Part 3 of the Animation in Jordan series: This month we're diving into the fishtank that is Crazy Piranha Animation Studios www.crazypiranha.com in this interview with Amer Kokh, the head animator, owner and CEO. JOCR8 came out with our arms intact but our prejudices about animation standards in Jordan completely tattered and ravaged!

JOCR8: How long have you worked in the animation industry? What were your beginnings?

AK: I've been in this industry for about 13 years. When it comes to drawing and animation, I've been into them from day one, ever since the first time I watched a cartoon film. I started drawing like crazy. I even have pictures from before the time my memory goes back to! It [animation] is my passion, naturally...

As for animation [as a profession], I started in 1997. I was in high school, and started drawing for local comic books and then started working for an educational animation company. At the same time I was training myself in anatomical drawing and working on my skills in general independently.

JOCR8: So you started on your own, basically. With no formal training.

AK: Yes. At University I studied and finished my degree in Law, although it was not my desire to do so. Meanwhile I started working on my first comic book.

I'm currently working on my third comic book. Comics need a lot of calm, calm, calm...and one needs to be very relaxed to work on them, as opposed to animation which is a headache with it's hecticness. Nerve-wrecking it is, this animation! It's very daring...I love to go into its challenges: "Yes, I can do this; let's try it."

It's becoming easy now for an artist to make a comic, but it's very hard to make an animation.

JOCR8: Why?

AK: There's a difference between drawing one page per day for a comic book and drawing a complete pile of paper in one day [for an animation]. The latter is a test for your nerves and temperament.

JOCR8: Do you have any favourite comics/animations?

AK: Now...I'm not from the anime crowd. I love French and American animation. Right now my favourite is Afro Samurai- it's the best. Also Samurai Champloo, despite the fact that it's anime. You get the feeling that the animation is really luxurious in it. For comics: without any competitors, there's a guy called Joe Mad (Joe Madureira).

JOCR8: Tell me about your own samurai animation.

AK: Samurai Love God is a project for Comedy Central and MTV2. I started working on it in 2005 (with the opening of Crazy Piranha Animation Studios). We finished season 1 then and lately completed season 2.

JOCR8: Tell me more about how you made your connections across borders?

AK: The website is queen...it's not like the old days where you would send DVDs out to people to show your work. Nowadays, your work speaks for itself, and clients go to your site and see if your style suits their needs then contact you.

Dubai contacted us [Crazy Piranha Animation Studios - ed.] through seeing our work on Samuria Love God and made a contract with us for Shabiet al Carton. This was, for me, a test, because animation is not something the Middle East is open to; budget-wise it's not something Arabs find suitable to spend on because it's quite high-priced. So we experimented with the idea of making 30 one-minute episodes and were shocked to find that they were a big hit...and now we're working on season 4!

JOCR8: Do you have a team?

AK: I have a team in S. Korea, India, America and Jordan.

JOCR8: The youth in Jordan, have they studied animation?

AK: Not a single one. The majority have studied IT and Computer Science.

JOCR8: Do you train them all or do some of them have some sort of a background in animation?

AK: Let's say, half of them I've trained and the other half came with a self-taught background and I just trained them to work in the Crazy Piranha style.

JOCR8: What's a day in the life of a Crazy Piranha?

AK: Hehe...it's fun. After all, you're going to draw and colour, like preschool. But it's also very hectic. For us, a month is equivalent to a day. For example, I have two deadlines for this Ramadan and I feel like it's coming up next week. There are days when we sleep at the office. It's a very tiring industry and not anyone can handle it. On average, our working hours are from 9 AM - 9 PM. But we take a whole month's break every year. We temporarily close down the office, each person goes his own way for a month until we come back for the next project. In short: it's as tiring as it is fun.

JOCR8: Since most of your projects are outisde of Jordan, why are you based in Amman?

AK: There are many personal factors, like my wife and kids being here. In Amman, I'm running things on my own, whereas I'd need to have a local partner or deal with heavy taxes in other countries. The most important factor is that Crazy Piranha is my baby. I don't want anybody to interfere with it. I received many offers that a lot of people thought I was crazy to refuse...I even refuse many big-budget projects and choose smaller projects because...frankly, it's torture to work on something you don't like, day and night. If it was a regular 9AM - 6 PM job, you would say "It's just work and you do what you have to do." But animation is different: we feel it....so if we don't like it, what's the point?

JOCR8: Are your coming independent projects in English or Arabic?

AK: There's a short film coming up which I proposed to many Arabs which they refused. They were saying "What blood? What gore? What djinn?" There are many harsh Arab critics. When I proposed it to Americans, they gave me the green light straight away, even thought the whole film is Arabic - the characters, the settings, the history.

JOCR8: What advice do you have for young animators in Jordan?

AK: There's something I really want to comment on: the difference between 2D and 3D. For 2D, you have to be really talented and you can support this talent with 3D. For 3D, you don't necessarily have to be talented, but you can easily learn the techniques and let someone else do the creative work. 2D animation requires your nerves to be placed in a fridge. My advice is to animators and people who have a desire to open studios: if you don't have persistence and patience, don't even come close to the threshold of this industry. Also, I'd say to them: "Open an animation studio if you already have a project. Don't startup a studio unless you have a project."

I'd love for animation studios to open up in Jordan. It creates healthy competition.

For those who love to draw, I would say "Whoever comes into this industry shouldn't be materialistic. Money comes and goes. The most important thing is that you're comfortable with yourself and that you're doing something you love. That's the most beautiful thing in the world."