Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1464279
NAMOO www.postmagazine.com 19 POST MAR/APR 2022 Poetry in Motion A visual tree of life depicts one person's journey from birth to death BY KAREN MOLTENBREY T he narrative poem "Namoo" (a Korean word meaning "tree") chroni- cles the heartwarming and heartbreaking biographical moments, from beginning to end, of one particular man, whose journey is represented via a tree of life. The animated short, written and directed by Oscar-nominated filmma er Erick Oh (Opera), is a very personal one. "The origin of the story goes back 10 years ago when my grandfather passed away," Oh explains. "While grieving, I began to envision this core visual of one's tree of life and how memories might shape it until perhaps, one day, it becomes something else entirely. For a decade, this idea has been sitting in my men- tal drawer and tucked away deep in my heart. But upon experiencing several more sad farewells, as well as meeting my newborn niece, I knew it was time to develop this idea into a short narrative, to show the life of someone from the beginning to the end, which again connects to another new beginning." Namoo uses a handcrafted animation style to depict the journey of an artist, beginning at his birth. The short, Oh's second, made the 2022 Oscar shortlist and received two Annie nominations. Both the 2D theatrical and VR versions were produced by Baobab Studios. Baobab was founded in 2015 as an interactive entertainment company and has since created several VR films, including 2 21's Baba Yaga, directed and written by Baobab CCO/co-founder Eric Darnell (see CGW's Q1 2021 issue). For Namoo, however, the studio partnered with Oh, as Darnell, along with Baobab CEO/co-founder Maureen Fan and head of content Kane Lee, served as the film s producers. The collaboration occurred after Oh shared the story concept with Lee while they were in Seoul two summers ago. "Conceptually, it felt like capturing lightning in a bottle for me, so I had him come visit the studio in San Francisco, and we were off o the races," says Lee. Due to the pandemic, however, Baobab had to handle the entire production remotely across three different continents, as the studio recruited "the fine t Quill artists in the world" to help meet their creative ambitions for the project. Quill (formerly from Oculus and now back in the hands of its creator, Iñigo Quilez and his company Smoothstep) is a VR illustration and animation tool. In traditional animation pipelines, the various processes (modeling, rigging, texturing, animation and so on) are handled by different people, but by using Quill, one person can perform multiple functions. For example, layout artist Dan Franke built all the Namoo sets, Nick Ladd did all the environment animation and Jon Brower animated all the characters. As a result, the studio was able to retain a small but efficient eam: The artwork and animation were crafted by a core team of just six, with the entire group totaling just over a dozen people. Production took just over a year.