CBTV STUDENT FEST: “Pest” By Nooree Kim

Today, as part of Cartoon Brew’s Student Animation Festival, we’re delighted to present Pest by Nooree Kim of Toronto’s Sheridan College. This is either genius–or the stuff of nightmares. Inspired and subversive, Pest is our kind of cartoon fun. Outrageous character, silly pranks, beautifully staged and fully realized. Oh yeah, and leaving you wanting more: the true mark of a successful project. Kim can draw, has a point of view and is funny.

Continue reading for comments from the filmmaker Nooree Kim:

THE IDEA
My process for developing this film might be a bit backwards compared to other people. I consider myself more of a design person then an animator or story artist. I wanted to focus my attention on designing strong characters first and then developing a story around them. After I had more or less locked down my designs, I tried putting him in different situations and I imagined how he and the people around him would react to them. Eventually I realized that with such an impish character, it was only right that he should think that he is in charge of most of the situations that he gets into, up until the point where he gets what he deserves.

TOOLBOX
I used Photoshop to design all the backgrounds, Flash for animation, After Effects for EFX/compositing scenes and Premiere to composite everything.

LESSONS LEARNED
While working on my film, I realised that I had to reassess my time management skills. I kept lingering on particular scenes that were giving me trouble and completely lost track of time. After hitting a couple of these speed bumps, I realised that I couldn’t afford to dwell on these scenes so I decided to keep moving on unless I noticed any glaring problems. This decision allowed me to finish on schedule and also have time to go back and tweak scenes if needed.

INSPIRATIONS
Different art bloggers such as Anthony Holden, Julien Le Rolland, Vincent Giard and Willie Real have widened my perspective on the types of talent in the industry. Their work is really inspiring and is also a constant motivation for me to continue on in my path. My fellow animators/friends are also a big part of what inspires me. During the process of making this film, they were a constant positive presence and we kept each other motivated with 2am Mario Kart races and cookie baking.

FILMMAKER WEBSITE:
Nooree Kim