Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1469382
a p r i l • m ay • j u n e 2 0 2 2 c g w 2 7 T he narrative poem "Namoo" (a Korean word meaning "tree") chronicles the heartwarming and heartbreaking biographi- cal 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 filmmaker Erick Oh (Opera), is a very personal one. "The origin of the story goes back 10 years ago when my grandfa- ther 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 mental 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 handcraed 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 2021'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 aer 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 to 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 finest 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 cre- ator, 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 per- form 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 team: The artwork and ani- mation were craed by a core team of just six, with the entire group totaling just over a dozen people. Production took just over a year. That was not the only reason why Quill was the perfect tool for this project. "This was my first time telling a story in a VR medium and Quill helped me skip all the technical difficulties because it enables an artist to draw, paint, and animate intuitively," Oh explains. "That helped us achieve a hand-painted watercolor and oil-painting look right away in VR space." Growing the aesthetic and images As Darnell notes, from the very start, Oh had a unique vision for the tone and feeling of the piece, and a very specific artistic approach he wanted to employ to achieve that vision. "Supporting Erick and his vision is what mattered most to the whole team at Baobab," he says. "In general, our goal is always to support the vision of the artists who are leading our projects. We don't think of ourselves as having a 'house style.'" Oh's initial concept paintings were all watercolor, so the studio decided to capture that tactile, handmade feeling in the actual film. "Because this is a very poetic and warm story, we didn't have any second-guessing whether to support it by using a traditional water- color aesthetic," says Darnell. "Even when re-creating everything in VR by using Quill, we maintained the look we had discovered in 2D." As Oh emphasizes, Namoo is a very poetic piece, which focuses on life and growth. And, delivering warmth visually was very important. In the film, the tree becomes filled with various objects as the A handcraed aesthetic expresses the emotional arc. The film depicts the life of an artist, beginning at birth. The 12-minute piece features 18 distinct environments.