Evan1975: bolded most relevant info

2011-06-22T22:31:04Z

bolded most relevant info

@@ Line 88: / Line 88: @@
 As Shin understates about the phenomenon, "I hit good timing." He never
 lacked work from then on.
-But his fortunes once again changed for the better in 1988, when Warner
+'''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

Evan1975: New page: ''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. ~~~~ ' ...

2011-06-22T22:19:21Z

New page: ''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. ~~~~ ' ...

New page

''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. [[User:Evan1975|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

User:Evan1975/Akom Article - Revision history

Evan1975: bolded most relevant info

Evan1975: New page: ''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. ~~~~ ' ...