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More Koreans mapping out career path as animators

October 27, 2015

Steve Martino, center, director of “The Peanuts Movie,” Sung Ji-yeon, left, lightening supervisor at Blue Sky Studios, and cartoonist Kim Poong take a selfie during a discussion about the upcoming animated feature based on Charles Schulz’s comic strip “Peanuts” at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, on Oct. 15.
(Courtesy of 20th Century Fox Korea)

By Baek Byung-yeul

As animation has emerged as a major cultural product in Korea, more people attempt to map out their career paths to become animators.

For future aspiring animators, American animation director Steve Martino, who recently visited Korea to promote an upcoming animated feature version of Charles Schulz’s famous comic strip “Peanuts,” advised them to keep “their dream big and work hard.”

“What I learned from Charles Schulz is he did the work. He went to his drawing table every day for 50 years. Keep your dream big and work hard,” Martino said to future animators at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, on Oct. 15.

The director, best known for directing the 2012 3D animated film “Ice Age: Continental Drift,” also emphasized failing while trying can often serves as a great springboard.

“There’s going to be a time when you fail, and those failures will be things you learn more from than your successes. So when something doesn’t work out, you just look at it, study it, build upon that and keep going like Charlie Brown. That’s what I did,” he said.

Made by the U.S.-based animation studio Blue Sky Studios, “The Peanuts Movie” revolves around Charlie Brown, the “lovable loser,” who begins his own epic quest while his dog Snoopy embarks upon his greatest mission as he takes to the skies to pursue his arch-nemesis, The Red Baron.

This is the first-ever computer graphic animation version of “Peanuts” and will commemorate the 65th anniversary of the comic strip.

Introducing the film version, Martino said he and his crew had a tough time depicting the characters in “Peanuts” in the 3D animated feature.

“We wanted the characters to look more like the comic strip. What’s interesting is we studied the comic strips and Charles shows that he only drew the characters in six positions of their heads — (left and right) sides, front, back and up and down. That was it.

“So, we developed a different kind of animation style. We call it pose to pose, where we hold the poses for two or three frames,” he said.

Sung Ji-yeon, a lightening supervisor of the Blue Sky Studios also shared lessons from her 12 years of experience with the future animators.

“I know more Koreans have submitted their resumes to the U.S. studios with a dream to become an animator. But only a small number of them know the exact part they can contribute to the making process. They should be more specific when applying,” she said.

The Korean animator known for participating in the 2013 animated feature “Epic” also advised them to focus more on developing their ability to look at animation rather than concentrating on technical aspects.