ABOUT 10 MINUTES off the freeway, deep within the flat, seemingly endless landscape of California's Silicon Valley sits an unremarkable, factory-like complex built next to a rattling railway line. From the outside, you'd never guess this is a place where fairy tales come true. Inside its walls, worlds and wonders are created, love affairs blossom, good triumphs over evil.
It's the place where an ugly green ogre named Shrek was taken from the pages of a children's book and - with a little help from a Hong Kong animator - turned into an unlikely movie star.
The Palo Alto home of Pacific Data Images (PDI) is where Shrek was given life. The lights are always dimmed so the computer screens reflect better, there are posters and toys hanging from every inch of space and a constant stream of employees dart in and out of the semi-darkness in a creative twilight zone.
Behind the scenes is Hong Kong-born Raman Hui Shing-ngai. The fresh-faced 38-year-old grew up living in a flat on Nathan Road. Looking out over Kowloon Park, he would draw in his spare time but not show his work to family or friends for fear of ridicule. 'But I was always interested in animation,' he says. 'What switched me on to working in films was Who Framed Roger Rabbit? [released in 1988]. I saw that and thought, 'Wow, how can I get into this?''
Hui began his studies at St Joseph's Anglo-Chinese School in Kowloon Bay before tackling graphic design at what was then the Hong Kong Polytechnic. From there he worked with Quantum Studio as a cel animator on advertising campaigns for clients such as Mc-Donald's and Vita Chocolate Milk. Hui uprooted himself from his family in the mid-1980s, heading off to Sheridan College in Ontario, Can-ada, a leading institution for animation where the bug really bit. He joined PDI in 1989 and was lead character designer/supervising animator on Antz - the company's first collaboration with DreamWorks (Shrek is its second) and its first full-length computer-animated feature film. Hui was supervising animator on Shrek - playing a puppet master-type role, overseeing an animation team that is so specialised it has people who only work on foliage, those who work on fire and experts in hair and skin. He was with the project from its beginnings in 1997.
Sitting staring at his computer screen during a tour of the PDI complex, Hui is full of enthusiasm as he demonstrates his craft.
