Director Kyi Phyu Shin has blended together real acting and 3D animation to create Myanmar’s first mermaid movie.

COMBINING 3D animation with real acting, director Kyi Phyu Shin has created a film about mermaids — a first for the Myanmar film industry — that she hopes will hold wide appeal for local audiences.

The thirty-two year old director says she had the idea to entwine a story of mermaids together with traditional aspects of Myanmar culture when she became a director at the age of 21.

“When I was young, I really loved watching mermaid movies. I found that they [mermaids] are presented in many different ways depending on if they are Chinese, Indian and so forth. So I thought why not capture a Myanmar mermaid?” said Kyi Phyu Shin, who wrote and directed the film.

Because the film relies in part on 3D animation, work on it could not begin due to the lack of skilled 3D animators in Myanmar. However, a 3D animated cartoon created by Ko Thura Thein Tin of Vertex Animation Studio for UNICEF’s health education program, changed Kyi Phyu Shin’s mind and she was sure that the time was right to bring her imaginings to life.

“If we used special costumes for the mermaid, it wouldn’t be easy to get the desired movement. So, I met with Ko Thura Thein Tin and we discussed how to make everything right,” she said. Work on the film began in April this year.
Ko Thura Thein Tin also agreed that using 3D animation would be more beneficial to the movie than using costumes.

“You can make detailed movements with 3D, especially with the tip movements of the tail,” said the animator, who won second prize in the Asian New Media Art Competition in 2006 with his 3D work “Htoo Htoo hnit antphwe kyun” (Htoo Htoo in wonderland).

But it wasn’t an easy work for him. Replicating parts of human body movement using 3D is more difficult than the usual because it requires a combination of real physical movement with that created by computer.

“Though I had already accepted the offer to make the animated part, I wasn’t sure that everything would be done successfully. If the camera positions of the 3D software and the shooting are not exactly the same, the connection of body and tail will shake,” he said. In the end it took three months work to get the animation right.

With all the excitement, Kyi Phyu Shin has very high hopes for her work.
“We put in a lot of effort so I hope the audience enjoy it,” she said.

The video ‘Yaethuma’ (mermaid) starring Aung Ye Lin, Thinzar Wint Kyaw and Soe Pyae Thazin will be distributed by Mahar Htun Video Production in mid-October.