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This morning we continue Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival with the online debut of Eric Ko’s Our Son (우리 아들) which is a graduation short produced at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Notably, Eric’s short marks the second time he’s been selected for our festival; his junior year film Troubleshooting was featured in last year’s festival. Our Son is an evolution of his distinctively spare geometric language while reaching new heights of filmmaking ambition and confidence.

Ko is fascinated with the idea of speed in this film, and he skillfully manipulates the cinematic space to create a fast-paced and exciting animation thrill ride. The driving percussion-oriented soundtrack lends to the sense of urgency. The film flirts with abstraction, but remains grounded in a narrative universe that is both resistant to (and demanding of) interpretation by the viewer.

Continue reading for comments from the filmmaker:

THE IDEA

The transition from carefree irresponsibility to reality is often instantaneous. Based off of a few precious memories of growing up with a best friend in a place that offered very little and the relationship I have with my heritage, I wanted to work on a film that took me on an adventure during its creation, with hopes that it would take the viewer on one as well.

TOOLBOX

I used Flash and a tablet to animate. For the music and sound design I worked in Ableton Live.

CHALLENGES & LESSONS LEARNED

I wanted to make a film that embodied impulsive, frantic adventures; with that said, having a storyboard seemed to be an ill limitation. At first I had plenty of boards drawn up and ideas down on paper, but after the first few seconds of animating I threw it all out. All I had left were the bigger ideas that I kept in the back of my head as I worked. At a certain point I was simply putting one image in front of the other without knowing what came next, which was fun for me. Once something stopped being fun, I stopped and changed it. I think realizing to make sure I had fun was the most important thing.

INSPIRATIONS

I looked up to independent animators such as Lei Lei and Misaki Uwabo. I did some really basic research on Korean culture; I think my vague understanding of my own heritage and the disjointed humor I get from it particularly inspired me. Also, retro side-scrolling spaceship games such as Gradius interests me a lot, where a lot of strange visual motifs went unquestioned because it’s an arcade game. While animating I listened to a lot of Louis CK interviews for laughs and really loved his attitude about creative freedom. Echo Park by Willamette was my favorite album to listen to.

WHERE YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS

Making more short films!

FILMMAKER WEBSITES

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

For the fourth year in a row, we are delighted to present the Cartoon Brew Student Animation Festival, the premier online showcase for animated short premieres by student filmmakers.

Our 2013 festival offers one of the strongest and most dynamic slates of short films since we launched the festival. Chosen from a record-breaking 266 film submissions, the eight films in this year’s festival represent a remarkably high level of creative vision and filmmaking skill. The films selected were made by adventurous filmmakers who show a commitment to exploring the narrative and visual possibilities of the animation art form, and whose ideas and concepts are fully realized.

More quality student work was submitted than ever before. In fact, half of the films in this year’s festival are from schools that haven’t been in the festival during its first three years—Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, DePaul University, University of Southern California and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. On the other hand, Eric Ko is the first filmmaker who has been selected twice for the festival; his junior film Troubleshooting was a part of our festival last year.

Each of the eight filmmakers whose work is featured in this year’s festival will receive a cash award of $500 (US), thanks to the generosity of our festival sponsor JibJab. Further, Evan Spiridellis, the co-founder of JibJab, will select one additional film to receive the Grand Prize and an extra $500, for a cash prize totalling $1,000 US.

The festival will debut on Monday, July 8th, and a new film will be presented every week throughout July and August. And now, we proudly present the 2013 class of Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival:

Lady with Long Hair
Directed by Barbara Bakos
School: Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (Hungary)
Synopsis: An old lady relives memories of her life contained within her hair.
Running time: 8 min 45 s

Sun of a Beach
Directed by Natan Moura
School: Sheridan College (Canada)
Synopsis: Shunned for shining a little too brightly, the poor sun feels alone in its search to connect and be wanted.
Running time: 1 min 20 s

Dumb Day
Directed by Kevin Eskew

Brain Divided
Directed by Josiah Haworth, Joon Shik Song and Joon Soo Song
School: Ringling College of Art and Design (USA)
Synopsis: The story about an ordinary guy who meets a not so ordinary girl, but his brain cells can’t agree on how to go about winning her over, which leads to Conflict!
Running time: 5 min

Our Son (우리 아들)
Directed by Eric Ko
School: Rhode Island School of Design (USA)
Synposis: Celestial bodies and the fragility of happiness.
Running time: 4 min 30 s

i
Directed by Isabela Dos Santos
School: California Institute of the Arts (USA)
Synopsis: Hand-drawn animation and dance performance intersect and interact in this short piece that deals with a well-known question: Who am I?
Running time: 3 min 35s

Wolf Within
Directed by Alex Horan
School: Massachusetts College of Art and Design (USA)
Synopsis: A father prepares his son for a world without him.
Running time: 9 min 35 s

Passer Passer
Directed by Louis Morton
School: University of Southern California (USA)
Synopsis: An animated city symphony celebrates the hidden world of background noise. Field recordings from the streets of Los Angeles and Tokyo drive imagined characters and cycles that build to form a living musical creature.
Running time: 3 min 47 s

Today, in Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival, we’re pleased to present Troubleshooting by Eric Ko, of the Rhode Island School of Design. Produced as minimalist as any film could be; Ko uses only simple line figures in black and white to take us on a journey, from a routine morning bus ride to a spectacular sci-fi apocalypse, with one surprise after another. Like his slacker protagonist, Ko is a self-assured filmmaker with a sly sense of humor and a fine sense of visual storytelling Troubleshooting has an imaginative premise, superb execution and proves, in this case, that less is more, as long as someone hits the “reset” button.

Click HERE to read an interview with the filmmaker Eric Ko.

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Today, in Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival, we’re pleased to present Troubleshooting by Eric Ko, of the Rhode Island School of Design. Produced as minimalist as any film could be; Ko uses only simple line figures in black and white to take us on a journey, from a routine morning bus ride to a spectacular sci-fi apocalypse, with one surprise after another. Like his slacker protagonist, Ko is a self-assured filmmaker with a sly sense of humor and a fine sense of visual storytelling Troubleshooting has an imaginative premise, superb execution and proves, in this case, that less is more, as long as someone hits the “reset” button.

Continue reading for comments from the filmmaker Eric Ko:

THE IDEA
What if the end of the world wasn’t such a big deal, and some guy fixed it every now and then?

TOOLBOX
I worked in Flash with a tablet. I’m not sure if the limitation of black, white, and grey was a conscious decision at first, but it just seemed right after a while. It definitely helped me with directing, and it also gave me the time I needed to animate the scenes needed for a proper climax, and some extra details here and there. I always found it to be the little things in cartoons that made me laugh the most.

LESSONS LEARNED
The idea I started with is so different from the finished product that it could be its own thing. I had a basic storyboard laid out, but I always kept the ideas for the scenes kind of vague. I was making up the scenes as I animated — which is a creative process that I find natural, but it became kind of scary at times. As always, it helps to have friends or just somebody to help you keep going, or keep you from veering off-course.

INSPIRATIONS
I was reading a lot of comics by younger cartoonists during the time I started thinking of ideas, going through every MOME publication I was able to find. Because this was my first try at animating human-style characters with human-style faces, I figured comics were a good place to start for inspiration. I watched Cowboy Bebop before I started, and Akira during production.

My violent-video-game-filled childhood helped cement the theme, and I looked to my little brothers for inspiration as well. I was also heavily influenced by a RISD grad named Tom Deslongchamp, throughout the ages.

FILMMAKER WEBSITE:
Eric Ko’s website
Eric Ko on Vimeo

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We’re delighted to announce the selections for Cartoon Brew’s third annual Student Animation Festival. This year we topped over 200 submissions, which made programming this year’s festival a challenging task. We chose filmmakers whose work displayed confidence and maturity while being unafraid to experiment with new ideas, techniques and styles.

(A brief note: for the first time, we have multiple selections from two schools: Rhode Island School of Design and Sheridan. In particular, there are three films from Sheridan. We received a record two-dozen entries from Sheridan this year, and we appreciated the diverse range of voices coming out of there, as well as the consistently high technical proficiency of the school’s students.)

Each of the ten filmmakers below will receive $300. Further, we’re introducing a new twist this year. After all the films have debuted, we will conduct a poll where viewers can vote for their favorite film. The winner of the audience choice award will receive an additional $500.

Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival is made possible by JibJab, our major sponsor for this year’s festival. JibJab has consistently demonstrated generous support for young and emerging talent, and we are proud to recognize them as the sponsor of our festival.

Once again, a hearty congratulations to this year’s selections in our Student Animation Festival. Mark your calendars: the first film will debut on Cartoon Brew on Monday, July 2.

The Ballad of Poisonberry Pete
Directed by Uri Lotan, Adam Campbell, Elizabeth McMahill
School: Ringling College of Art and Design
Country: USA (Florida)

Ballpit
Directed by Kyle Mowat
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Gum
Directed by Noam Sussman
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Money Bunny Blues
Directed by Ellen Coons
School: College for Creative Studies
Country: USA (Michigan)

Otzi
Directed by Evan Red Borja
School: School of Visual Arts
Country: USA (New York)

Peace One Day
Directed by Angie Phillips and Phoebe Halstead
School: Kingston University
Country: UK

Pest
Directed by Nooree Kim
School: Sheridan College
Country: Canada

Troubleshooting
Directed by Eric Ko
School: Rhode Isla