WHEN Muhammad Usamah Zaid Yasin talks about the making of Ejen Ali, the Malaysian animated spy series about a schoolboy recruited into a secret intelligence agency, he doesn't begin with a stroke of genius. He begins with a burger stall.
In the early days of WAU Animation, the studio he co-founded in 2013, Usamah and his partners were brainstorming ideas for their first original series.
Over lunch one afternoon, a colleague suggested imagining a burger-stall operator as a spy, passing customers something secret when they placed a special order.
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Elements of that casual exchange eventually found their way into the show. Agent Bakar, a supporting character, came before the protagonist Ali.
The lead character, his gadgets and the people around him took shape through many discussions, sketches and revisions.
"It's not really something that sparked and we felt like this is it.
"It was more like we decided on this and then... okay, let's run with it," begins Usamah, who's clad all in black, with a cap perched jauntily on this head.
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For someone behind one of the country's best-known animated properties, creativity is less about the lone genius than the collective effort required to make an idea work.
Over two decades in animation, Usamah has gone from working at Les' Copaque Production, the Malaysian studio behind the hugely popular Upin & Ipin, to building WAU Animation and creating Ejen Ali, which has expanded from a television series into feature films and a wider commercial brand.
The journey, however, has been anything but straightforward.
WORLD OF HIS OWN
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Growing up in Kuala Lumpur, Usamah gravitated towards comics, cartoons, video games and drawing.
He also sketched stories in exercise books, though he never seriously imagined these interests could become a profession.
The possibility emerged almost by accident while he was choosing a university.
A brochure for Multimedia University's Faculty of Creative Multimedia caught his eye because its imagery reminded him of Final Fantasy VII, the video game he was playing at the time.
He thought he might learn to create games like it.
His father had hoped he would pursue architecture or engineering, but Usamah went with the opportunity to study creative multimedia.
At university, he began to understand the design principles behind the visual worlds he'd always loved, from composition and positive and negative space, to the deliberate choices that make an audience feel something.
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Animation didn't come easily at first, but he persevered and eventually became one of the stronger students in his class.
"My dream was to land in an international studio... Pixar," he recalls.
Disney and DreamWorks were also part of that ambition. But an opportunity soon after graduation brought him into Malaysia's animation industry instead.
His early career included work at Les' Copaque Production and on Geng: The Adventure Begins, a Malaysian animated feature.
The experience gave him a grounding in production and the possibilities of creating animation for local audiences.
In 2013, he and his partners established WAU Animation, hoping to develop original intellectual property — stories and characters they could own and grow, rather than simply provide creative services for others.
The beginnings were modest. The team worked out of Usamah's apartment before moving into an incubator and eventually a more permanent workspace. They pitched ideas and tried to separate genuine interest from polite encouragement.
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A 2½ minute proof-of-concept animation eventually helped attract attention, but getting a foot in the door was only the start.
The young studio had underestimated the demands of production and had to build its capabilities along the way.
A ransomware attack cost the team about a month's work, while production gaps and financial pressures added to the strain.
Although Usamah managed to steer WAU through the Covid-19 pandemic without laying off staff or cutting salaries, the gap between projects left the studio struggling to recover.
At one point, the team was "barely making ends meet". Eventually, financial pressures forced a painful decision to downsize.
For Usamah, the experience was a reminder that building a creative studio demands more than imagination.
The business of keeping it alive — managing people, financing projects and navigating the gaps between productions — is inseparable from the work of making animation.
STORY TO BUSINESS
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Usamah understood that a successful animated property could eventually generate opportunities through merchandise, licensing and other commercial ventures. But none of that would matter without a compelling story and characters audiences wanted to spend time with.
The making of Ejen Ali was an iterative process. The team worked through more than 25 ideas before narrowing its choices to a Malaysian spy story.
Ali emerged after a discussion about making the lead character a child, allowing young viewers to identify with him.
His personality and gadgets took further experimentation. Initially conceived as clumsy and less academically gifted, Ali was at one stage meant to wield an elastic weapon.
The yo-yo came later, after Usamah saw a child playing with one and recognised how its unpredictable movement suited the character.
Alicia, Ali's disciplined classmate and fellow young agent, provided a foil to his more impulsive nature, adding another dynamic to the cast.
Usamah credits the people around him for helping ideas evolve. Creators can become too close to their work to see its weaknesses, he shares, which is why he encourages younger artists to seek honest feedback rather than work in isolation.
A successful creation, however, brings complications of its own. After Ejen Ali: The Movie 2 was released last year, unauthorised recordings circulated online, including on messaging platforms and social media.
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Merchandise featuring the characters also appeared without the studio's permission.
Usamah understands the affection behind fan-made creations, but draws a distinction between fans expressing their enthusiasm and sellers reproducing official artwork for commercial gain.
In a labour-intensive industry, piracy does more than undermine a business; it deprives the people who create the work of income that could sustain their craft and fund future projects.
For Usamah, protecting intellectual property is ultimately about protecting the livelihoods of the artists behind it.
COST OF CONVENIENCE
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That same concern shapes Usamah's view of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which can produce images, text and other material in response to prompts.
While he accepts that AI tools may have a place in the creative process, he draws the line at systems that displace artists or use their work without consent or compensation.
He likens it to ordering food from a microwave and claiming to have cooked it.
For Usamah, creativity isn't simply about the finished product, but the decisions, compromises and discoveries that shape it along the way.
Animation, he explains, is an exercise in problem-solving, with storyboard artists, concept artists and other collaborators bringing different perspectives to the table.
Through experimentation and exchange, an idea evolves into something no one person might have arrived at alone.
Even when a project succeeds, the creative work is far from over.
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After the first season of Ejen Ali was well received, the team had to figure out how to build on that success.
A feature film, meanwhile, brought an entirely different set of challenges from a television series.
Explains Usamah: "You don't always stop once you've found what you're happy with.
"Most of the times we stop the creation process because we're out of time, and we have to live with what we've created."
His concern isn't simply about the technology itself, but the future it could leave for those entering the profession.
What happens to young graduates trained in animation if the work they aspire to do is taken away?
And what of the 8-year-old drawing pictures today, dreaming of becoming an artist, if there's no viable path to making a living from that passion?
"I'm actually very... hopeful," says the father-of-two, pushing back against the notion that his stance is rooted in fear.
"I'm certain there are enough hope in humanity that at the end of the day, the true creators will prevail."
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For Usamah, the stakes extend beyond WAU. Malaysia has begun building successful animated properties, but sustaining that momentum means nurturing new generations of artists and giving them the opportunity to develop their skills and earn a living from their work.
The bigger question, then, isn't just how technology can make animation faster or cheaper, but what kind of industry Malaysia wants to build — and whether there'll still be room for the people whose imagination brings its stories to life.
WHAT MATTERS
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For all his conviction, Usamah is candid about the compromises that come with building a studio.
He and his partners had set out to create something of their own, but had not fully anticipated the demands of financing, production schedules, commercial partnerships and carrying a brand.
As the studio grew, there was less time for the creative freedom that had brought them together.
"I miss the days when all of us were not as busy as we're now. Like, the five of us, the core, right? Get to spend more time sitting and creating," he muses reflectively.
The years spent chasing that dream have also come at a personal cost. Usamah acknowledges his wife's sacrifices while he worked late nights and weekends.
"My wife did so much to allow me to chase my dream," he confides.
During post-production on his last film, Usamah shares that he was away from his family in Johor for 14 days instead of the 10 originally planned.
His eldest son's birthday fell during that period.
"It killed me to see how sad he was that I wasn't around," he recalls.
Now, with two sons aged 15 and 12, Usamah makes a deliberate effort to be present, taking them to basketball training and games, and sharing meals and ordinary evenings with his family.
He plays basketball himself and has completed a half-marathon, with a full marathon still on his wish list.
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His own father remains a powerful influence. Growing up in modest circumstances in Alor Star, his father helped tend the family's goats after school before becoming one of the few people from his village to attend university.
He went on to hold senior positions and raise four children after separating from Usamah's mother, passing on lessons gleaned from his extensive reading.
Much of that wisdom went over Usamah's head as a child. Today, raising children of his own, he finds himself understanding it in a way he couldn't have then.
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Says Usamah: "Don't regret your choices, even if the worst thing happens. The worst thing is also part of your journey... your experience."
It's a philosophy suited to an industry where even the best-laid plans can unravel. Yet Usamah's ambitions extend beyond keeping WAU afloat or sustaining Ejen Ali.
The studio is developing a third Ejen Ali film alongside two new intellectual properties.
He's also thinking about succession, asking "how do we then figure out our succession plan so that all this can go on".
"I dream for one day... when people talk about animation, they cannot leave Malaysia out of the conversation," shares Usamah, envisioning a global landscape that includes major American studios and Japan's Studio Ghibli.
Adding, the 42-year-old concludes emphatically: "It cannot be just success of only a few isolated IPs or companies. It needs to be an industry."
For someone who once imagined his future inside a studio like Pixar, the dream has changed shape.
Usamah is no longer simply hoping to contribute to another country's creative legacy.
He wants to help build the conditions for Malaysia to create and sustain its own — nurturing talent, opening opportunities and making room for the next generation to tell its stories.
intanm@nst.com.my
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