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CGSociety :: Artist Profile
Paul Yan
by Paul Hellard, 13 December 2005
Paul Yan talks about his Egghunt animation. The ultimate egg balancing race.
Paul Yan is currently a Character Animator at Activision's Toys For Bob studio in Northern California. He recently graduated from Cogswell College where he completed a short undergraduate thesis film. “I was more or less completely new to 3D and not knowing what the heck I was getting myself into!,” admits 23 year old Yan, “I documented my progress from the very beginning on both my website and actually right here on a CGSociety Thread. Having to balance school, work and a short film production was insane, but after a year and a half of labor I finally gave birth to the animated film, ‘Egghunt’.”
He freely admits that for a long time he saw CG art as a complete unknown. When Paul Yan began, his introduction was with a vector-based paint program called RIPaint. He noticed Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) were looking for splash art and graphical interfaces for their sites so he produced several RIP and ANSII art with an underground art scene called ACiD productions. From then, it was impossible to go back. “From there, I began to freelance as a graphic/web designer,” he says. “Soon enough, I began working full-time making flash presentations for executive trade shows. At the same time, I began my studies at Cogswell College and decided that I wanted to move from motion graphics to character animation.”
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Egghunt Team
Now putting it down to perhaps inexperience, Paul Yan had planned to make ‘Egghunt’ a solo effort, as a one-man band. But after mapping out the breakdown deadlines on a calendar, he realized he’d have to get some help. “I wasn't even going to have enough time to compose a [musical] score myself,” adds Yan. “Fortunately for me, my production thread on CGTalk had caught quite a few eyes and I got several offers by musicians to have my film scored. The first person to contact me was a guy from Greece named Yiannis Kranidiotis.” Paul Yan fought through initial doubts to jump into an online collaboration, and after a few drafts and several emails, Egghunt became a two-man, international effort!
Egghunt Festival run
As a first attempt at a short CG animated film, Paul Yan didn't expect ‘Egghunt’ to be received as well as it was. To his surprise, this two man online collaboration was accepted at Oscar recognized festivals like the LA Shorts International, Palm Springs International and the Chicago International Children's Film Festival. The short also aired on Nickelodeon's Nextoons Nicktoons Film Festival and got the attention of websites like Animwatch. “Not only did I get to meet guys like Andrew Stanton and Sam Chen in the process, but hearing people's reaction to the film sort of confirmed to me that the time spent hermitting myself up to get the film done was time well spent!”
Paul Yan swears by the short film genre for animators in his position. “It is more feasible for smaller, independent animator-filmmakers, and the time constraint forces you to be more concise in your storytelling,” he explains. “A lot of times feature films can get away with adding flashy fluff – with short films, its much more apparent if the story is successful or not because every second of screen-time is important.”
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Watch 'Egghunt', (14MB mov)
Requires CGTalk or CGSociety Membership & Quicktime 7
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Future omelettes
Finding a chance to see what's been happening in animation outside of SIGGRAPH was incredibly inspiring for Yan. Sometimes during the Egghunt project, Yan says his view of animation was so pigeon-holed towards 3D stuff that he found himself forgetting to check what's happening outside of that realm. “I have been tinkering with a few ideas about a mixed media piece, ” he says. “It seems to me that animation is typically the genre stuck in the back corner of film festivals and I'd be totally psyched to see something that challenges the stereotype of what animation is all about.I think for a lot of people still, animation shorts are either cute, funny sketches or over extended, hallucinogenic screen-savers. I'm still in the middle of solidifying the story concept, but I am looking into doing something that involves live action and animation, but unlike Roger Rabbit. We'll see where that takes me!”
Paul Yan doesn't plan on jumping into another film immediately. At the moment, he is concentrating more of his down-time refining animation skills and practicing with lip sync exercises. “When I was working on ‘Egghunt’,” says Yan, “I had to spread out my time between animation and all the other disciplines involved in making the film, so it's been a really nice change of pace to solely concentrate on animation.”
My Studio
”My arsenal of weapons includes a PC, stacks of inspiring art books and a glass half-full of Odwalla orange juice. Other than that, I use a tablet PC when it's time to get some fresh air and see the sun.”
Related Links
Paul Yan
CGSociety Thread
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