Cartooon Heroes
by Ming Lee, 1 Sept 2006

Perk up your wedding celebrations with an animation presentation. Increasingly popular with couples looking for an interesting way to share their love story with family and friends, an animation presentation combines multi-media, graphics, illustrations, photographs and loads of creativity.

First introduced in 1999 by Stefine Wedding, which also offers wedding day photography, multi-media presentations are a hit with couples. Creative Director, David, who founded the company with three other partners, says clients love their unique and vibrant fusion of Japanese manga and Western comics.

"A multi-media presentation captures the highlights of a couple's love story and gives their guests a better insight into their relationship," he says. "It is also a wonderful keepsake for the couple - they can continue to relive memorable moments with each other by showing it during, for example, birthdays and wedding anniversaries."

The process of creating a multi-media presentation takes an average of six weeks. It includes brainstorming meetings with the couple, during which David and his team spin off and fine-tune ideas. They then try to gather the necessary materials such as photographs and music to pull together the clip. Couples get a first look at the presentation, and can offer comments or suggestions.

"One of our most memorable works is about a couple whose parents initially objected to their romance," reveals David. "They wanted to include that bit into the clip, so we had to ask for their parents' photographs too.

"We have also had couples from countries such as Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australia. In fact, a Filipino husband and wife were so pleased with our work, they extended the clip into a 30-minute short film!"

Even as requests for multi-media presentations hitting an all-time high for these two years, David says the company's core businesses remain wedding day photography.

Years of experience in design and advertising industries - all four founding partners worked at a wedding planner's before establishing the company - have given Stefine an edge in churning out slickly packaged snapshots and clips. Still, David says he prefers to capture the essence and emotion of a photograph as the event happens, instead of trying to engineer and art-direct each shot.

"We are not Steven Spielberg so we shouldn't attempt to shoot a movie," he laughs. "After all, we are not capturing the events of the wedding; we are capturing the couple's wedding."

(For a short sample movie, click here.)

Stefine Wedding is at 344C King George's Ave King George's Building (near Jalan Besar Stadium). For more information, visit www.stefine.com. For appointments, call 6292-2523 or email david@stefine.com.