I wanted to study animation since I was at junior high school, but there was no animation school in korea back then. I tried to find articles from magazines and newspapers (since internet wasn't that popular yet in 1980s). I decided to go to college with painting major, developing my design/painting skills while hoping to find a way to pursue my dream to make animations. I found a book called, 'Animation Techniques' by Roger Noake in my first year at college, and 'mimic' whatever I can find from the book.
In 1995, there was a small animation workshop held by several independent animators. I decided to participate this 3 month workshop. There were about a dozen people, who were divided into several groups by instructor's random selection.
I came up with an idea of two ordinary objects (hammer and saw) having conversation and communicating their emotions not by using dialogue, but by showing changes of colors, shapes, patterns, and other visual elements and composition of the imagery. Unlike my idea of making 'moving illustrations', my teammate brought an idea of a cyber robot cat and its battles. It was very difficult to find the middle ground between such extreme opposite directions from each other. As a result... we ended up making an animation with 2 characters: hammer and saw fighting... It wasn't easy compromise for both of us, having troubles in every step on the way.
Now, it sounds just silly... and I am truly grateful that I had that experience getting to learn about the process of animation and... of course, collaborating with others, making compliments from each other's talents as well as compromises...
Here are some stills and animation for my first animation, 'To-mak'
It was shot in 35mm, edited in Beta-SP for final format.
