Commercials Director's Animated Debut, Long Long Night, Took Four and a Half Years

A Seoul director best known for television and online commercials has made his first feature film, and it is animated. Youm Kyu-bock's Long Long Night took four and a half years to make, including an 18-month pause when money ran short, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which interviewed him in Seoul.

Youm spent two decades directing commercials, including campaigns for Samsung, BMW and Canon. He studied visual design at Kookmin University. Before founding his own company, he worked as a producer at AlphaVille 44 and as a director at Elvis Production. He is now CEO of GoogGoog Studio, which produced the film alongside Studio Eon. The Contents On is presenting it.

The budget was about 5 billion won, or $3.7 million, the trade paper reported. The film adapts Ru Ri's children's book of the same name, which has sold more than 800,000 copies in South Korea. Its animation team usually numbered about 60 people. At the height of production it grew to roughly 120 artists.

The film was made in 3D using Unreal Engine, a real-time engine that is better known to many people from video games. Real-time tools let animators see lighting and camera moves as they work, rather than waiting for each frame to render. That kind of workflow can shorten some stages of production, although the film's own schedule was shaped mostly by its funding gap.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. It is the first Korean animated feature to debut at the festival since Yeon Sang-ho's The Fake in 2013. It later screened in competition at the Busan International Film Festival in October.

Next comes the market. Seoul-based Finecut handles worldwide sales for the film. On 11 November, it will give the English-dubbed version its first screening at the American Film Market, the Los Angeles event where sales agents and buyers meet to decide which films reach cinemas and streaming services in the years ahead. No distribution deals for the English-language release have been announced so far.

For an independent animated feature from a studio that is not a Hollywood name, a market screening is often the first chance to put the film in front of buyers from other countries. Youm's route, from commercials to a feature, is a path many directors have taken, though few have kept a film in production for this long.