Miracle Animation Studios Incorporated (MASI) was set up in 2006 primarily to produce original Filipino content animation in 2D (hand drawn). There are no plans to go into full 3D as the capital investment is high, the production costs are prohibitive and talent scarce. The studio hopes to utilize and export the Filipino talent in 2D animation to other developing countries. The first project was “Jobert and the Crop Circle Warriors©” which was based on a comic book; the production of the animation of Jobert series was harder than expected and the main problem was the budget. So the production of Jobert series crawled until it was finished sometime in 2014.
2D drawing using Top Peg table
There are cartoon critics or fans out there saying that Jobert is not world-class or it lacks many things to make it really good – the originality, the look, the story, the drawing, the music, the sound effects, the dialogue, the voice, etc., Well, this is a third world cartoon with a third world budget for a primarily third world market; so don’t expect that it will be comparable to animation projects of Disney, Marathon, Toei , Warner Brothers or any other foreign cartoon producers with big budgets and big markets. But ‘Jobert’ is good enough for the local and some developing markets.
MASI did not have its own people, so it relied on a contractor to produce its first animation project. The contractor then relied on its sub-contractors or freelancers to outsource some of the work not related to 2D drawing. People in the production have to have multiple roles in the production. For example, the director is also the secondary storyboard artist, compositor, storyboard editor, special effects supervisor and vocal talent. The co-writer is also the original character designer, original storyboard artist and vocal talent. The creator is also the producer, story board editor, song writer and business manager. The musical arranger, is also the instrument man and the singer, and he didn’t even ask for a professional fee, since singing and arranging is just his hobby. He only asked that his ‘talent fee’ just be donated to a worthy cause. There are many other people in the production with multiple roles, since MASI and the contractor cannot afford the real salary for a full time talent.
There are many other problems in the production and marketing of “Jobert and the Crop Circle Warriors©”, but overall it was a worthwhile project and experience for all those involved.
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