VANCOUVER – Three months after it was released all over the globe on Netflix, a fairly full theater of moviegoers sat down to watch a screening of Bong Joon-ho‘s imaginative and political drama “Okja.” Granted, many on hand knew there was a chance the famed Korean director would appear in some aspect, but that’s still impressive for a film available instantly in a nation where 5.2 million plus residents have the streaming service (about 15% of the population). Especially as the venue managers at the Vancouver International Film Festival needed to open up the balcony for more patrons to find seats.
After the screening, Bong appeared via Skype from South Korea, joining visual effects supervisor Erik-Jan De Boer for a Q&A that I humbly moderated. This was a chance for De Boer, who won an Academy Award for “Life of Pi,” to speak in depth on the film’s incredible special effects to an audience that included many of his peers in the Visual Effects community (Vancouver is actually a major hub for the industry these days). “Okja” may have come out relatively early in the awards season calendar and it’s unclear how Netflix’s release strategy will affect its Oscar chances overall, but it’s still expected to be a major contender for a Visual Effects nomination.
If you have not had the pleasure of seeing “Okja” yet — and you absolutely should — the film centers on young Mija (An Seo Hyun) and the “super pig” Okja she’s raised in the beautiful mountains of Korea. Unbeknownst to her, Okja was actually created in a lab by the powerful Mirando Corporation and is part of a decade-long program to create genetically mutated animals for better food production. When the company decides Okja should be the public “face” of its new meat product, the pair is separated and Mija sets off on a dangerous mission to bring Okja home.
Speaking partially through an interpreter, Bong said that, while writing the screenplay, he worked with a creature designer on bringing the completely CG Okja to life. He noted, “I was thinking about the concept and how it would look like, how Okja would be described and then seen. We talked about a lot of different ideas and stories. We shared a lot of different stories making this for one year.”*
*In the image accompanying this post Bong holds up the final five-inch model of Okja that De Boer and Method Studios used to create the super pig digitally.
Bong was impressed by De Boer’s work on “Pi” and had worked with his Method Studios colleague Dan Glass on “Snowpiercer,” but when they met he only had unfinished concept art of the creature and no script.
“I got a call from Dan, he said, ‘Bong wants to come in and show us some of the ideas that he has,'” De Boer recalls. “So, we met with [producer Dooho Choi] and Bong, and like I said all he had was some concept work of this strange looking creature, which was fascinating. Just the idea of having such an incredible skilled difference between the main actress and this animal, then for it to be a relationship that’s intimate and trustful. Which means that to sell that properly there had to be a lot of contact.”
He continues, “I take great pride in is that in our animation we’re always first taking care of the physicality and selling the presence of our CGI in the scene. Which means that yes the acting is important, and all the other contact is important. But what’s even more important is the fact that we always believe that animal weighs six tons and that the main collisions that we need to sell to you as an audience are the ones with the ground. That gravity is always just grounding that animal in each scene. Because I think without depth you will never believe the rest that we do. So, for me, that’s my main priority is to sell that every step is heavy enough, and I do really believe that the animal has the right heft and weight.”