Coretta 'Siren' Singer wants animation to be the next evolutionary step in Jamaica's film industry.

"I would like to become a part of developing a local industry. I don't want to be in a cubicle, that'll just make me another animator in 'farrin'," says Singer, just back from Animae Caribe - an annual animation and new-media festival held in Trinidad and Tobago - where she received the award for Most Outstanding Animation 2007.

Coretta Singer displays her 2006 People's Choice Award and the more recent Most Outstanding Animation 2007 token.

Twenty-six-year-old Singer is by profession a videographer and has no formal training in animation.

"I've been doing animation for about seven years," Singer says, before explaining just how she went from turning her passion into something worthwhile. "It's one thing to say, 'Oh I do animation' but what are you gonna do with it?" Singer mentions, adding that, animation is often viewed as "just cartoon-making" - perhaps by those who cannot conceptualise the multifaceted nature of the industry.

She, however, refutes this view, pointing out that movies, commercials, road planning and architecture oft employ some elements of animation and that much of the animation work within some Hollywood blockbusters is outsourced.

A scene from the winning animated short Deeper.

"Countries like India and Japan are making loads off doing some simple work for Hollywood movies and companies like Disney," Singer adds, "and I believe the Caribbean could take advantage of that, because we're nearer [to the US] so the costs might be cheaper."

Singer notes, too, that within the larger industry, animators do not necessarily need to grasp all aspects of the job, since teams - sometimes with 500 members - may work on various aspects of a film.

"An entire movie is rarely done in the same place. some people work on background, others will just do the hair [on the characters] or another team will do lighting," she says, before adding that, she alone worked on her winning piece Deeper for months. The piece is somewhat of a music video that tells the story of two robots in love. It features original music and lyrics by 'Siren' - Singer's musical alter ego.

Deeper is the animator's third entry to the six-year-old festival; she placed second last year for Voyajah 2, an animated short set in futuristic Jamaica featuring a cyborg Rastafarian.

"I needed to improve the voice acting. If I wanted to do that I would have to pay people and I can't afford to do that just yet," she quips, adding that production costs are quite high. Singer tells Observer that the animation software Maya costs US$10,000, while software owners must pay US$1,000 for an annual downloadable upgrade.

"Right now I'm using Maya 6 and the latest version is 8.5," Singer informs.
But while the high productions costs may be a barrier to entry, Singer believes that more young people should opt for a career in animation.

". Let's just say that most people who make it big can afford to buy authentic copies Maya," she points out, adding that, the remuneration is often time quite handsome.
"It's a billion-dollar industry and it would be great if the Caribbean could get some of that," Singer says.

She mentions, too, that during the festival she met Trinidadian native Olun Riley, now employed to Walt Disney and who has worked on films like X-Men, Polar Express and Ocean's 11. Though Singer admits that it is perhaps more advantageous for an animator to set his or her sights on Hollywood, she claims, "nobody wants to stay; we're not trying to create jobs here."

She encourages Jamaicans to pay more attention to its creative industries, particularly the viability of art.
"Look around," Singer quips, "everything that's created around us had to be drawn."

Born to a Swiss father and a Jamaican mother, she remembers how the latter encouraged her artistic skills.
"Ever since I could remember I was drawing," says the Swiss-born woman. "I remember drawing these giraffes and my mother just kept putting them on the wall."
It wasn't until much later that she decided to take her fascination with animation a bit further.

"I went back to Switzerland, I hadn't seen my dad in 18 years," Singers tells Observer. After explaining to him that the animation industry in Jamaica was near non-existent, he suggested that she visit a friend of his in Zürich who had experience in animation.

"He told me it wasn't bad, but there was that big but." Singer says, adding that she had to endure a two-hour train ride back to her father's house while feeling like she was devoid of any sort of talent.

"I slept on it, thought about it and I wasn't sad anymore. It made me mad, like 'Who does this guy think he is, tearing my work to shreds'?" Singer says. "I said I'm gonna do something about this and prove this guy wrong." This was shortly before learning that the Animae Caribe festival was being staged for the fourth time in 2005.

"I packed up and told my dad there was something I needed to do. I left and came back home."
Her first time in the competition left her without a win, but with enough drive and determination to go back the following year.

"The next year I got the People's Choice Award for Voyajah at Animae Caribe," says Singer. Festival coordinator Camille Selvon-Ambrahams encouraged her to improve on her skills so as to take the title in 2007.

She did just that, came back with a new video and, "the rest as the say is history."

Singer lauds the festival as a great launching pad for Caribbean animators.

"It's a great place to meet others who are interested in the same things and you get to learn aspects of animation," Singer says.

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