Today we’d like to introduce you to David “Dwooman” Woo.
David, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I remember going to a diner with my family and while we were waiting to get a table, my dad drew my brothers and I “Spiderman.” This wasn’t some shitty tube-armed, cross-hatched, knock off Spiderman, it was a LEGIT Spiderman, with anatomically correct muscles, face mask webbing, and in a cool swinging pose. I was just stunned by this. Up until that point in my life, I didn’t think a person could just draw Spiderman. Steve Ditko or Jack Kirby drew Spiderman, but my dad?! This one spiderman drawing blew up my world view.
From then on, I would draw anything that I saw; trees, fish, teenage mutant ninja turtles, whatevers, it didn’t really matter. When I wasn’t drawing I was watching a bunch of movies and TV shows. They were mostly the classic late 80s early 90s sci-fi and action movies; think Spielberg, James Cameron, and Ridley Scott. I didn’t know it at the time, but all those endless hours in front of a TV, really set the foundation for my skills as a storyboard artist. The way they composed their shots, the pacing, the dialogue, all of it, just Clockwork Oranged into my brain and I was none the wiser, just smiling and laughing away.
Flash forward to college. I’m between my junior and senior year of college and I’m sleeping on my friends couch, while I’m interning at Cartoon Network on Ben-10: Alienforce. (I was super lucky to have gotten this internship, but we’ll come back to that later.) For a couple of months I would commute from the Westside to Burbank, and get to the office around 8:00ish before anyone else arrived, start work copying papers and sending stuff, then leave at like 9:00pm, then do it all over again the next day. I fucking loved it!
The show itself was just filled with animation bad asses, Glen Murakami was show running, Dwayne McDuffie was head writer/story editor, Butch Lukic Supervising Directing, Eric Canete character/prop/bg designing, then a who’s who on the crew, just look up the IMDB cast and you’ll be blown away. Everyday I would show Glen and Butch new stuff that I worked on, and they would give notes on what to fix and how to improve. When I would stay late at the office I would just listen to Glen, Butch, and whoever else talk about animation, talk about their inspirations, etc. I was just a fly on the wall soaking in all this animation goodness pouring out from these legends.
After graduating from college, I would spend the next two years doing odd jobs to make ends meet. Video game tester, bookseller, movie theater worker, lifeguard, and as an after school science teacher known as “Dino Dave.” I would work during the day, then come home in the evening pooped, and try to work on my portfolio. Somehow I was able to cobble together a portfolio and send it out to all the big studios. Remember when I said was “SUPER LUCKY to have gotten that internship,” well, based upon a recommendation from Glen, I was given a job as a storyboard revisionist on “Generator Rex.” Looking back now, my work was nowhere near the skill level needed to meet the requirements of that job, and I owe Glen and John Fang (showrunner of Generator Rex) a huge debt of gratitude for taking that chance.
This is getting a little long and rambly, but from here on out it was a sequence of really patient people training me to be better at drawing, storyboarding, and just life. Rick Morales, Kenji Ono, and Juno Lee spent the most time shaping me from a lumpy piece of clay into a semi-refined statue of a pineapple. Ya, I worked hard, and spent countless nights working on very little sleep; I was even 40 pounds overweight at one point. But looking back, I feel incredibly grateful for the chances that I received and the plain dumb luck that I fell into.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
To quote Blade, “Some mother f*****s are always trying to skate uphill”.
HAHAHAHA. I feel like it’s always a struggle, but the struggle just changes. I think my greatest struggle was when I got hired onto “Generator Rex” as a storyboard revisionist. I was terrible at drawing, just straight garbage. I remember getting a lot of work when I first started, but a couple of weeks into the job, the work started to dry up. There was a whole week, where I had nothing to do at all, and I knew this was a bad sign.
The directors Sam and Rick were pretty upset with me at this point, because I was dead weight on the team, and rightfully so. I had asked them how I could improve and they told me I needed to work on my anatomy, my shot choice, basically everything. Mentally a switch flipped in my brain and my whole life became consumed by drawing. I was still commuting from the Westside to Burbank, so I would wake up at 6:00am, get to work by 8:00am, practice drawing all day until 10:00pm, then drive home. I must’ve done this for a month or two straight, I don’t really remember because it all blurs together.
I would continue to show the directors my drawings and they would give me notes on how to improve, and gradually I got work again. The real turning point was when I was given script pages to storyboard myself and their feedback when I finished was, “it’s ok.” Hahahaha. It wouldn’t be for another year of practicing and working until I would be promoted to storyboard artist. Things didn’t get any easier when that happened, but at least I wasn’t completely deadweight to the team.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I work as a Director in the animation industry. I have spent most of my career working on action-adventure TV shows, but have experience in both comedy, drama, and feature work as well. Some of the past shows I’ve worked on are “Motorcity,” “Trollhunters,” “Dinotrux,” “She-ra: Princesses of Power,” and Glen Keane’s upcoming movie “Over the Moon,” just to name a few.
I think what I’m most well known for are the storyboard action sequences that I do; whether that be fighting, racing, or even dancing. I really enjoy trying to find new and innovative ways to show people going at it, I even got nominated for an Annie for the fight that I had done on “Trollhunters.”
The thing that most people don’t know about my work is that I actually love doing comedy stuff too. Telling jokes and making things hilarious requires just as much skill as developing an action sequence. I think there are many parallels between the two and I love blending them.
I think what sets me apart from others is my upbringing. I grew up in Hawaii and since I was a child, have been heavily influenced by Asian media and culture while also being inundated with American entertainment as well. I remember watching Japanese samurai shows with my Grandma, or bootleg anime movies with my friends. Every now and then the local theater would also screen movies from Hong Kong, so I’d get to see Jackie Chan and Donnie Yuen performing insane stunts. This East meets West swirling in me, has allowed me to have a wider breadth of knowledge and perspective on telling stories. Also puns, I love making puns.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I really love streaming! No, not that kind of streaming you pervert. Hahahaha. It’s an educational stream that I have on youtube. Every Tuesday I stream, “Dwoo Minute Tips” where I talk about film, animation, and how to improve at storyboarding. Then on Fridays, I have a more relaxed stream where I invite my friends over and we talk about animation and play video games. I never used to understand the appeal of streaming, but after having done it for six months straight now, I totally get it! You can find my streams on youtube.com/c/dwooman_art and twitch.com/dwooman_art.
In the same vein, I love filming and shooting my own videos. For now, I’m only using my phone, but I bought lenses, a gimbal, audio equipment, and some other gear, but I can feel myself slowly slipping into a rabbit hole of gear I need. Maybe “want” is a better word. I haven’t posted anything online yet, but eventually I want to story-tell through means other than animation.
I also love designing t-shirts and stickers, so when I have some free time, I’ll probably start doing that too. I’ve always had a desire to make more physical art, and started screen printing shirts back in high school. I actually have a 4-screen t-shirt carousel in the garage, I just haven’t had time to use it. There is a lonely folder on my hard drive filled with t-shirt designs that are just silently neglected by me. Hahahaha.
Career-wise there are a couple of projects that I’m currently working on, but can’t talk about just yet.
Contact Info:
- Website: dwooman.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/dwooman_art
- Twitter: twitter.com/dwooman_art
- Other: youtube.com/c/dwooman_art and twitch.com/dwooman_art
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