical skills weren’t up to scratch but they had passion I’d hire them… but it’s harder to find heat than proficiency. I don’t think I’m the only person who tries to search for the signals of talent underlying a person’s portfolio and I don’t think I’m the only person who’d be happy to train up someone if we found it.
So I wonder what that means. Does it mean the wrong people are starting courses for the wrong reasons? Or does the system beat it out of them (in which case I take everything I said back, it IS the school’s fault)? Or is there something larger and more cultural at play?
I’d like to blame the schools (and you’re right, skills are not what they should be for graduates), but I’m not sure it’s the whole problem.
Great post on a very complex issue BTW.
=) Marc