User:Evan1975/Akom Article

Hey guys, you can delete this if you want once the relevant portions are absorbed into the Nelson Shin and AKOM articles. I can't find this anywhere on the web anymore. Evan1975 18:19, 22 June 2011 (EDT) '

Digital Korea Herald Welcome To Korea Now !!!-Society & The Arts May 18, 2002

[ANIMATION INDUSTRY] Master of Toons

AKOM Production Co.'s Nelson Shin

The AKOM Production Co. building in Songpa-gu, southeastern Seoul, stands an unimposing 10 stories and has an AM/PM mini-mart on its ground floor. It's off a main road that's skirted by a field of greenhouses, with mountains behind; certainly not an area you would call a hub. But hard as it may be to believe, this is the place where the Simpsons come to life.

That's right - "The Simpsons." Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, TV's funniest family going on 13 years, may be written and voiced in the United States, but their antics are drawn, painted and animated here. And they're not the only ones - Batman swings into action at AKOM, along with Dilbert, Tiny Toons, The Tick and dozens of other big franchises, from the minds and hands of 18 directors and about 1,000 staff. Behind this empire of characters is Nelson Shin, the founder of AKOM and a 40-year veteran in the business. At 65, he's still very active as chairman and CEO, and he's also carving new paths for the industry as a professor of animation at Hong-ik University and a coordinator of international animators. He's now trying to build the domestic animation industry into a writing and production force that can rival Japan and the United States, his two biggest projects toward that end being "Empress Chung," a full-length feature that could become Korea's first internationally distributed animated film, and Shinanix, an animation theme park.

Nelson Shin with clay models used for "Empress Chung" In his office, amid assorted dolls and drawings, Shin minces no words about his accomplishments. "I'm the pioneer of animation in Korea - I was the first, and I'm the only one (of the originals) still working in it," he says. This confidence of Shin's, obviously solid today, was forged over years of fire. He originally worked for the Seoul Daily (now The Korea Daily News) as a political cartoonist during the Park Chung Hee administration, but his discontent with the military regime's control eventually turned him off to the media. He quit in 1960 and, inspired by classics such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" (1937) and "Gulliver's Travels" (1939), decided to teach himself the craft of animation, thinking it was nothing more than an offshoot of single-panel cartooning. "I didn't know it was that hard at that time," he says with a smile. "I just thought that it would be better than being a daily cartoonist." Through perseverance, he eventually managed to establish a small company, with himself as director, producer and part-time artist. The company made many commercials and some short features, and eventually attracted ink-and-paint assignments from Japan, Korea's first foreign-contracted animation labor (what Shin calls "OEM animation").

But Shin had limited financial success, so in 1970 he decided to leave for the United States, without a single friend or relative waiting there for him. "I wanted to go to Disney Studios and become a janitor," Shin says. "I thought that maybe I could look over the shoulder of an animator, learn something from him, become famous." That scenario didn't happen, but fate had a comparable Horatio Alger story written for Shin. After working in San Francisco for a year, he moved to Hollywood and joined DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, where he found himself alongside many legends of Warner Bros. animation, including Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. Among his many projects were Pink Panther shorts, including the opening credits of the Peter Sellers films, and the light sabers for "Star Wars" (1977), which were done frame by frame. He so impressed director George Lucas that several years later, when work began on "The Empire Strikes Back," Lucas tried to recruit Shin for Lucasfilm Productions. Shin declined, reasoning that his English wasn't good enough. Despite Shin's relative successes, the bigger reality remained that the animation industry was anemic. The business had been in a rut since the 1950s, and only a few studios still operated, mostly to make commercials. The biggest ones, such as Disney, made only occasional feature films. As Shin says, "For 20 years, an entire generation grew up without animation."

But in the late 1970s, the animation market underwent a sudden Renaissance as the three major U.S. networks - ABC, CBS and NBC - began picking up animation serials for the 6:30 a.m.-noon block on Saturday. It was the beginning of the Saturday morning cartoon era, and the networks almost overnight found themselves short of animators. As Shin understates about the phenomenon, "I hit good timing." He never lacked work from then on.

In 1979, he transferred to Marvel Entertainment Group (the makers of Spider-Man and the X-Men) as a director and producer, and under them he produced 120 episodes of "Transformers" and co-produced and directed "Transformers: The Movie" (1986). In 1985, Shin got an opportunity to return home when Marvel asked him to produce "My Little Pony: The Movie" in Korea. With a large grant from Marvel, he set up AKOM (Animation Korea Movie Productions) to make the film, and when it was finished, Marvel surprisingly gave the company to him. It was a sour venture at first. "It became my agony," Shin says, adding that due to scarce work, he had to borrow $2 million from Marvel over the next four years to pay his artists. But his fortunes once again changed for the better in 1988, when Warner Bros., where Shin got his start in the business, approached him about revamping its animation department. The company hired Shin to produce its new wave of animated serials, including "Tiny Toons," "Animaniacs" and "Batman," and AKOM took off as the programs became modern classics. Shin was soon able to settle his debts with Marvel, and he resigned in 1989 to devote all of his time to AKOM as president, director, producer and animator. "I wasn't monopolizing, but I got a lot of work," he says of that newfound success. AKOM's reputation as an animation contractor for the United States grew, and the company has since produced more than 2,500 episodes of animated serials. Many other animation companies have sprung up in Korea, following AKOM's example. The producers of Fox's "The Simpsons" also took notice of AKOM's quality, and in the early 1990s they contracted the series to Shin from the original Klasky Csupo production company, starting from the 23rd episode. Although AKOM suffered losses with the series at first due to Shin's underestimating the animation cel count, the company has since turned "The Simpsons" into its flagship program, and now AKOM graciously divides the work with other studios. Shin hears that the program will run through 2004.

As one might guess, the bottom line in all of AKOM's foreign-contracted labor is salary differences - Korean animators make 10,000-15,000 won per foot of animation, while American animators make $40-50 for the same. Shin accepts this, as budgets are higher in the United States (though he bristles when told about a "Simpsons" episode in which a Korean animation studio is portrayed as a sweatshop), and he also accepts the anonymity of being an animator, saying, "It's OK that we don't get recognition, because we're doing OEM - we're working for hire." Of course, Shin hopes that the domestic animation industry eventually won't have to rely as much on foreign companies for scripts. Central to his teachings at Hong-ik University's School of Art and Design is that "technique is second; writing has to be first." "Korea is not ready for scriptwriting, because they've done OEM for so many years," Shin says. "There are no people trained for pre- and postproduction. The country has more than 60 colleges and university departments for animation, and more than 3,000 people graduate every year from them, but most don't get dispatched to the right place." One of the remedies that Shin proposes for this problem is Shinanix, a 200-acre animation theme park in Cheonan, South Chungcheon Province, which he says will be closer in spirit to Universal Studios than Walt Disney World. "There, I can share the process with the public," Shin says of the complex, which will comprise a working studio, a theme park and a residential area for artists. It's supported by the Ministry of Finance and Economy, which likes the complex for its potential to enhance the nation's animation production. It will open in four years. Shin also sends his message to young animators as president of the Korean chapter of ASIFA - a 4,500-member international animation association that spreads ideas, support, publicity and connections - and as publisher and editor-in-chief of Animatoon, an internationally distributed magazine for animators that has the same purposes as ASIFA. "I'm returning some contribution to the public with the magazine," Shin says. "It's losing money, but we're still printing. It's a public service." Without question, AKOM's highest-profile project is next year's anticipated international release of "Empress Chung," an animated folk-tale retelling that many are already calling "the Korean 'Mulan'" (1998, Disney). In the fable, the heroine Chung offers her life to the Sea King in exchange for 300 sacks of rice and her father's eyesight. Shin wrote the script (complete with McDonald's-friendly sidekicks), and he is also directing it. AKOM is collaborating with a North Korean studio on production, and Shin praises the high-quality footage that his remote partners have shown so far. There is one more fact about Shin that deserves mention: He is North Korean, from the village of Pyeongsan in Hwanghye Province. His efforts in the animation industry have long been personal as well as on behalf of both Koreas.

By Albert Lim 2001.08.27