A Masterful Loop

Erick Oh unveils Opera, a stunning and ambitious new short about the human condition.

Califor - nia-based, K o r e a n flmmaker and painter Erick Oh is best known in the animation world for his award-winning shorts (Heart, How to Eat Your Apple, The Dam Keeper, Gunther), his work on Pixar movies such as Finding Dory, Inside Out, Monsters Universi - The Human Condition: Erick Oh’s powerful short consists of a day and night cycle that can be played on an ty and Brave and infnite loop. the Tonko House series Pig: The Dam Keeper Poems. This fall, he which he refers to as “all talented artists and launched a hugely ambitious short titled Opfriends who are playing signifcant roles in era, which has been getting a lot of festival the industry.” They used TVPaint Animation Pro attention. The nine-minute flm, which conto animate, Photoshop to design and paint sists of a day and night cycle that can be and After Effects for the fnal composition of played on an infnite loop, will also be the the project, which played at the Hiroshima, Zacenter of a public installation exhibition in greb and Ottawa animation festivals. He says

Seoul, Korea in early 2021. the feedback that he has received from his

“I frst came up with this core idea and mesfriends is that they all say they’ve never seen sage in the year of 2017, which was flled with anything like it before. so many iconic political moments in our recent human history around the world,” Oh tells An Expanding Universe us in an exclusive interview. “In January 2017, “Although the approach seems different Donald Trump became the president of the from my previous projects, I’m using one of my U.S. and a few months later in ‘I wanted to expand and deepen the experience by creating a March, the presiworld that refects different parts and stories of our life. This dent Park Geunidea naturally led me to design a structure that captures every hye in Korea was detail of our everyday life in different classes.’ impeached. It — Director Erick Oh was, indeed, the year of chaos, and I had to tell a story that iconic black and white characters, which were documents this part of humanity which actuintroduced in some of my old flms like How to ally has been repeating in human history nuEat Your Apple (2012), ‘O’ (2015) or animation merous times, in different forms and culpoetry series on Instagram,” Oh points tures. This piece fearlessly touches upon out. “Which means, this still lives in the same diverse issues like racism, terrorism, religion, world and deals with some metaphors and natural disasters, war, education, economy and symbols I enjoy using, such as an apple, fsh, more in different parts and classes in our soclock, key, tree and so on. With those, I wanted ciety. And after all, everything continues loopto expand and deepen the experience by creing eternally.” ating a world that refects different parts and Oh collaborated with a team of 32 artists, stories of our life. This idea naturally led me to

design a structure that captures every detail of our everyday life in different classes. In those structures and numerous different locations and levels, people live and survive, interacting with each other.” The director says he was deeply infuenced by Hayao Miyazaki’s movies when he was very young. “Then I fell in love with Masaaki Yuasa’s unique, quirky sensibility, which defnitely became a huge infuence in my career,” he says. I also became a huge fan of Michaël Dudok de Wit — again, a huge infuence in my art and life. I should mention some of the early Pixar movies like Toy Story, Ratatouille, WALL•E and more. My childhood was flled with Disney and Ghibli animations. I’ve been always dreaming about making animation since then. Even when I went to a fne art program in my college where I spent most of my time on painting, I somehow always knew that I’ll become a flmmaker one day. Then I made my frst independent animated short all by myself in my room as my graduation project, and that whole experience certainly encouraged me to pursue animation.”

Oh is a strong believer in using animation to express an artist’s personal voice. “Animation is a medium after all,” he says. “Which means, after all, what really matters is what you want to say through your animation. In other words, your own personal voice and vision is one of the most important qualities. It will defne who you are as an artist and help you fnd your way to be successful with your goal eventually!” ◆ For more info, visit www.erickoh.com.