SPH Media · Bilingual animation · 2021
Platoon Thumbs Up: educational stories built for young audiences.
I helped lead CraveFX's animation work on a seven-episode bilingual series that transformed natural-world topics into short, character-driven adventures.
- Format
- Seven bilingual episodes
- Audience
- Primary-school students
- Length
- Five minutes per episode
- Recognition
- Technology Animation award
Turning learning into character-led adventure
The series was a spin-off from the popular Thumbs Up comic strip. Each episode followed Thumbs Up and his friends into a topic from the natural world, using animation to make material that could feel dry in print more playful and accessible.
Working for a young bilingual audience meant balancing clarity, pace and personality. The educational idea still had to land, but it needed to arrive through action, performance and visual humour rather than exposition alone.
Measurable reach and industry recognition
SPH's annual report described the series as a first for its Chinese Media Group and recorded 250,000 views across the seven episodes between launch and June 2021. That response showed how established editorial characters could find a meaningful second life through animation.
In 2023, SPH Media powered by CraveFX received the Singapore Excellence Award for Technology Animation at the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting+ Awards. For me, the project remains a strong example of technology serving communication rather than competing with it.