2010 Reel from YELLOWSHED, a design and animation firm co-founded by Soyeon D. Kim and husband Todd Hemker.
On Saturday, Aug. 6, Visual Communications, a national Asian Pacific American media arts organization, presents the mini-animation festival Pow! Whiz! Bam! in Downtown Los Angeles’s Little Tokyo district.
Among the animations being screened are short films by CalArts’ Character Animation and Experimental Animation faculty member Soyeon D. Kim and alumna Elizabeth Ito (Film/Video BFA 04). Their films, along with works by local artists, kick off the festival at 2 pm during the program, The Art of Movement: Local Animators Showcase.
Descriptions from Visual Communications:
- Father and Sister (United States/South Korea, 2010) Dir.: Soyeon Kim | 5 min., color, cut-out & 2D computer animation: A chance occurrence between a father and a sister leads to a unique case of workplace temptation.
- Where There Here (United States, 2009) Dir.: Soyeon Kim | 90 secs., black/white & color, sand animation : This kid-friendly workout is a playful visualization of “Hide and Seek” using African pictorial design and tribal music.
- Welcome to My Life (United States, 2004) Dir.: Elizabeth Ito |5 min., black/white, pencil animation: Voiced by members of the director’s own family, Welcome to My Life documents a family of monsters trying to lead a normal American life.
An interactive artists’ talk—with a presentation of storyboards and rough drafts—will accompany the screenings, providing the audience a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the world of animation.
At 5 pm, the festival will hold the LA premiere of Ice, a 2007 feature-length film by Japanese director Makoto Kobayashi, who creates a “sci-fi, apocalyptic, lesbian take on Romeo and Juliet,” followed by an 8 pm screening of Satoshi Nishimura’s 90-minute space western, Trigun: Badlands Rumble (Japan 2011).
POW! WHIZ! BAM!
Saturday, Aug. 6
Tateuchi Democracy Forum at the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
111 North Central Ave., Los Angeles
Tickets: $20-25 for a festival pass; $8-10 for individual programs.
Elizabeth Ito’s second-year film at CalArts: