Baobab Studios
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The Filmic Equivalent of a Haiku: Erick Oh on his Sundance VR Film Namoo
One of the most understated pieces at Sundance’s New Frontier this year was Namoo, an animated short by Baobab Studios and director Erick Oh. Baobab has been pushing the boundaries of top-tier animated virtual reality since its founding in 2015, with its short immersive films growing in depth, length, and complexity and leading to a slew of awards and spun-off properties including feature films and series. Erick Oh is an award-winning director and animator from South Korea and based in California who’s worked at Pixar and with Tonko House and whose work has shown at Annecy, Anima Mundi, and other festivals. […]
by Randy Astle on Feb 6, 2021 -
“VR is Not Another Kind of Filmmaking”: Baobab Studios’ Eric Darnell on Animated VR
If you’d mentioned Eric Darnell’s name a few years ago, most people would have thought of the Madagascar films or the Penguins of Madagascar spin-off, all of which he co-directed while at DreamWorks Animation, where he also directed Antz and contributed to films like The Prince of Egypt and Shrek. But think of him today and you’re just as likely to conjure up images of bumbling aliens, a fluffy and resourceful bunny or a multicolored crow, and all in virtual reality. That’s because Darnell is the co-founder and chief creative officer at Baobab Studios, which in just two years has established itself as one of the United […]
by Randy Astle on Jul 27, 2017 -
Tribeca 2017: Five Questions with Rainbow Crow Producer Maureen Fan
One of my favorite virtual reality pieces at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival was the animated Invasion! from San Francisco-based Baobab Studios. The short film, directed by Baobab co-founder Eric Darnell, was reportedly downloaded over one million times (including in my household, where my kids loved its Google Cardboard version), making it the most-downloaded virtual reality piece yet, and in September a feature film adaptation was announced. Baobab thus had a high bar for their next project, so they launched two: Asteroids!, which premiered at Sundance in January, and now Rainbow Crow, which premiered this year at Tribeca. Following in the kid-friendly tradition of Darnell’s […]
by Randy Astle on Apr 30, 2017
