David O'Reilly (1985, Kilkenny, Ireland) is an Irish film director and artist based in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is known for creating animated short films with a stripped down aesthetic.
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Aside from a 1-minute film entitled Ident from which he draws his logo, the earliest work available on his website is WOFL2106[1]. This short draws equally on original designs and popular internet memes, such as Brian Peppers, to create a disturbing landscape of serenity juxtaposed with chaos. This film sets the tone for his entire ouvre, though the direct inclusion of outside memes disappears in his later work.
His short film, Please Say Something, was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival, Best Narrative Short at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival[2] and several other awards.[3]
He created several animation sequences and props for the 2007 film Son of Rambow.[4] As well as animation for the "guide" sequences in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Shynola.[5]
He created the first video for Irish rock band U2's single "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight."[6] The video was released on U2.com on July 21, 2009.
His latest short film, The External World, premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival and the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and has since won over twenty awards on its festival circuit.[7]
On March 13, 2008, a YouTube user named RANDYPETERS1, a 9-year-old boy from Chicago, submitted a handdrawn animated video about Octocat, a red cat head with eight long legs looking for his parents. The videos featured crude MS Paint animation and a loud, highpitched, child-like voice narrating. On September 7, the fifth, final episode was released, but featured an unexpected twist - about 20 seconds into it, the crude sketchy animation switched to intricately crafted 3D with an orchestral soundtrack; the whole Octocat story (and as such, the Randy Peters persona) was revealed to be by David O'Reilly [8]. In an interview he joked "I wanted to try experimenting with the Youtube audience and Microsoft Paint. The story for Octocat came to me by reading the bible word-for-word backwards".[9]