One Sneak Peek Into The Mind of a Creative

“Study arts for what? Cannot make money one.”

Some of my peers have been told this by well-meaning parents and friends when they proudly proclaimed that they were going to pursue a degree in arts or the humanities.

Coupled with the Asian expectations to enter seemingly prestigious fields like medicine, engineering and law,

It is no wonder that locals are less willing to join the arts sector.

Which was why I was curious to find out what motivates Jun Yi, a talented animator who has been in the media scene for over a decade.

He is currently running Gram Videos, a B2B animation house that works with startups, banks, corporations and government agencies, and is also

1. A community builder that brings media professionals together

2. A passionate mentor that works with young people in tertiary education and emergent professionals

Read on to find out what we spoke about!

1. Distraction VS Genuine Passion

“I think it is important to think if what you enjoy doing is just a distraction or is it your true passion. As a young person nowadays, it is very normal to be socially distracted, especially as social media becomes more and more popular.

You get entertained by something, you just keep on watching it. I was invited to speak at my alma mater, Hwa Chong. Even these academically inclined students are struggling with distraction!

Many young people tell me they are passionate about gaming.

Well, are you really that good enough at gaming that you can be a twitch streamer? Or are you just using gaming as a distraction?

Some of them tell me they want to be streamers. Why? To make money la, very fun.

You see, any job that becomes a profession will become strenuous. Even as a streamer, you will need to do paperwork. There will always be an ‘unsexy’ part to your work.

In a creative environment, you will start off with low pay. There is almost zero reason for people to be entering this environment that is very punishing, if not for passion. If you want better work life balance in an early career, it makes sense to go into other industries instead.

In my case, my starting pay was easily half compared to my peers from uni. I got a first class honours from a local university. If I had pursued a government career, I would have earned way more from the get-go. Yet for me, it was never about the money, but more about the causes and the ikigai. About how I can bring the best value to the world.”

2. Discovering your true talent

“In secondary school, I was lagging behind my peers in Hwa Chong, and I shyed away from the STEM subjects. And the worst I got in them, the less I studied those subjects. But I was a very good writer. I could effortlessly get an A1 in the arts subjects. So I thought those were better subjects to invest my time in.

Pursue what you are good at. Let someone else with natural talents pursue what you are bad at. And this notion led me to Gram Videos.

The areas in which you naturally shine are the things that you don’t realise you are good at when you are young. You learn your strengths in retrospect. When I was in secondary school, I was good at fine arts. Drawing, drama, animation. Especially Chinese drama. I was also very confident about speaking on stage, but shy behind the stage. I never knew this would lead me to becoming a leader in my community.

I would advice young people to look at your natural talent. What do you do well that you enjoy doing?

All these lead to Ikigai. Knowing who you are.

What do people want to learn from you?”

3. Giving back through education

“I met many bad teachers and good teachers in my life. I want to become someone that is able to create an environment for learning and give the bad teachers a run for their money. I feel some people get into teaching for the wrong reason.

As a younger person, I would read a lot on topics that were not examinable - Philosophy, anthropology and so forth. I felt these were the most character building experiences for me.

One of the ending quotes in a book I read was: Humanity could not have become so highly evolved if humans were selfish and not willing to teach each other.

It was precisely because we have the altruism to pass on knowledge to the next generation through the written word, that humanity is the dominant species on Earth. And if this is the most noble cause in the world, everyone has a moral obligation to be a teacher. Or we will let a person who is completely incompetent teach. And this will lead to incompetence at a scale, on a systemic level.”

4. Step out of your comfort zone

“Don’t think too much. It took me 6-7 months to start posting online. I put an unfair amount of responsibility on myself to do a perfect job.

But as humans we can never be perfect at anything. If a single step does not happen, the second would not happen. If you don’t begin, you are guaranteeing failure. You have to start and get out of your comfort zone, with the full expectation that it will bomb and the humility that you won’t do well but still do it nonetheless.

100 days later, you will definitely see some results.

Always put yourself in a position that you are here to learn.”

5. Collaboration VS Competition

“Since many years ago, I have always been reaching out to other agencies. I noticed that other SME owners were very averse towards meeting up to exchange ideas and foster partnerships.

However, in the recent years, there is a change in the market environment. People are starting to get overwhelmed. In the past, you can sit down for a few weekends and master Adobe. Now more tools are being released. There are endless possibilities of people losing their jobs.

Perhaps you can no longer survive on your own. Cammunity* is a natural progression of what I would have done anyway. If I was born ten years prior to today, creating Cammunity would have been a no-brainer.

At the start there was a lot of resistance. But there is poetic justice in it- that I have defeated the close-mindedness here. Any company that refuses to collaborate would not survive well. The goal now is not to make the biggest company in Singapore, but rather have an audience globally.

We should fight bigger battles.”

^{*Cammunity is a media community by Gram Videos and 2 other agencies. It brings professionals in the space together to do bigger projects for clients, and creates a support network for people in media. Jun Yi started Cammunity as he realised that the media space was struggling after the pandemic.}

Join our telegram channel: https://t.me/onesneakpeekinto

Connect with Jun Yi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/junimations/

Stay tuned for more insights from our interview series as we continue to explore the stories of trailblazers breaking barriers and redefining success.