OLD SINGAPORE ENTIRELY DRAWN BY HAND
“While we had the work and support of many animators around the world, the entire pre-production, most of it, in terms of the look of the world, the feel of the world, the architecture, the design, was pretty much set in Singapore by a Singaporean team,” Han said.
He explained that the local team would produce detailed reference packages for studios working overseas to ensure the historical accuracy of the environments and characters unique to the period, such as Malay boatmen, coolies from China and merchants from India and Arab countries.
“We created a very detailed package to be distributed with the international teams, so they know exactly what to follow,” he said. “Many of them have never been to Singapore, much less Singapore in the 1920s and 30s.”
For one scene, an overseas team was asked to create a layout of 1920s Chinatown using references supplied by the Singapore team. Some of the early work came back looking, Han recalled with amusement, like Paris.
“So we knew the Singapore team had to do the homework first,” he said.
That homework went beyond architecture, as Han also told CNA Lifestyle that he spent about two years reading close to 10 books, alongside oral histories and other material, while developing the film.
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