There’s ‘Somethink’ About The One Academy Students, Kancil Awards Winners for 8 Consecutive Years and swept a total of 102 Awards!

For 8 years in a row, The One Academy (TOA) students have swept a total of 102 awards to date in the prestigious Kancil Awards. This year, Team ‘Somethink’ proved that there was clearly something about them when they were awarded the Gold in the one and only prestigious Kancil Awards 2015. They were TOA Advertising & Graphic Design and Multimedia Design Second Year students – Fissh Gan Zhin Yui, 23; Teo Qing Hui, 20; Evonne Chin Yee Voon, 20; See Puoh Yang, 23; Michelle Koh Chien Yinn, 20; and Yong Goon Li, 20 were not shy from winning awards but this latest win was one of their most memorable one yet.

It was a rough start for Team ‘Somethink’ as they were behind every other participating teams, having their ideas repeatedly rejected and having to return to the drawing board again and again. Furthermore, because the Multimedia students were also interning in production or photography studios, arranging for a meet up was also quite challenging and the team usually ended up meeting at midnight.  

However, as the team persevered through the challenges and remained focus on their main concept which is based on a western outdoor cinema, the ideas slowly evolved until they discovered what they wanted to achieve in the project. This is the first time the Kancil Awards determined the mediums to be digital-based. Threading on uncertain grounds of the fast-moving advertising world, the students were guided by award-winning Creative Director and The One Academy Senior Lecturer, Kins Lee.

“With our time packed back to back,” said team leader Fissh, “we cannot commit too much in a day and time management was very important to us. In fact, when we took the opportunity to do our major photoshooting for our viral video which we decided to execute after many, many meetings with the group, we did it on Deepavali. So, while everyone was having time off, we had to work hard during the holidays,” said Qing Hui, another key team member in Team ‘Somethink’.

“Communication was definitely the key to our project success as our members cannot attend every meeting due to their commitments but we kept each other informed on the progress online,” Qing Hui added.

For Team ‘Somethink’, creativity and inspiration were further spurred by seeing things online and offline and doing a lot of research and keeping their minds open to any new and fresh ideas from the team as it will help them expand small ideas into big ideas. At The One Academy, students are taught that ‘Idea is King’ as it is the core element that help kickstart any projects, regardless of which major the students are in.

“I’m very proud to see how the students have evolved and I see how they have been extremely committed to their work,” said Kins.

“We are lucky that our parents are very supportive of what we do and they were especially encouraging while we were working hard on the Kancil Awards. At first, we decided to challenge ourselves in the Kancil Awards because we want to build an impressive portfolio for ourselves. Now, we change our mind and we look beyond, as the journey has really helped us build our experience in this creative process,” said Qing Hui adding how this experience taught us how working hard is more important than talent and how we must always push ourselves to our limits as we will never guess where it can take us.

“We never thought that we would get the gold in the first place especially when all the runner-ups were already announced during the gala dinner so when our group was named the Kancil Awards Gold Winner, we were completely taken by surprised and we were confused. We remained silent, wondering if we have been dreaming and it took us awhile to celebrate our victory with shouts of joy when we came back to our senses. The whole process was honestly so surreal,” said Fissh.

“Of course, our win would not mean anything without the guidance from our lecturers, Kins, Henry and Debbie, who ran with us during the course of the competition. We also like to thank our parents, our family, our seniors and even other artists who works have inspired us… well, basically everyone who is our inspiration throughout these years,” Fissh continued. “As our team member Michelle said, if our seniors can do it, we can do it too!”

Team ‘Somethink’ wasn’t the sole TOA students who receive an award during the gala night. Over 23 other students from 4 other groups also clinched 5 Bronze Awards respectively.

The One Academy, one of the leading creative institutions in the country, is committed to providing the best art education programme and continues to nurture its students passionately by providing diploma and degree courses namely Advertising & Graphic Design, Digital Animation with Game Development, Films Visual Effects, Multimedia Design with Digital Media & Interactive Design, Illustration, Movie & Game Art, Fine Arts, Interior Design, ESMOD Fashion Design & Pattern Making.

For more information, contact The One Academy at 03-5637 5510, email [email protected] or visit www.toa.edu.my.