I like to draw from a young age, but I often think I lack talent and can’t draw well. Back then the Internet accessibility was unlike today, it was not as easy to obtain information and I do not have close friends that share the same interest. I fell in love with gaming during my high school days and was captivated by in-game 3D cutscenes which inspired me to take up this program. To me, Dasein is a place that gives me hope! It is not only one of the colleges that offer Animation programs, the mind-blowing students’ before and after sketching works exhibited in education fairs gave me a huge motivational boost - and I thought: I may not be very talented, but I can do this too!
Dasein has a great learning environment. When I first came to the college, I saw plenty of great artworks by the seniors and I really envy and am inspired by their skills! In order to join their ranks, I worked hard to improve as well. I am grateful that Dasein puts us through subjects like Typography, Sound Design etc which may seem irrelevant and not of major use to the 3D Animation program, but when we are at work, these fundamental knowledge and ‘irrelevant skills’ that we once thought were actually a great help and life saviour.
The training at Dasein has somewhat molded me to be a more patient and persistent person. I wasn’t a meticulous person to begin with, and back in semester 1 we had this subject where the lecturer asked us to draw a Color Wheel and everything had to be orderly. If there’s any paint or color that is not within the line, we would be asked to REDO it (and it took me four attempts to get it right!) There are various subjects to handle in every semester, and each of these subjects came with plenty of work and assignments to be completed by the same deadline and I had to force myself to be able to multitask - not only I need to ensure all works are done on time but the quality has to be good too. The pressure we had back then during studies is nothing compared to what we face at work today, but learning and creating art under pressure helped build a solid foundation nonetheless.
Update & Check-in with Dasein Alumni
- Jeffrey Lim is the Filming Director cum founding team of Poet Production and <Dissy>
- Some of the projects he has been work on including, the production of MVs under Namewee and Red People Artist such as <Hao Xiang Ni> by Joyce Chu, <Stranger in the North> by Wang Lee Hom and Namewee, <Ali Ahkao & Muthu> by Namewee, Dato’ David Arumugam and Anis; the production of TV dramas including multiple web dramas under Astro Xuan (<May I Love You>, <AHBOYS：Hidden Warfare> and TV commercials including Tiger Beer, Tesco, Domino’s Pizza, Vitagen, Darlie, Listerine, Carnation and more
- His advice for juniors joining the program would be: "To be able to turn your passion into a career is pure joy and happiness but one must be prepared that art education requires a lot of time and continuous effort to master various skills, techniques and art sense. Talent will only carry one so far but hard work and persistence is the key to success."
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