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In 2011, animation studio Meditation With a Pencil released its first feature 2D animation film, Green Days. From the development stage to production and completion, it took a total of 11 years and 100 thousand cels but the hard work payed off when the film was invited to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival for competition that same year. Since 2014, the studio has continued creating film adaptations of Korean short literary works such as The Road Called Life (2014), and this year, two films from its second series, The Shower and The Shaman Sorceress are to be theatrically released. We met with the director and head of Meditation With a Pencil, AHN Jae-hoon.

In Korea numerous animation works disappear after one chance of a showcase and then are released on IPTV. On the other hand, in the case of the U.S. and Japan, such works have the chance to grow with the audience who end up sharing the same screening or viewing experience regardless of generation. And this kind of process has inspired new cultures. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for Korea. I hoped Green Days would serve that role. I wanted to show it was possible to make a film that could continue to reach out to the audience and not be forced out of theaters as a victim of commercialism. It’s also extremely important for my young staff to create works that are celebrated and remembered by people regardless of time. I wanted to prove that it was possible for a work to have a life beyond its completion when it has a clear idea of what it wants to convey to the audience. 

Taking in the feedback from the audience who watched Green Days, I slowly began to grasp ‘what my work should strive for’. It’s quite difficult to overcome the gap in cost between Hollywood works. And I realized that if I continued telling the stories of the people I cared for and lived alongside within Korean-compatible costs and scale, I could convince people to start paying attention to me. 

Current Korean society modifies everything of ours incorporated into a form of work. Costume dramas in the past used to place more weight on the historical research of costumes, whereas now, everything just needs to look pretty. The traditional Korean costumes shouldn’t have shoulder boards, but every low-class military officer in recent costume dramas have shoulder boards, and there is also an extensive use of silk. This is contrary to fact. I believe it’s because the acting talent wouldn’t stand out, and pretty pictures couldn’t be created otherwise. Actual image or non-animation seems more fantastic, more design-oriented, and barrier-breaking these days. If this is the case, I started thinking it would be good if animation could be a better means to show what we really are like. The interesting thing is that animations tend to shine more when they choose to truthfully attempt to look into people rather than exaggerating them. 

Short literature is something I’ve always liked since I was very young. My love for novels and poetry created a desire in me to become a writer or poet. A culture that only focuses on form cannot show depth. When you can philosophically understand and respect not only the exterior as well as the interior of things, then it becomes a culture. Then what can you possibly do with animation? Korean literature is what I really like and wish to show people from other countries. It reflects everything such as the life, culture and expression of Korea. 

Another thing is we have staff members in our studio who are shy about meeting with the audience despite the fact they are people with outstanding sensitivity and talent. If I managed to create the framework, I knew I could help them reach out to the audience with a work based on a literary short. I had a feeling I could inspire them. I felt they could be motivated to think ‘So this is what it’s like to meet with the audience, this is how to do it’. They are people who have more outstanding abilities and sensibilities than I do. And this desire to give them a chance is the reason why I want to continue with this type of framework. 

I always believed The Shower (based on the novel titled Rain Shower), a familiar short to most Koreans, was a work I inevitably had to do someday. The author, HWANG Sun-won’s son, Professor HWANG Dong-kyu didn’t want the short to be dramatized for film. I guess he feared it would damage the original work. It took me almost a year of letter-writing and finally drawings of how I would like to adapt Rain Shower to get his permission in the end.

The world is still at fierce religious war where all humanity is lost. The Shaman Sorceress deals with this situation, while also posing the original author KIM Dong-ri’s viewpoint on the drastically disappearing traditional culture. I felt it was the right time to reintroduce this piece to the Korean society. 

While there are special Ghibli and Pixar showcases, there rarely any for Korean animation works. Not too long ago, during a lecture I gave to foreigners, a Chinese participant explained that although Disney and Pixar may be referenced in university animation curricula in China, no one talks about Korean animation studios. If we don’t show what we are doing now, Korean animation won’t be different from what it is now in the next 10 years. Special Pixar showcases have plenty of advertisement sponsors, but in our case, we have to make extra efforts to arrange ours. My staff may find this embarrassing, but in 10 years, 20 years time, I believe ‘the footsteps I left during the growth of Korean animation’ will be acknowledged some day as a significant contribution. 

The reason why earth is beautiful is due to its diversity. If there were only animation from Hollywood or Japan, the world of animation wouldn’t be so beautiful. When animation works from other countries other than these two shine in their own colors as they reach out to the audience, it will inspire people from other countries. Diversity can be sustained by holding on to your own color. Many animation industries around the world are slowly losing their own colors due to the challenged production environment they are placed in. Everyone is being merged into a single color. Amongst this state of things, I want to show the world that a filmmaker in Korea who is in love with his own people is working hard to tell stories based on their lives. I hope my work can offer the chance to discover Korean people, spread their stories and come to love them.