Korean animation

IT'S PRIZE TIME!!!Chaek bachims are so cool that while at the Animation Museum in Chuncheon, I picked up some to give away as prizes. They feature Hobani, the Chuncheon city mascot who is reflective of the city's abundant bodies of water.Hobani can be found all over the city, such as in these really cool nonprizes above.
You can also spot him in these temporary tattoos that I'll throw in as well. I have 5 prizes to give to the first 5 people to post in the comments section. If you have a blog, it would be really cool if you offered this same sort of prize giveaway on yours.

Good luck!

Do you like Batman? Batman was Park Min's favorite production to work on. Having over 18 years in the animation industry, Park Min has helped bring Batman and many other characters to life for audiences around the world.

In his earliest days, he worked as a final checking assistant. Since this start, he's moved through almost all the jobs within an animation studio. Working hard as an inbetweener so he could work even harder as an inbetweening director. Doing key animation and then moving up to key animation direction. At some point, he was a layout artist as well multiple other positions. He has just recently began work as a storyboard artist.

Park Min is an experienced animator who was willing to offer us some insights into life in the Korean animation industry.Midodok: What do you think about your life in the animation industry?
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Park Min: I think that the Korean animation industry and the animation industry in other countries, like Japan and America, are really different. These days, the animator's situation is getting worse and also disappearing. Yes, it's a really bad situation.
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Midodok: How so?
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Park Min: Many animators quit their animation work because they can't make a lot of money and we are all not paid regularly, right? We are not on a regular payment and we have to work long hours to keep the schedule. The schedule is really tight. Many animators have to spend a hard time. You know, my career is 18 years long, but these days, most directors are from my same generation so we are the last remaining animators and there is not many newcomers.
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Park Min: The Korean animation industry is really hard and if they choose to work for the Korean animation industry they have to work hard and study animation. I think many beginners don't want to become an inbetweener and key animator, they always want to become directors without doing all the stuff in between (inbetweening, key animating, final checking, etc.). But they don't like that cost, right?
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Midodok: So how have you lasted in the animation industry if it's so difficult?
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Park Min: If somebody wants to become something, they have to have patience and keep trying until they become something, right? But, the situation these days is really hard. It will take a long time to become a director. I think it is not important to become a director, but to improve themselves and their drawings and their ideas.
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Midodok: What do you think about the Korean animation industry?
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Park Min: We need more creative people in stories and ideas, but up until now, Korean animators have only concentrated on a small part--drawing or making films. But, first of all, we need to improve ourselves as a Korean animation industry, and then have a more adventurous mind. Money is always an issue too, right? And I hope more people get interested in Korean animation, too. But if we make a good animation then we won't have to worry about that.
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Park Min: I think that we need a shock. A shock that looks like a Sputnik from the Korean animation industry. I know these days it is a hard time, but we should force ourselves through it. We can do it!
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Midodok: How can somebody prepare for a career in animation?
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Park Min: I think all kinds of animation are the same even if they have unique styles (Korean, Japanese, American). I think if you wanna become an animator, you should prepare by improving you drawing skills and your understanding of story, right? And you should know about high technology like computer editing and graphics tools. And one more: language. Chinese, English, Korean, Japanese, whatever.
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Midodok: Why should they learn another language?
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Park Min: Up until now, we made animation for a few people. For only that country. But these days, we can show our animation to the whole world. So someday, we can work together to make a good animation. Nationality doesn't matter, but communication is a really important thing. If we work together with foreigners, we should find a solution through conversation if we have a problem. It's very important.
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Park Min: Everybody has the same feelings: happiness, sadness, loneliness. Emotion is the same, even if we have different color skin, language, culture and place. It doesn't matter to making good animation. That's all.
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Midodok: Thank you very much for the interview and your time.Park Min let me look through his current sketchbook and take a couple pictures.His sketchbook had lots of good stuff in it, but I thought you might like these two best. He's got lots more cool stuff posted over at his cool blog.

Park Min likes meeting new people. Feel free to email him or leave questions and comments here.

I especially like Park Min's analogy of Sputnik, and how a lot of hard work can really leave the world in awe of Korean animation. What do you think?

Wow! Is that placed called Sketchbook? It is! And they serve drinks and food there?! This deserves closer inspection.
This truck parked outside must be a sign of the wonderful animation related stuff inside!
It has the Peanuts gang painted on it.
And is that Felix the Cat painted on the other side? It is! He's got the right idea; let's hurry into this Sketchbook place where we'll meet all sorts of artists and cartoon-related stuff.
Oh. It looks like just a regular eating place.

Wait a second! This chair looks happy and cartoony! No, no, no. . . I'm just looking too hard for animation stuff.Well, at least there is a nice view of the Animation Museum just across the street. And this place is quite spacious and inspiring. I don't find that too often in Seoul.The food is quite good and plentiful, too. I guess I can pull out my sketchbook while I eat and help this place live up to its name, which happens to be really, really cool!

I noticed a new comic book distribution model today in Korea: selling them in convenience stores. This is actually a very new approach that began in October of this year.2030 Comics are aimed at the 2030 generation (people in their twenties and thirties). They feature a series of seven comic magazines. Apparently, they are selling quite well. I could only manage to find a couple first volume comics left in the magazine rack.They are being sold exclusively at GS25, a convenience store chain in Korea. See, you can spot the GS25 logo on the cover.
Most Korean comics come in a bounded collection of multiple stories or in graphic novel format. Unlike most Korean comics, they are published in a Western format. I'm quite impressed that the comics are printed in full color, contain absolutely no advertisements, and still manage to cost only KRW1,500 per copy. This doesn't seem profitable, but apparently there is governmental support in this venture.

This is a unique experiment. I'm interested to see where it leads. Let's hope that the most popular stories are turned into animated projects! What do you think?

Here are some links where I learned more about this and so can you:

1. Comic books will soon be made available in convenience stores
2. "2030 Comics," a comic magazine for convenient stores, will be on the shelves this October
3. '2030 Comix' is selling well

An interesting interview below! Keep reading. . .
Skitsch is her name. During the day she works as a professional inbetweener for Imagin, a Japanese animation studio in Korea. But outside of work she is an artist on the loose who is busy creating her own stuff. Here are some characters she's designed and put on some stickers. Along with many other young artists, she puts stuff like this on T-shirts and other goods that she sells at the Hongdae artist's market during warm seasons. She also has a blog/shop, D-Gecko, where you can see more of her stuff. And now, for the interview:

It's another Monday and time for another, "What's on your desk?". This week we feature Kim Jeong Eun.
Jeong Eun is a key animator. Therefore, she needs lots of space to put her work and reference materials. And, of course, she needs room for her toy companions as well. She has so much stuff at her desk that we'll just focus on the toys on that top shelf.

#9: Keroro in tiny and clear form
#10: Finger skateboard
Jeong Eun is kind of shy and likes cute things a lot. Tell her 'hi' in the comments section and I'll make sure she sees it.

Bill Plympton presented his three rules for making successful short films during PISAF. He calls it 'Plympton's Dogma'. Maybe it can be of use to an aspiring short film maker out there.

Make the film:

1. Short. Anything longer than 5 minutes is difficult to sell.
2. Cheap. He keeps a limit of $1,000 per minute. This way it's easy to make your money back. This is also why he sticks to hand drawn animation.
3. Funny. Funnier films are much more fun and easier to sell than serious ones.

I don't know the cost of the student films presented at PISAF, but the shortest and funniest films seemed to get the most positive reaction out of the audience. Many films were so long and gloomy.

By the way, the image is the back of a postcard that Plympton drew his short film's dog on for all the audience members after his presentation.

The 9th Puchon International Student Animation Festival comes to an end today. I was able to make it two of the days. In case you couldn't go, here is just a small fraction of what you missed.There were hours and hours of screenings of student films and animated films from all around the world. The student films were a good way to get a sneak peak at some of the future leaders in animation. Also, it's a good way to take notes on the audience reacting to several different films.There were International special guests such as Bill Plympton, a very successful independent animated filmmaker from the United States. He screened many of his short films, shared short stories, gave the audience some useful tips and some drawing lessons. Afterwards, he gave everybody a Bill Plympton drawing of his popular pug character.
Takayuki Matsutani, President of Tezuka Productions of Japan screened the openings to Atom (Astro Boy) throughout its various revivals as well as the short film The Legend of the Forest. All animators should watch The Legend of the Forest for a visual history lesson of animation techniques. He gave a humorous drawing lesson as well.
And the PISAF mascots were also on hand to make trouble. Which mascot do you prefer? This year's simple shaped creature or another year's wacky dog?

This is a brilliant idea!Everland hosted an art display in their amusement park as part of their Everland Happy Halloween celebration. Grade school children were asked to submit their ideas for Halloween monsters. Those drawings were given to art students at Hongik University, a renowned arts university in Seoul, who used the drawings as inspiration for further drawings.

An angry Korean goblin.

Cool Goggles!

In this one, the Hongkik student changed very little, but the design still came out unique and cute.

The kid who designed this must hate carrots.

A selected few drawings got the deluxe treatment and were made into displays. Here are some of those:

A D-War inspired kid drawing.

An art student's take on it.

The deluxe version.

The final display at Everland.

This pumpkin goblin by a 4 year-old is my favorite.

Character designers take note; I think this model of creating characters is brilliant and should be used more often. Don't you think kids come up with some great ideas?

Thanks Everland, Hongik students and kids for the Halloween treat!

There is one more Everland and Halloween related post coming tomorrow.