David
J. Sung grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii reading comic books, watching
Dr. Seuss cartoons and late night horror movies. He studied Illustration
at New York’s School of Visual Arts after majoring in Film for
a year. Frustrated with the Illustration department strict attention
to photo realistic rendering rather than stylized drawings. He
began to take several elective courses in animation and film to
avoid painting another render tedious book cover class assignment.
While studying at SVA he landed a gig as a layout artist for MTV’s
first feature animation “Beavis & Butthead do America”. Where
he gained exposure in production, traditional animation, and dodging
M&M food fights. “The best thing about the job was all the free
art supplies you wanted. The downside was learning how to draw
in Mike Judge’s style. Most of the time I’ll lightly rough out
the sketch with my right hand and then finish the un-even line
art with my left hand. The final layout looked like I couldn’t
draw for s#%$!”
It
was the animated short “TIN TOY” produced by Pixar that the subject
of CG animation became interesting. “I’ve always enjoyed animation
and took classes on stop motion and in-betweening. But being a
comic book artist or filmmaker was my calling card not an animator.
“TIN TOY” opened up my eyes to the new medium - the images was
a startling mix of art and technology.” Taking advantage of SVA
new computer art classes in 3D Studio DOS, Softimage and Maya,
he freelanced after graduation locally in New York City in various
position as a CGI/ traditional animator, political cartoonist,
character designer, storyboard artist, art director with the following
companies: Cartoonist & Writers Syndicate, FOX News Channel, Nickelodeon,
Children’s Television Workshop, Grey Advertising, MTV Animation
and Sony Entertainment.
Active
in educating the next generation of animators he now teaches at
the State University of New York/ Fashion Institute of Technology
in the Computer Graphics department. With the success of directing
JIGGY BUG which won first place for 3D animation at the 2000 Animation
World Celebration and the completion of a pilot. He’s developing
a CGI film FIG-MUTANTS as creator and director.
David's
thoughts on production:
“Learning your craft is utmost important and having a fairly positive
attitude for production challenge’s help. I faced couple of sleepless
nights trying to problem solve in CGI, storytelling or a specific
design issue. Usually I do some research and development to solve
a problem or clear my thoughts until the next morning with a fresh
perspective. I’ve known couple of colleagues who just generate
negative energy when they face a crisis. There’s always a way
to work around the dilemma. Passing the negative attitude to your
peers isn’t going to help anyone or throwing in the towel. You
grow as an artist learning to brainstorm possible solution in
production. Especially as a director when the level of complexity
heighten.”
