Visiting Artists | CalArts Animation: The Early Years
This lecture series is open to CalArts students, faculty, staff, and alumni only. If you are interested in attending and would like a list of the films available for viewing before the class meetings please email Michael Scroggins via aka@calarts.edu to request access to the videos (some are password protected).
Peter Chung is a Korean American animator. He is best known for his unique style of animation, as the creator and director of Æon Flux and Reign: The Conqueror (Alexander Senki).
Since his father was in the foreign service of the Republic of Korea, he has lived in Seoul, London, Nairobi, Washington DC, New York, and Tunis. His parents then immigrated to the United States; he lived in McLean, Va. Chung studied animation at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) from 1979 to 1981, one year at the Character Animation program, and another year in the program in Experimental Animation.
Chung started his animation career at a small animation studio in Maryland at age 18, working for animator and illustrator Salvador Bru. Age 19 he was designing characters for Hanna-Barbera. Around this time he also started working on the layout and animation on Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice before being hired by Disney for feature development.
In addition to Æon Flux (three seasons: 1991, 1992, 1995), Chung's directing credits include the Matriculated segment from The Animatrix, and The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury. Chung served as lead character designer for the animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), C.O.P.S. (1988), Phantom 2040 (1994–1996), and Reign: The Conqueror (1999). The designs feature lean angular characters inspired by the art of Egon Schiele, a look which has become Chung's trademark character design. He also, along with Arlene Klasky and Gabor Csupo, co-designed the characters in the Nickelodeon series Rugrats, and co-directed its pilot, Pickles and The Great White Thing, and the opening sequence. In addition, in 2007 he directed the opening three-part episode for GameTaps' Revisioned: Tomb Raider, entitled Keys to the Kingdom.
He directed and co-produced Firebreather from a screenplay by James Krieg based on a story of Phil Hester and Andy Kuhna. Firebreather was a computer-animated television film, based on the Image Comics comic book series of the same name, which premiered on Nov. 24, 2010, on Cartoon Network. In 2019 he directed six episodes of Diego Molano's Victor and Valentino for Cartoon Network.
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