Libingan Movie Poster

The Cast of "Libingan"

"ANNA"

Character designed and Animated by: Ramon del Prado

Voiced by: Rachelle Tesoro

"RAMBO"

Character designed by: Ramon del Prado

Voiced by: Che Bello

Animated by: Jeffrey Capili

"BINOY"

Character designed by: Mikey Javier

Voiced by: Roan Belle Ng

Animated by: Ramon del Prado

"TENYONG"

Character designed by: Carmen del Prado

Voiced by: Mai Saporsantos

Animated by: Jeffrey Capili

"SAM"

Character designed by: Mikey Javier

Voiced by: Pocholo Gonzales

Animated by: Kenji Dormitorio

"MOM"

Character designed by: Ramon del Prado

Voiced by: Sharon Francisco

Animated by: Jun Mediavillo and Ramon del Prado

Please click on the characters to see bigger resolution.

GoodNewsPilipinas: Tuldok Animators empower Pinoy artists

Dreaming to make the world realize the artistic and creative talents of Pinoys, a group of four Lasallians formed the Tuldok Animation Studios Inc. Not only as a tool for outsourcing talents, the group believes that Pinoys have the ability to create original and captivating stories.

Tuldok is composed of writers, artists, animators, voice actors, and other talented people aimed at creating original Filipino animated short film. Although this is not the first group of Filipino artists and graphic animators, Tuldok is one of the few groups involved in producing all original content. It is now registered in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a non-stock, non-profit organization.

Purpose driven animation

Coming from diverse backgrounds, the proponents of Tuldok are Benedict Carandang, Ramon del Prado, Toffer Liu, and Ayeen Pineda. All are graduates of De La Salle University – Manila and former members of The La Sallian, the school’s official student publication. They conceived forming the group in October 2005.

Each of them has his own specialization: Ramon is good in animation, Ayeen in voice acting, Toffer in software and information technology, and Ben in management. Combining their strengths became the pillar of Tuldok. From then, the group invited friends and artists who share the same dream of creating an all-original Filipino animated short film.

Despite the lack of funds, the group is still capable of creating animated stories with their available resources: digital technology and generous writers who are willing to participate for the love of it.

“Filipino artists, by and large, are a creative bunch and are very individualistic by nature. By producing an all original content as one big group, we would like to inspire them that by being united, by collaborating and by sharing our individual talents, we are able to create something bigger than ourselves that we can all be proud of," Benedict marked the challenge.

Launching pad of animators

The country is known as an outsourcing powerhouse in the field of animation. “US, Japanese, and European studios already have contacts here for quite some time now affirming the talent of the Filipino,” Ramon said.

In fact, Pinoys already worked on animated cartoons like Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, X-Men, Dexter’s Lab, Power Puff Girls, Cow and Chicken, Johnny Bravo, Disney’s Tarzan, among others. Benedict furthered: “Filipino’s ability to tell stories visually has also been exemplified by the recognition of several independent films in several international film festivals.”

But Benedict said the country is only recognized as an outsourcing hub – the grunt work behind animated stories abroad. “It is recognition of our skills as artists to copy someone else’s style but not for our creativity in producing our own animated stories,” he added.

Some attempts have been made before to create original animation, but these Filipinos remain few and rare. Benedict explained: “Financing has been the main reason behind the lack of support from big companies. Animation’s high initial costs due to equipment have scared away mainstream companies who have chosen to stick to safe and formulaic content.”

Good news. "The advent of digital technology has been able to significantly lower the costs of producing an animation to the point that anybody with a good personal computer can produce one. Animation may only be a medium to tell stories, but it is a very powerful one," Benedict added. Tuldok is maximizing the digital technology to create their animations. Basically, they use Macromedia Flash 8 and Adobe Photoshop.

Libingan: the first project

The first and only project that Tuldok has undertaken is the 20-minute shortfilm "Libingan". The National Commission for the Cultural Arts (NCCA) granted the project with a monetary fund. Many projects are expected to follow.

The proponents encourage anybody to visit the trailer of Libingan at http://www.tuldokanimation.com/ and their production blog at http://www.tuldokanimation.blogspot.com/. Tuldok will be officially launched on July 17, 2007 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).

This article is written by Paul Darwynn Garilao last June 7, 2007 and you can check it out at the website of GoodNewsPilipinas as well: http://www.goodnewspilipinas.com/docs/tech_milestones/archived/tuldok.html