Baobab Studios have announced its next project, Namoo, an immersive animated film for VR directed by award-winning filmmaker Erick Oh.
Namoo (the Korean word for ‘tree’) is described as a ‘narrative poem come to life as an immersive animated film, and is inspired by the life of Oh’s grandfather. Centered around one tree, Namoo “follows the meaningful moments of one man’s life,” where “the tree starts as a seed and eventually grows into a fully-mature tree, collecting meaningful objects that represent positive and painful memories in its branches.”
You can view the announcement trailer below, giving us an early look at the stunning animation style.
Naboo was created with Quill, the VR animation tool available for PC VR. As you can see from the trailer, that gives it a very distinct visual style similar to many other Quill animations we’ve seen before, but with a bit of Baobab polish added on top.
Erick Oh is a Korean filmmaker based in California, and has worked across many different animation mediums. His work has been presented and awarded at various festivals and award ceremonies. Previously, Oh worked as an animator at Pixar on films like Cars 2, Brave, Monsters University, and Inside Out. He has a plethora of awards and lots of experience to his name, which you can view over on his website.
Naboo will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, which is currently running until February 3rd. As with other Baobab titles that debuted at film festivals, it’s likely that Naboo will see a wider release onto VR headsets sometime in the future.
