Peter Chung

Peter Kunshik Chung (born April 19, 1961 in Seoul, South Korea, as 정건식 (Chung Kunshik, or alternative spelling Jeong Geon-Sik^[1]), is a Korean American animator. He is best known for his unique style of animation, as the creator and director of Æon Flux, which ran as shorts on MTV's Liquid Television before launching as its own half-hour television series.

Early life and career

Peter Chung was born on April 19, 1961. Since his father was in the foreign service of the Republic of Korea, he has lived in Seoul, London, Nairobi, Washington, D.C., New York and Tunis. His parents then immigrated to the United States; he lived in McLean, Virginia. Chung studied animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) from 1979 to 1981, one year at the Character Animation program, and another year in the program in Experimental Animation.

Chung started his animation career at a small animation studio in Maryland at age 18, working for animator and illustrator Salvador Bru. From there at age 19 he was designing characters for Hanna-Barbera. About this time he also started working on the layout and animation on Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice before being hired by Disney for feature development.^[2]

Directing credits

In addition to Æon Flux (3 seasons: 1991, 1992, 1995), Chung's directing credits include the Matriculated segment from The Animatrix, and The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury. Chung served as lead character designer for the animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), C.O.P.S. (1988) Phantom 2040 (1994–1996) and Reign: The Conqueror (1999). The designs feature lean angular characters inspired by the art of Egon Schiele, a look which has become Chung's trademark character design. He also, along with Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo, co-designed the characters in the Nickelodeon series Rugrats, as well as directed the pilot for this series, "Tommy Pickles and The Great White Thing" and the opening sequence. In addition, in 2007 he directed the opening three-part episode for GameTaps' Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider, entitled "Keys to the Kingdom".

He has also directed some television advertisements – available at Peter Chung at Acme Filmworks – including a Diet Pepsi advertisement featuring Cindy Crawford and Malcolm McDowell.

As of 2009, among other unannounced projects, he was working on a full-length animated feature entitled Luvula. He is also director of the television adaption of Firebreather for Cartoon Network.^[3] Mr. Chung has also expressed interest in creating a new direct-to-video animated feature of Æon Flux.^[4]

Animation style and influences

Chung's animation, particularly Æon Flux and Matriculated, tends toward the artistically and thematically experimental.

Chung's stylistic influences uniquely include European expressionism such as Egon Schiele and Horst Janssen, European comics such as Moebius and Silvio Cadelo, in addition to Japanese animation.

In the animation field, he admires Yoshinori Kanada, Koji Morimoto, and Igor Kovalyov.

Ralph Bakshi, one of the first to hire Chung, has stated that one of Chung's favorite artists is Toulouse-Lautrec.^[5]

Chung was one of the artists working on the Underground roleplaying game (1993) from Mayfair Games; Aeon Flux was also an influence on the game.^[6]

Personal life

Chung has also been a participant in online forums, where users have asked him about his work and creative process. Two of the more prominent forums are ILX and Monican Spies.

Chung currently teaches a Master Class at the Division of Animation and Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts since Spring 2013.

Quotes

• "For me, a degree of ambiguity, or mystery, is the key ingredient of any artistic statement."
• "I often remind myself that animation is the creation of the illusion of spontaneity. Because nothing is in fact less spontaneous than the process of animating."
• "The task of the animator, to breathe life into his characters, requires concentration akin to that of an actor whose performance has been entirely scripted down."

Filmography

• Fire and Ice (1983) (film) - Animator, layout artist
• The Transformers (1984) (TV series) - Storyboard artist
• The Transformers: The Movie (1986) (film) - Storyboard artist
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) (TV series) - Art direction, opening title design
• Ring Raiders (1989)
• C.O.P.S. (1988) (TV series) - Character design, opening title direction, overseas animation supervision
• Rugrats (1991) (TV series) - Animator: main title animation, pilot, character design
• Phantom 2040 (1994) (TV series) - Character design
• Æon Flux (1995) (TV series) - Director, producer, scripts, character design
• The Rugrats Movie (1998) (film) - Storyboards
• Alexander Senki (1999) aka Alexander (international) and Reign: The Conqueror (USA) (film) (OVA) - Character designer
• Party 7 (2000) (film) - Animator: credit sequence
• Matriculated (2003) (short) (segment of The Animatrix) - Director, script, design
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004) (OVA) - Director, character designer
• Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider Animated Series (2007) (first episodes in 3 parts) - Story and designer
• Firebreather (2010) (film) - Director
• Diablo III: Wrath (2012) (film) - Director

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Peter Chung

• Peter Chung at the Internet Movie Database
• Peter Chung at Acme Filmworks
• "The State of Visual Narrative in Film and Comics", an article by Chung. Animation World Magazine, Issue 3.4, July 1998.
• AWN gallery
• CATSUKA-Peter Chung Detailed work history, as well as illustrations and videos of Chung's work. (French)
• La Cinémathèque de Toulouse - Colloque (French)

Interviews

• University of Michigan presentation October 5, 2006.
• Interview with Peter Chung by Ed Stastny
• Suicide Girls interview
• Animation Arena Interview. Done between the release of The Animatrix and Dark Fury.
• Bright Lights Film interview
• Barnes & Noble interview
• Onion A.V. Club Interview. April 30, 2003.
• LJ monican spies interview January 4, 2006.