Birthday Boy is Sejong Park’s first 3D CGI film and one of the first films of the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) to use digital pre-visualisation. During his time at AFTRS he also performed 3D animation and digital effects on four other student films.

“I’m crazy about animation and artificial movement. Currently the popular animation that people get to see is mainly for children. I just thought that it would be nice to do an animation that was for adults as well as for children. Rather than going for ‘action, action, action’, I wanted to make something that was heartbreaking, very warm and gentle.

When I started thinking about Birthday Boy, I based the concept on my childhood story. That came out very strongly, living in Australia and seeing westernized kids getting birthday presents, all those material items. Making toys by hand, all that is based on my childhood experience.”

Set in 1951 during the Korean War, Birthday Boy is the story of Manuk who lives in a small village and plays at being a soldier like his father. Sejong created Manuk by filming a real six-year old boy and studying his movements.

“I had to watch him over and over again and see what he does when his back is itchy, that sort of thing. So I had to discover a little boy’s mannerisms and make it clear in my animation that this is a little boy.

First I drew the storyboard and asked the little boy to act out the scenes shown in the storyboard. Then I did the modeling in 3D, which was the longest part of the process. Then texturing: I had to paint all Manuk’s clothes and his face on the computer, things like the dirt under his fingernails and the smudge of dirt when he wipes his nose. I painted it in Photoshop, then retouched and changed a lot, mainly a lot of 2D artwork. Then I added everything on the body to the 3D-model. I had a very talented matte painter and he touched up the background, working in more details.

Then came the lighting and the direction of the light. For the storyboard, if you look at it, I drew where the shadows were, and from where the light falls in.

I talked to Ian Brown, who lectures at the Australian Film Television and Radio School, and he volunteered his time for the lighting. Compositing was done at the end by Mike Daly, a very talented ex-student of AFTRS, who has made several animated films.

I did a lot of work at all stages of production, but at the end I had to have other people come in and work on things like lighting and compositing etc. These people donated their time because they loved Birthday Boy.

I hope that people rich or poor can watch this film and sense something human, that is what I aimed to do.”