Many are stoked for the release of the highly-anticipated animated movie “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse”, the direct sequel to “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”, which was released back in 2018. Who wouldn’t be ecstatic to see our favourite variants of Marvel’s wall-crawler back on the big screen? On top of that, are you aware that a Malaysian artist had a part in bringing “Spider-Verse” to life?
Introducing Sin Yee Loke, the lighting compositing artist from Bidor, Perak, who has worked on previous international projects such as “Love & Monster” and Disney’s live-action “Pinocchio”! We had the opportunity to speak with the young talent about how she landed the job with Sony Pictures Imageworks, the challenges she faced while working on the “Spider-Verse” sequel and who her favourite Spider-man is.
1. How did you manage to get your big breaks with major Hollywood studios and how did you land this job as a lighter for this exciting project?
I guess I’m really lucky. I knew I wanted to try working on big projects in this industry so I tried working hard on my reels and also venture out. My passion is in animation but I know it’s hard to get into a big animation company so I thought that maybe I could switch to VFX for a bit.
After 5 years of working in Malaysia, I got a role in Australia and I was working on “Love & Monster” for half a year. But then the pandemic hit so I went back to Malaysia during the lockdown. I thought to myself, ‘Since I’ve tried Australia, so this time, I’m gonna try for Canada,’ and I just send all my reels and resume to as many Canadian companies as possible. I was really lucky that a couple of companies responded and I took the offer to join MPC Film in Montreal, Canada where I worked on Disney’s “Pinocchio”.
And while I was working on that, I saw that Sony was hiring for a project. I decided to send in my resume, thinking that they’re probably not going to reply to me but I’ll just do it anyway. I got really lucky because one week later, I got a reply from them. At first, I didn’t know it was for “Spider-Verse”, but because it was Sony, I thought (this was my opportunity) to get back into animation.
I was so excited when I found out that it was for the “Spider-Verse” sequel and the people who interviewed me worked on the first movie, so I was like ‘Woah, I’m a big fan!’ and I think I left a big impression during the interview cause they remembered me like, ‘Oh, the girl that was really hyped during the interview’.
2. For those who are not too familiar, maybe you could briefly explain to us your role and your contribution to this “Spider-Verse” sequel.
So I’m a lighter for “Spider-Verse” and my role is to light and composite the shots. Once the animators have done the animations, they’ll pass them on to us so we will cast the lighting based on the colour key and the concept art. We will try to follow the light direction and render them out, then composite them together and try to adjust them to look similar to the colour key; following the colour values and the feeling.
And because the different worlds in the “Spider-Verse” have their own unique style, we had different teams working on the different styles. We work based on those styles and try to achieve to see if that is what the director wants.
3. Speaking of which, what were the major challenges in getting the lighting for the characters right since each world has its own style?
Because it was more of an art, comic book style, nothing seems to make sense in real life. We had to tweak everything just to achieve whatever looks good in the colour key. Maybe the colours might not make sense and the direction is (vague) but you have to figure out a way to make it as close as possible to the colour key because that is exactly what the director wants. I think that is the challenge; you have to forget what is the logical way and just do it, as long as it is artistically beautiful.
4. Based on what we have seen in the trailers, what were your favourite scenes to work on?
My own scenes, of course! I had a couple of shots in the trailer, which is really awesome. I think there was one that was similar to what I did but not exactly my shot. There was one scene in the rain with the green and dark Spider-Man in the trailer. That one was fun and it’s very different from other animated movies. I think that was my favourite.
5. How was working on “Spider-verse” different than your previous work like “Love & Monsters” and “Pinocchio”?
Yeah, so [“Love & Monsters” and “Pinocchio”] are live-action so you have to recreate what happens in real life and match that as close as possible. While in “Spider-verse”, you can go wild with the colours and add brush strokes, just like a painting. It was so much fun. That’s why I like the animation world because there are more challenges and freedom compared to when you have to match real life and real footage. Spider-verse was complicated but such a fun experience.
6. Out of all the Spider-Mans out there, animated or live-action, which one is your favourite and why?
It’s so hard to pick but I will choose Gwen because I worked on Gwen quite a lot in this movie and I also haven’t seen [Spider-Gwen] in a live-action adaptation so I’m looking forward to the day we get to see that. But all the other Spider-Mans are so cool. Every different Spider-Man in the movie has their own different characteristic and style so it’s hard to choose a favourite but I want to [work on] all of them.
7. Final question, how does it feel to represent Malaysia on such a big scale?
It’s so surreal, I can’t believe that I’m actually one of the Malaysians that get to be apart of something this big. Even getting to speak to you guys in this interview is surreal. Thank you.
Hopefully we’ll get to see more local talents like Sin Yee Loke flourish. Be sure to catch “Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse” in cinemas this June! Here’s how you can win tickets to the special screening on 31st May!
