Payut Ngaokrachang
Encyclopedia
Payut Ngaokrachang was a Thai
cartoonist
and animator
. He created Thai cinema's
first cel-animated
feature film, The Adventure of Sudsakorn
.
. As a child, Payut was interested in nang drama
(shadow-puppet plays
) and Felix the Cat
.
In 1944, he enrolled in classes to become an art teacher. Payut studied by correspondence with illustrator
Hem Vejakorn
, whose work was seen on the covers of 10-satang pulp novels. Through their letters
back and forth, Hem introduced Payut to drawing.
"I had been a fan of Khru
Hem’s drawings since 1944, when I was 14. So, I wrote him asking to become his student. He was a great teacher and taught me a lot, from how to draw anatomy to getting the right perspective on paintings. I learned all this from his letters," Payut told The Nation
newspaper in a 2004 interview.
At age 17, Payut took his first job painting backgrounds for play sets as he traveled around Thailand with theater groups. Payut also worked as a block printer, making etching
s, and was employed at an advertising agency.
In 1955, while he was recovering from an illness, Payut set about animating a cartoon he had been drawing for a newspaper. In the cartoon, Haed Mahasajan, a policeman directs traffic, swaying to the tune of music in the manner of Thai classical dancers. A woman starts crossing the street when the zipper
on her dress splits, diverting the policeman's attention with the result that cars pile up all around him.
The 12-minute short premiered on July 5, 1955 at Sala Chalermthai Theater.
, which led to his hiring by the United States Information Service, where he worked for nearly 33 years as an artist.
For training, the USIS gave Payut a choice of spending six to eight months with Disney
or going to Japan
. He chose Japan, where he has said he "just looked around, as animation did not exist there at the time." (See History of anime
).
Payut only made one animated film for the USIS, a 20-minute recounting of the story of Hanuman
, the white monkey in the classic Ramayana
. Made in 1957, it was called Hanuman Pachon Pai Krang Mai (The Adventure of Hanuman). It was a propaganda
work, with a red monkey representing communism
.
In 1960, he created a short cartoon called Dek Kab Mee (A Boy and A Bear) for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
, which called for unity in order to combat communism.
He also worked part-time jobs making animated commercials.
While keeping his day job at USIS, Payut began work in 1976 on The Adventure of Sudsakorn
, featuring a character from one of Thailand's most famous literary works, Pra Apai Manee by the poet Sunthorn Phu
. Sud Sakorn, the boy hero, is the son of a mermaid and a wandering musician-prince, and his adventures include fights with an elephant, a shark, a dragon horse, as well as encounters with a king, a hermit
, a yogi
, a magic wand and ghosts.
The 82-minute feature was released on Songkran Day, April 13, 1979.
The production was plagued with shortages of capital, personnel and equipment. For the first six months, the crew had 100 workers, but by the second year their numbers were reduced to nine.
"I made a lot of my equipment from pieces I got from junk of World War II military surplus
," Payut told writer John A. Lent. "I'd find a screw here, a crank there, etc. I used a combat camera and adapted it. I pulled together pieces of wood, aluminum, whatever I could find."
The intense, detailed work on Sudsakorn impaired his eyesight. "I did all the key drawings myself, even the layout and design ... I was almost blind from doing that film and now I wear contacts. My right eye is long, my left is short, crooked because of all that detailed work."
His next animated film wasn't made until 1992, when he was subsidized by Film of Japan to make a film for educating girls under the title My Way.
He's also been a guest lecturer on animation at many universities.
Payut's The Adventure of Sudsakorn is occasionally screened at film and animation festivals around the world.
While feature-length animated features are rare in the Thai film industry since The Adventure of Sudsakorn, animation is widely used in Thai television series and in commercials. A 3D animated
Sudsakorn series is one such show.
In 2006
, Thailand's first computer-animated feature film, Khan Kluay
, about King Naresuan the Great
's war elephant, was released. It was directed by Kompin Kemgunerd, who has worked on such Disney
features as Atlantis: The Lost Empire
and Tarzan
, and Blue Sky Studios
' Ice Age
. Although the work is being done on computers, Kompin has faced many of the same difficulties in funding and human resources that Payut faced.
A second traditionally animated feature, The Life of Buddha
, produced by Wallapa Pimthong, is planned for release on December 5, 2007.
Thai people
The Thai people, or Siamese, are the main ethnic group of Thailand and are part of the larger Tai ethnolinguistic peoples found in Thailand and adjacent countries in Southeast Asia as well as southern China. Their language is the Thai language, which is classified as part of the Kradai family of...
cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
and animator
Animator
An animator is an artist who creates multiple images that give an illusion of movement called animation when displayed in rapid sequence; the images are called frames and key frames. Animators can work in a variety of fields including film, television, video games, and the internet. Usually, an...
. He created Thai cinema's
Cinema of Thailand
The cinema of Thailand dates back to the early days of filmmaking, when King Chulalongkorn's 1897 visit to Bern, Switzerland was recorded by Francois-Henri Lavancy-Clarke. The film was then brought to Bangkok, where it was exhibited...
first cel-animated
Traditional animation
Traditional animation, is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand...
feature film, The Adventure of Sudsakorn
The Adventure of Sudsakorn
The Adventure of Sudsakorn is a 1979 Thai animated fantasy film. The only cel-animated feature film ever made in Thailand, it was directed by Payut Ngaokrachang. It was released in Thailand on Songkran Day, April 13, 1979...
.
Early life
Payut was born at Klong Warl village, Warkoe, Prachuap Khiri Khan ProvincePrachuap Khiri Khan Province
Prachuap Khiri Khan is one of the central provinces of Thailand. Neighboring provinces are Phetchaburi in the north and Chumphon in the south. To the west it borders Tanintharyi Division of Myanmar....
. As a child, Payut was interested in nang drama
Nang drama
Nang yai is a form of shadow play found in Thailand. Puppets are made of buffalo hide, while the story is narrated by songs, chants and music....
(shadow-puppet plays
Shadow play
Shadow play or shadow puppetry Shadow puppets have a long history in China, India, Turkey and Java, and as a popular form of entertainment for both children and adults in many countries around the world. A shadow puppet is a cut-out figure held between a source of light and a translucent screen...
) and Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat
Felix the Cat is a cartoon character created in the silent film era. His black body, white eyes, and giant grin, coupled with the surrealism of the situations in which his cartoons place him, combine to make Felix one of the most recognized cartoon characters in film history...
.
In 1944, he enrolled in classes to become an art teacher. Payut studied by correspondence with illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
Hem Vejakorn
Hem Vejakorn
Hem Vejakorn |Thon Buri]], Bangkok) was a Thai artist and writer. He is best known for his illustrations for the covers of 10-satang pulp novels, which have in turn influenced subsequent generations of Thai artists and illustrators. It is estimated that he produced more than 50,000 pieces of art,...
, whose work was seen on the covers of 10-satang pulp novels. Through their letters
Mail
Mail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...
back and forth, Hem introduced Payut to drawing.
"I had been a fan of Khru
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
Hem’s drawings since 1944, when I was 14. So, I wrote him asking to become his student. He was a great teacher and taught me a lot, from how to draw anatomy to getting the right perspective on paintings. I learned all this from his letters," Payut told The Nation
The Nation (Thailand)
The Nation is a broadsheet, English-language daily newspaper founded in 1971 and published in Bangkok, Thailand, and is owned by the Nation Multimedia Group.The Nation is a member of the Asia News Network...
newspaper in a 2004 interview.
At age 17, Payut took his first job painting backgrounds for play sets as he traveled around Thailand with theater groups. Payut also worked as a block printer, making etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s, and was employed at an advertising agency.
Inspiration as animator
One of Payut's influences was artist Sanae Klaikluen, whom Payut had met in 1941. Sanae was interested in animation and wanted Payut to join him in a project. Sanae was commissioned in 1945 to make a one-minute animated film for the Thai government, which was campaigning to get citizens to wear hats and farmers to wear boots. Sanae died a year later, and it was then that Payut decided he wanted to be an animator.In 1955, while he was recovering from an illness, Payut set about animating a cartoon he had been drawing for a newspaper. In the cartoon, Haed Mahasajan, a policeman directs traffic, swaying to the tune of music in the manner of Thai classical dancers. A woman starts crossing the street when the zipper
Zipper
A zipper is a commonly used device for temporarily joining two edges of fabric...
on her dress splits, diverting the policeman's attention with the result that cars pile up all around him.
The 12-minute short premiered on July 5, 1955 at Sala Chalermthai Theater.
Work for USIS
The acclaim that accompanied Payut's "Hollywood-like" animated short caught the attention of the US embassy in BangkokBangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
, which led to his hiring by the United States Information Service, where he worked for nearly 33 years as an artist.
For training, the USIS gave Payut a choice of spending six to eight months with Disney
Walt Disney Feature Animation
Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California. The studio, founded in 1923 as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, is the oldest subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
or going to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. He chose Japan, where he has said he "just looked around, as animation did not exist there at the time." (See History of anime
History of anime
The history of anime began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques that were being explored in the West. During the 1970s, anime developed further, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing distinct genres such as mecha...
).
Payut only made one animated film for the USIS, a 20-minute recounting of the story of Hanuman
Hanuman
Hanuman , is a Hindu deity, who is an ardent devotee of Rama, a central character in the Indian epic Ramayana and one of the dearest devotees of lord Rama. A general among the vanaras, an ape-like race of forest-dwellers, Hanuman is an incarnation of the divine and a disciple of Lord Rama in the...
, the white monkey in the classic Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
. Made in 1957, it was called Hanuman Pachon Pai Krang Mai (The Adventure of Hanuman). It was a propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
work, with a red monkey representing communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
.
In 1960, he created a short cartoon called Dek Kab Mee (A Boy and A Bear) for the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, Philippines. The formal institution of SEATO was established on 19 February...
, which called for unity in order to combat communism.
He also worked part-time jobs making animated commercials.
The Adventure of Sudsakorn
The Adventure of Sudsakorn
The Adventure of Sudsakorn is a 1979 Thai animated fantasy film. The only cel-animated feature film ever made in Thailand, it was directed by Payut Ngaokrachang. It was released in Thailand on Songkran Day, April 13, 1979...
, featuring a character from one of Thailand's most famous literary works, Pra Apai Manee by the poet Sunthorn Phu
Sunthorn Phu
Phra Sunthorn Vohara, known as Sunthorn Phu, is Thailand’s best-known royal poet. He was active in the Rattanakosin era....
. Sud Sakorn, the boy hero, is the son of a mermaid and a wandering musician-prince, and his adventures include fights with an elephant, a shark, a dragon horse, as well as encounters with a king, a hermit
Hermit
A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...
, a yogi
Yogi
A Yogi is a practitioner of Yoga. The word is also used to refer to ascetic practitioners of meditation in a number of South Asian Religions including Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.-Etymology:...
, a magic wand and ghosts.
The 82-minute feature was released on Songkran Day, April 13, 1979.
The production was plagued with shortages of capital, personnel and equipment. For the first six months, the crew had 100 workers, but by the second year their numbers were reduced to nine.
"I made a lot of my equipment from pieces I got from junk of World War II military surplus
Military surplus
Military surplus are goods, usually matériel, that are sold or otherwise disposed of when no longer needed by the military. Entrepreneurs often buy these goods and resell them at surplus stores. Military surplus rarely includes weapons or munitions, though they are occasionally found in such stores...
," Payut told writer John A. Lent. "I'd find a screw here, a crank there, etc. I used a combat camera and adapted it. I pulled together pieces of wood, aluminum, whatever I could find."
The intense, detailed work on Sudsakorn impaired his eyesight. "I did all the key drawings myself, even the layout and design ... I was almost blind from doing that film and now I wear contacts. My right eye is long, my left is short, crooked because of all that detailed work."
Later work
Attempts to make more animated features were rebuffed because of the expense involved. It was cheaper for Thai movie studios to make live-action films.His next animated film wasn't made until 1992, when he was subsidized by Film of Japan to make a film for educating girls under the title My Way.
He's also been a guest lecturer on animation at many universities.
Payut's The Adventure of Sudsakorn is occasionally screened at film and animation festivals around the world.
Legacy
The Thai Short Film & Video Festival has the Payut Ngaokrachang prize for animation. The award is a medallion designed by Payut.While feature-length animated features are rare in the Thai film industry since The Adventure of Sudsakorn, animation is widely used in Thai television series and in commercials. A 3D animated
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
Sudsakorn series is one such show.
In 2006
2006 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...
, Thailand's first computer-animated feature film, Khan Kluay
Khan Kluay
Khan Kluay is a 2006 Thai computer-animated feature film set during Ayutthaya-era Siam about an elephant who wanders away from his mother and eventually becomes the war elephant for King Naresuan...
, about King Naresuan the Great
Naresuan
Somdet Phra Naresuan Maharat or Somdet Phra Sanphet II was the King of the Ayutthaya kingdom from 1590 until his death in 1605. Naresuan was one of Siam's most revered monarchs as he was known for his campaigns to free Siam from Burmese rule...
's war elephant, was released. It was directed by Kompin Kemgunerd, who has worked on such Disney
Walt Disney Feature Animation
Walt Disney Animation Studios is an American animation studio headquartered in Burbank, California. The studio, founded in 1923 as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio by brothers Walt and Roy Disney, is the oldest subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
features as Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire
Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a 2001 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation. Written by Tab Murphy, directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, and produced by Don Hahn, it is the first science fiction film in the Disney animated features canon and the 41st overall. The film...
and Tarzan
Tarzan (1999 film)
Tarzan is a 1999 American animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on June 18, 1999...
, and Blue Sky Studios
Blue Sky Studios
Blue Sky Studios is an American CGI-animation studio which specializes in high-resolution, computer-generated character animation and rendering. It is owned by 20th Century Fox and located in Greenwich, Connecticut...
' Ice Age
Ice Age (film)
Ice Age is a 2002 American computer-animated film created by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge from a story by Michael J. Wilson. The story follows three Paleolithical mammals attempting to return a lost human baby to its parents...
. Although the work is being done on computers, Kompin has faced many of the same difficulties in funding and human resources that Payut faced.
A second traditionally animated feature, The Life of Buddha
The Life of Buddha
The Buddha is a 2007 Thai animated feature film about the life of Gautama Buddha, based on the Tripitaka. The film was released on December 5, 2007, in celebration of Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 80th birthday.-Production:...
, produced by Wallapa Pimthong, is planned for release on December 5, 2007.
External links
- Important animator at Thailand Animadz
- Remembering Payut Ngaokrachang at AnimationInsider.net