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What's New? |
A Renaissance in
Korean Animation
By Sunnie Jung and Laura Leon
 THIS
YEAR marks an important turning point in the thirty-year history of
Korean animation. For the first time Korean animators have won both an
Emmy Award and an Annie Award for their artistic contributions.
Sang Jin Kim of MOI Animation received an Emmy Award in the category of
Best Individual in Character Animation under 30 minutes show in
September 2006.
Jae Myung Yoo of JM Animation won an Annie Award in January 2007 for
Best Individual in Character Animation in a Television Production.
Both artists were recognized for their work on Nickelodeon’s animated
television series “Avatar—The Legend of Aang.”
The executive producers/creators of the show, Bryan Konietzko and
Michael DiMartino, traveled to Korea specifically to recruit the
talented team of artists after being thoroughly impressed with their
work on the beautifully animated Korean feature film Wonderful Days.
Armed with nothing more than a 20-page plan and a 3-minute animated
sample of the Avatar characters, he was able to convince the artists to
work on the series. The team immediately went to work to produce 20
episodes with Nickelodeon.
 Currently
wrapping up its third season, Avatar has been a great success in large
part due to the contributions of the Korean animators. “I didn’t expect
too much when Bryan and Michael first approached me about his new show
Avatar,” confessed director Jae Myung Yoo. “But they had absolute
confidence in their creation and led me to believe that we could
collaborate to create something memorable.”
Korea has earned its reputation as one of the very best outsourcing
animation bases and one of the world’s largest suppliers of television
animation, surpassed only by the US and Japan. But revenue is primarily
generated from OEM (original equipment manufacturer) rather than from
original content. Thus far the industry has been “big on technical
skills but short on creativity.” This means that Koreans have been busy
producing someone else’s work, rather than creating original content,
such as making their own feature-length films. Nevertheless, the
opportunity to work with some of the best animators in the field has
afforded Koreans the chance to learn advanced animation skills and
techniques.
More recently, high Korean labor costs have sparked a trend toward
outsourcing animation work to India, China, and the Philippines among
other places. As ambitious new generations of Korean animators enter the
field, Korea is hopeful that this trend will open the way for a
renaissance of original creative work.
“The animators in the past were always pressured to follow orders from
abroad, so it may have been that their talents were not fully realized
because of the pressure,” says director Jae Myung Yoo. “Avatar broke
with this old notion. Of course the language was different and cultural
humor and its nuances were different as well, but the opportunity given
to us from the creators to participate in the creative development
helped us better understand the show.”
Michael DiMartino, the co-creator or Avatar added "Bryan and I value all
the hard work and amazing talents of the Korean animation teams. Working
with small budgets and tight deadlines, they continually produce
high-quality animation episode after episode.”
ANIMATORS ARE PERFORMERS
 “Animators
are foremost creators and, like actors, must interpret and then express
their creativity in each scene,” states director Yoo. “We need to train
ourselves in a more dynamic way to achieve that level of confidence. I
guess we don’t have much experience as of yet.”
“Korean animators definitely have the ability to create and produce,
however, it is important to have a global mind, and to aim towards the
world market when forming partnerships,” says Seung-Hyun Oh, supervising
director for Avatar at Nickelodeon.
Director Kim added, “We are still unable to see the market in a
commercialized way because we don’t have that many professional experts
in that area...We are still too geared toward outside growth and work
load volume rather than developing our real talent and abilities. These
have kept our industry from real growth, but I expect that being awarded
this prize will result in many opportunities for our animation
industry.”
Director Yoo echoed similar concerns, “Even if we supply the money and
produce on our own, if we continue to be passive we will never take
creative control.”
Although Korea has enjoyed government-backed, system-wide support when
there were many schools and curriculums created in the animation field,
that is not enough. Being an artist is mostly about trusting one’s
instincts to the point that one can be self-assured enough to be playful
with the material. For this reason, artists must be nurtured from early
childhood. Unfortunately, the school curriculum and structure was
developed with the purpose of churning out obedient industrial workers,
not creative artists.
Just as with the growth of the Korean film industry, it will take time
to develop a world-class industry. As the Korean animation industry
enjoys continued growth, the momentum built up by its successes is an
indication that it’s off to a good start. |
