This is good stuff.
I saw this letter in the Straits Times Forum section today which really piqued my interest:
N-Day song’s music concept video a copycat?
I WAS proud of Singapore when I first read the lyrics to this year’s National Day theme song Shine For Singapore.The song made me reminisce about songs of past National Day Parades.
All of them, whenever sung or hummed in the head, invoke pride and belonging.
Our usual complaints of fare hikes and increase in Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) gantry prices are overshadowed by the fact that our pragmatic Government has boldly moved forward to be one of the best in the world in many aspects, including prosperity, security and technology.
The songs make us feel that we’re part of the nation’s progress.
But here’s the glitch. The music video concept popularising Shine doesn’t seem original. It mimics one that was aired by the Japan Ad Council, about two years ago, which, ironically had a tagline that said: ‘How to encourage your child? Use your imagination.’
The uncanny similarities between Shine and the Japanese ad, can be viewed on the Internet’s YouTube, titled Imagination Whale.
I hope it’s coincidental. If it isn’t, what does it say about our imagination and creativity? How do I call Shine my Singapore song if the music video copied its Japanese predecessor?
Tham Chen Munn
Source: Straits Times Website
Thank you, Tham Chen Munn, for making such a fantastic point! I would not have realised this if you had not pointed it out.
Now let us examine the two videos in question.
First, is the Japanese ad entitled “Imagination Whale”:
What can I say? It’s such a breathtaking ad. Definitely one of the best ads I’ve seen in a long while. Such a fascinating concept!
Now let us take a look at our 2008 NDP video for “Shine For Singapore”:
Ignore the “boy-meets-girl” part and the “vertical marathon” part…just concentrate on the “little girl with the undecipherable drawings which eventually turn into a huge picture” part.
The resemblance is uncanny, don’t you think?
Haha… yup. Actually I agree with Tham Chen Munn on both points.
I do like this year’s lyrics. It reminds us to shine for Singapore, a cautionary reminder that we cannot take our success for granted. Haha… actually the NDP songs are usually either about doing our part for Singapore, Singapore is our home and/or Singapore must be united. I totally agree with them and will probably never get sick of hearing them over and over again.
Haha… but yup, I agree that we have a tendency to just “copy” other people’s concept. Which is quite a put off. Personally I think that we probably have quite a lot of creative people around, but somehow we are not tapping them efficiently. Reminds me of a company where there are a lot of talents but somehow the output always sucks simply because the one at the top always choses the sucky option.
Sometimes I think we focus too much on efficiency at the expense of some other important things like taking pride in one’s work. Very often, we fall into the trap of doing things just for the sake of doing it.
That said, I still like Singapore because this is where my family and friends grew up with me (haha… if I may quote last year’s NDP song).
Yeah the issue about “creativity” really gets me. I was just speaking to a friend the other day and he was talking about Singaporeans doing something creative and I said something like “Since when was there creativity in Singapore?”
I agree with you that we’re pretty efficient in a lot of things, and we’re pretty good at the hard sciences, but we score really poorly when it comes to creativity. I mean, names like “Budget Terminal”? “Marina Bay” being rebranded to “Marina Bay”? “Singapore Science Centre” being rebranded as “Science Centre, Singapore”?
This NDP video is doing no favours to our image as a country lacking in creativity…sigh!