For the second half of our World of Animation course we were tasked to get together in a small group to research the history or development of one nations/area’s animation from a specific angle. My group formed up of me, Bailey and Robert based from our interest in the Korean animation topic. As I never really looked into Korean animation I had thought it would be a good opportunity to learn about the works they produced considering I was well informed about the aspects of the Japanese animation industry, it was a good chance to go out of my comfort zone.
The first class I couldn’t attend, however the second class Robert was absent so me and Bailey had talked to each other about the animation “Beauty Water” and the approach it took to storytelling. As we didn’t have a solid idea to the research poster we decided to go down the horror route. By focusing on a niche topic we could present a unique perspective to our topic in comparison to the other group. Brief notes done before/during this class:
When it came to formulating our research and discussions past this point however things came to a standstill. This project was during a busy period of us finishing our 3D animations to present the day prior, so we discuss our poster until VERY close to the presentation date. I was at fault for this too however as I got the submission date mixed with the presentation date. We discussed briefly on discord where we were with the project and planned to call the following day to finalize ideas.
Before the day of the call I decided to make a word text document on points to discuss, ideas to implement and a rough design draft:
During the call: Discussed sources to pull from, inspiration, Robert had shown his layout draft (below). As Robert was absent the previous class also briefly noted the area of research he could focus on.
We had slowly began to finalize our design drafts the day before. I began to panic as we didn’t have our information laid down to implement into the poster, in that sense leaving it too late left little time to look at everyone’s written drafts if improvements needed to be made. Still I trusted my team to send the information and in the mean time began to piece together the poster from my rough draft. Robert had posted these drafts that morning which I had also took inspiration from:
Designing the poster:
I liked the idea of including a strip of animated Korean screenshots and the architecture silhouette from Robert’s design, so I thought to include those aspects in my own. I also really enjoyed the composition of this research poster as it takes a similar approach, a silhouette that blends down to the information of the poster. It’s well balanced in terms of information/images/visual appeal without looking too busy, so I used these elements in my own to execute a harmonious design.
Below is my process in making the poster. I used procreate as it’s the art programme I was most familiar with/comfortable with using. I mostly wanted to design the poster from scratch to have creative liberty over the layout and design.
Researched Sections:
With the poster done I just needed to put in everyone’s written sections. I have my own and Robert’s done as Robert uploaded his text through discord, which was easy enough to insert, but I was becoming worried on Bailey’s side of things so I checked where she was with the project.
Paragraph stemmed from these notes, which I wrote to get a better insight on Korean animation and make sense of what Bailey can write about in terms of their section. Through this research I discovered the term “Hallyu”, which stemmed from a Chinese word meaning the rise of Korea coming into the mainstream. I enjoyed this section so I thought to include it to flesh out our poster.
Bailey’s written section based on notes:
As seen from the time in the discord I waited until Bailey sent her notes so I could move on and implement them into the poster. I was rather tired at this point and didn’t want to waste time so I stayed up until I finished the poster while including my own sections. As Bailey’s paragraph was sent as a image I had to write the paragraph out manually into procreate which was a bit of a nightmare scenario, however I didn’t want to bother Bailey so I just went ahead and wrote it in. I wrote both mine and Bailey’s in Mircosoft word first then copy and pasted into the poster to ensure proper grammar/sentence structure.
Inserting text to poster:
During the written stage I had written small sections so the paragraphs/research flowed from one topic to the next the best I could. I wanted it to be a comprehensible read to sudden change of topics so I highlighted the sections in which I contributed to the poster itself.
I had originally wanted to print at the place near the campus, however due to the backlog of people in the class it wouldn’t have gotten done until way later in the day. I took it upon myself to find a place in Bangor and printed it out myself. It took me a while due to technically difficulties (the image was small and pixelated when sized up, fixed by setting the DPI to 1000 and sampling the size.) I forgot to use the A2 template in procreate so the poster was thinner than an A2 however this was resolved by trimming the borders slightly/smaller width.
Overall I had an ok time during this project, however everything was rushed until last minute and proved to weigh down on me a lot during the end. If I were to restart this project over I would ensure everything was researched and settled ahead of time to leave room to printout the poster and have it presented, however due to the amount of work we had on our plate this was hard to achieve.
Bibliography and Resources:
Youtube Videos:
WooKong (15th August, 2021). A Brief History of South Korean Animation. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQDFI30strY
WooKong (23rd August, 2021). South Korean Animations (1956-2021) | Wookong. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZfr6lGVr5o
Articles:
Dudok De Wit, Alex (12th October, 2021). A History of South Korea’s ‘Hidden’ Animation Industry. Available: https://www.cartoonbrew.com/video-essay/video-of-the-week-a-history-of-south-koreas-hidden-animation-industry-209615.html
Chow, Vivienne (3rd December, 2020). Korean Animation is Ready For a Leap to the Global Stage. Available: https://variety.com/2020/film/asia/korean-animation-leap-to-the-global-stage-1234845230/
Conran, Pierce (7th June, 2021). The Dark and Varied World of Adult Themed Korean Animation. Available: http://www.koreanfilm.or.kr/eng/news/features.jsp?blbdComCd=601013&seq=511&mode=FEATURES_VIEW
Gates, James (4th October, 2019). South Korean Animated Films That You Should Watch. https://theculturetrip.com/asia/south-korea/articles/south-korean-anime-that-you-should-watch/
Martin Roll (October 2021) Korean Wave (Hallyu) – The Rise of Korea’s Cultural Economy & Pop Culture. Available: https://martinroll.com/resources/articles/asia/korean-wave-hallyu-the-rise-of-koreas-cultural-economy-pop-culture/#:~:text=Hallyu%20is%20a%20Chinese%20term,just%20to%20name%20a%20few.
Wikipedia (NA) Korean Wave. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Wave
Wikipedia (NA) The King of Pigs. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Pigs
AisianWiki (NA) The King of Pigs. Available: https://asianwiki.com/The_King_of_Pigs
Lists:
RottenTomatos (NA) The Best Korean Horror Movies. Available: https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/best-korean-horror-movies/
IMDb (NA) Animation, South Korea (Sorted by Popularity.) Available: https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?genres=animation&countries=KR