Last year, filmmaker Erick Oh was nominated for an Oscar for his expansive and thought-provoking animated short “Opera,” which contemplated the contemporary world by exploring a huge pyramid where …
“’Namoo,’ which means tree in Korean, was inspired by the loss of my grandfather a long time ago,” Oh explains. “At the time, it was a sudden goodbye and we weren’t prepared for it, so during my grieving process I made up this little story of a man who hangs his memories and belongings to a tree.”
Oh and the team at Baobab, known for its award-winning animated shorts in virtual reality, wanted to bring the story to life in both 2D and VR. “Erick’s vision is about all the joys and sorrows and imperfections in life and how it’s still beautiful at the end, no matter how many imperfections, which meant that he really wanted it to have this hand-drawn feel because it has to feel very human,” Fan explains. “Being able to literally hand paint and draw every single frame meant that the imperfections of using our hands and drawing makes its way into the film. That’s why we ultimately chose to use Quill.
“I also didn’t want give up this amazing language of cinema,” Oh said, explaining why there were two versions of the project. “We planned everything ahead: All the footage, all the shots and all the characters are exactly the same, but the post-production was slightly different. So we finished the VR version first, and then we spent another three, four months retranslating everything into the 2D short.