Jul 22, 2013

Our Son" Eric Koh

This morning, as a continuation of the Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival, we are pleased to present Eric Koh's Our Son (?), a graduate project from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Notably, this is the second time Eric's short has been selected for our festival. His third-year film, "Troubleshooting," was featured at last year's festival. Our Son reaches new heights of filmmaking ambition and confidence while evolving his distinctive spare geometric language.

Ko is captivated by the idea of speed in this film, and his masterful manipulation of cinematic space creates a fast-paced, exciting animated thrill ride. The percussion-driven soundtrack adds to the sense of urgency. The film is rooted in a narrative world that flickers with abstraction but resists (and demands) interpretation by the viewer.

Read the director's comments:

The transition from carefree irresponsibility to reality is often momentous. Because of the precious memories of growing up with my best friend in a place with almost nothing, and because of my relationship to my heritage, I wanted to create a film that would take me on an adventure during the making of the film.

I used Flash and a tablet for animation. For music and sound design I used Ableton Live.

I wanted to make a film that embodied an impulsive and desperate adventure. At first I did a lot of storyboarding, putting ideas down on paper. All that remained were the big ideas I had in the corner of my mind while I was working. At some point I would just put one image in front of another, not knowing what would happen next. When it stopped being fun, I stopped and changed it. I think the most important thing I did was to make sure I was having fun.

I respected independent animators like Ray Ray and Misaki Uwabo. I did some really basic research on Korean culture. I think my vague understanding of my own heritage and the incoherent humor that comes from it especially inspired me. I also liked retro side-scrolling spaceship games like "Gradius," and because it was an arcade game, many of the strange visual motifs were not questioned. During the animation process, I listened to a lot of Louis CK interviews for laughs and really liked his take on creative freedom. Willamette's "Echo Park" was my favorite album.

Make more short films!

Personal website: Crybird.net Vimeo page: Vimeo.com/EricKo