Enhanced exposure:
Animation designer John Chan says CreateHK can help establish more channels for local talent to post their creative works, to increase publicity.
Commercial consideration:
Head of CreateHK Jerry Liu says hosting international conferences and exhibitions gives local digital entertainment companies a chance to communicate with overseas buyers.
CreateHK fosters digi-ent talent
January 08, 2012
The digital entertainment industry has developed rapidly in Hong Kong. CreateHK - the government body set up to assist and promote the local creative industry’s development - helps to enhance publicity for local companies’ products and increase their business opportunities.
Local animation designer John Chan has been developing cartoons for more than a decade. Through his appealing character “Din-Dong” and touching story ideas, Chan and his cartoon characters have become recognised not only in Hong Kong, but also in Japan.
Chan does all the preliminary works himself, from designing through drafting and painting. He then hires local design companies to finish the audio recording and post-production work. He says while Hong Kong has plenty of creative talent in animation design, with a multitude of good stories and characters, there is a lack of publishing platforms for them.
“The most difficult part is how to publish our works. Hong Kong has no TV channels for broadcasting local cartoons and animation movies,” Chan said, noting that places overseas have channels such as
Cartoon Network and
Animax that are well developed.
“What we need is to explore more methods to let people know our works. Maybe a cinema especially for cartoon films? Maybe some cartoon festivals? There is still room for development.”
Business wanted
The head of CreateHK, Jerry Liu, says the local digital entertainment industry is divided into three sectors - animation design, online game design, and movie post-production.
Most of the local companies in the sector are young, small or medium in scale, and lacking in capital, Mr Liu says. CreateHK is working to bolster these companies by holding exhibitions, shows and meetings to enhance publicity for their products and increase their business opportunities.
Last August CreateHK hosted the Asia Online Game Awards. This was the largest online game exhibition in Asia, which gathered experts from across the region, including South Korea, Singapore and Thailand, to compete against and share experiences with each other.
In December CreateHK also hosted one of Asia’s most important computer graphics and interactive technologies shows, the ACM SIGGRAPH Conference & Exhibition on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques . More than 100 exhibitors from 45 countries took part in the four-day conference and exhibition.
“Large-scale promotion platforms are part of CreateHK’s target and work. Through these promotion activities, a lot of service users, buyers and related companies overseas are invited to Hong Kong, and make it possible to have face-to-face communications with local companies,” Mr Liu said.
“Some small and young local companies gain the chance in having business opportunities through these commercial pairing activities in exhibitions and conferences.”
Interns welcome
To groom local talent, CreateHK also hosts a support scheme for fresh graduates of digital entertainment programmes. They have the chance to work with a related design company for a year and receive paid training. This gives them an opportunity to adapt to a real work environment and gain valuable work experience.
CreateHK also appreciates the support private enterprises give to the industry. Mr Liu gave Hong Kong Cyberport as an example of an organisation that assists new small and medium-sized companies by providing loans, low-rent offices, financial- planning services, and legal and intellectual property training to them.
This is the third in a series of news.gov.hk
features on CreateHK.
