An Interview with Peter Chung

Thanks for the post!

Try this:
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3701

CJC: Is there any one thing apart from money that is preventing you from doing the kinds of personal projects that you would prefer to do?

PC: Well, that's a tough question because, in a way, I'm not interested in making anything that's purely personal, like an independent festival film that only gets seen by a few people. I'm really interested in working to a mass audience and having my work function in a marketplace, yet remaining somehow personal.

To expand on what I meant to say here-- mass media as a medium of expression is distinct from filmmaking or animation. With the system in place for films to be seen by a mass audience, it seems short-sighted, and a bit "luddistic" not to take advantage of it. The downside, of course, is that one might make artistic compromises in order to be accepted. But I believe that the most important and influential art doesn't announce itself as "art" at all.

It seems very much like anime is ready for a new direction. I know the selling at to a large audience is important but since the direction of the animations for a long time now has been very much copied and the ideas are just not fresh it would be good to see something new.

I'm pretty sick of superheroes. I'm pretty sick of the main characters doing soliloquuys', they need something new, and wouldn't something new would at this point be considered art?

Even the drawings have become cliche. Many of them look similiar in style to me to the point I don't even care to know the name of the artist.

Now, not to heap praise where I've heaped it before but Aeon Flux really did come up with a new angle, she was not a superhero. She was not the antichrist either. She was a woman with her own problems and darn good aim. The plots were dreamy and the relationship between she and Trevor Goodchild was the one part of the plot seen before and needed again, unrequited love. Perhaps this is not the way you see it Peter, but it was ever so wonderful to me. Nothing really has held my interest as much since.

I have no problem appealing to a mass audience, who's to say the larger part of humanity cannot recognize and appreciate originality and at the same time hold the common denominator to our existence.

Trevor and Aeon were like a car accident, difficult to look away.

"Trevor and Aeon were like a car accident, difficult to look away"

Lol that reminds me of the first time I saw Aeon Flux, I was just a kid and our family had just gotten cable TV which included MTV. I loved watching the music videos and one day when i turned MTV on there was this really wierd animated show on with a very slender woman running in and out of a elavator shooting at a rope. I remember the sound of the helicopter and the fact that no one spoke. It didn't scare me or upset me in any way it just felt like i had to watch more of it but I didn't really understad why.

Many years later in my teens I saw reruns of the half hour episodes on MTV and thats when I remebered what I had watched as a kid and i assumed that it was probably the same show.

Roughly two years ago I bought the DVD box and finally! their it was, fucking "TIDE"! It still gave me that wierd feeling, like a car accident, difficult to look away!

I had the same reaction -- my young, impressionable mind just stopped in its tracks (or rather, went into overdrive). I caught just a moment that first time, but from then on I would stay up late at night in the hopes of finding more, and I pieced things together bit by bit.

Never say never, I guess, but I can't imagine ever again seeing anything on MTV that would affect me so much.

"you did several years of commercial work. How satisfying is that on a professional level?

PC: Well, it gives you a chance to work with a lot of different styles. I enjoy commercials because it lets you work with a schedule and a budget that is much more generous than what I'm used to on TV..."

You know what would be cool is a commercial with Aeon Flux in it. I know that sounds awful, Aeon Flux selling shampoo or something but with the budget they give for commercials and the exposure it would bring I think it would start the ball rolling for an eventual something.

Prob MTV or maybe even Peter Chung would not agree. But I think it would be very interesting to see.