Thread:ChishioKunrin/@comment-27144409-20190909015610/@comment-27144409-20190910213651

Here it is blough

Monty Oum As an avid fan of the web series, RWBY, from Rooster Teeth, it was only natural that I would choose to write about the short, but impactful life of Monty Oum. Mr. Oum created and directed the first two seasons of RWBY before his untimely death. I view RWBY as Oum’s swan song since it brought together many of the different aspects of his talents and personality. The show also represented commercial and critical success of his original material which was a first for Oum. However, mostly it showed his passion, creativity, and drive. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island on June 22, 1981, the youngest of a family of seven with four older brothers and two older sisters. Although for many people, dropping out of high school would mean losing the chance at a successful career, for Oum, it allowed him the time to teach himself animation. Oum then used his new found talent in 2007 to make a movie, Haloid, (Oum, Dean, 2010). Haloid “depicts an intense fight in which a soldier from Halo fights the protagonist from the Nintendo game series Metroid,” (Slotnik, 2015). Haloid was very successful online. On the website Destructoid, reviewer Jordan Devore called it, “quite possibly the most interesting Halo-related fan movie in existence,” (Devore, 2007). It was so popular that “the amount of traffic that Haloid generated overloaded and crashed Game Trailers’ servers,” (Monkelban, 2009). It would not be the last time that the popularity of Oum’s work would crash servers. Haloid would serve as a stepping stone into the next phase of Oum’s career. In an interview at a gaming festival, the Penny Arcade Expo, also known as PAX, specifically PAX East 2010, Oum remembers that he was “working like a nine-to-five job at Kinko’s in my hometown…, and then I got contacted by Midway Games, (Oum, Dean, 2010). Based upon the success of Haloid, Midway Games hired Oum as a combat designer. It was another of Oum’s independent projects, Dead Fantasy, that drew the attention of another gaming company. Again, Oum had authored a cross-over smackdown, and again, the success of his independent endeavors garnered him a job offer. In 2008, Oum took a job as a combat designer and animator with Namco Bandai Games to work on their game, Afro Samurai, (Monkelban, 2009). It was in 2010 that Oum made his last career move. Wanting to leave the gaming industry so he could do more animated movies, Oum took a job with Rooster Teeth, a web-based entertainment company. He became the lead animator for the series Red vs. Blue, (Solomon, 2013). It was a good fit for Oum since the show was about taking from the world of gaming and creating a new storyline. It was not unlike what Oum had been doing on his own, but Oum wanted to do more. “After working hours on end on RvB [sic], Burnie Burns and Matt Hullum decided to give him his own project,” (crazymoviereview, IMDB). That project was RWBY. Unlike his previous work, Oum was the creator for the project. Rather than animating someone else’s creations and stories, Oum would be creating and telling an original story. The show turned into a commercial and critical hit. In 2014, RWBY won the “Streamy and International Academy of Web Television awards for best animated series,” (Pederson & Bloom, 2015). Oum posted on the Rooster Teeth website, “I’ve always considered myself more a dancer than a fighter,” (Slotnik, 2015). For the show, Oum pulled from many different sources for inspiration: dance, martial arts, folklore, and fairytales, (Ryzik, 2015). Oum was only two years into his creation when tragedy struck. Monty Oum died on February 1, 2015 from anaphylaxis. He went into a coma when he had a severe allergic reaction during a routine procedure. Oum never recovered and died ten days later, (Hullum, 2015). His untimely death clearly demonstrated the impact Monty Oum had had on not just those that knew him, but the many lives he touched through his work. Oum had “146,000 followers on Twitter, 12,000 on Vine and 117,000 on Facebook. He had 60,000 YouTube subscribers,” (Pederson & Bloom, 2015). The impression I have of Monty Oum was that above all he was passionate about his job. He loved being creative; he loved being an artist. He wasn’t concerned with practicality or logic, but was enthusiastic to a nearly unreasonable level. He would frequently add in elements at the last moment just because he was inspired or thought it was cool. He would often do the work on his own. He was known for working late into the night, not because he was made to or was trying to meet a deadline, but rather because he was just so caught up in his work. Other people often stepped in telling him to take a break or reminding him to eat. On January 13, 2015, shortly before his death, Oum tweeted, “Wait… did really I only just eat coffee today?” (Oum, 2015). I hope that Monty Oum will serve as an inspiration as I travel my own path in animation. He was undeniably talented, but also knew he was not perfect. In an interview, he said, “I’m not a very good animator myself,” (Oum & Dean, 2010). He knew that it was his passion rather than his technical expertise that made his work worth watching and playing. When his wife was worried about not being good enough, Oum told her, “Thinking like that is silly. You get so wrapped up in your head that you end up missing chances. … Do something wholeheartedly and you can’t make a mistake. Something real, there’s no failure in that,” (Duquette-Oum, 2015). I also find inspiration in another Oum quote that was frequently referenced after his death: I believe that the human spirit is indomitable. If you endeavor to achieve, it will happen given enough resolve. It may not be immediate, and often your greater dreams is [sic] something you will not achieve within your own lifetime. The effort you put forth to anything transcends yourself, for there is no futility even in death. (TV Tropes). If I take his words to heart, then I know I will go far.

Sources Cited

1.    Burns, B. (2011, July 22). burnie's Post. Retrieved from https://roosterteeth.com/post/2744103 2.    Burns, B. (2012, July 13). Rooster Teeth · Here's Monty. Retrieved from https://archive.is/20120713012254/http://roosterteeth.com/viewEntry.php?id=1989 3.    Devore, J. (2007, April 18). Haloid: the craziest fan movie you'll see this week. Retrieved from https://www.destructoid.com/haloid-the-craziest-fan-movie-you-ll-see-this-week-31068.phtml 4.    Duquette, S. (2015). Sheena's Post. Retrieved from https://roosterteeth.com/post/3307125 5.    Haddock, G. G. (2015). Gray's Post. Retrieved from https://roosterteeth.com/post/3307507 6.    Hullum, M. (2015, February 2). matt's Post. Retrieved from https://roosterteeth.com/post/3302319 7.    Klepek, P. (2015, February 4). Rooster Teeth Animator Monty Oum Dies At 33. Retrieved from https://kotaku.com/rooster-teeth-animator-monty-oum-has-passed-away-the-p-1683287272 8.    McWhertor, M. (2013, June 21). Dead Fantasy III: The Epic Final Fantasy, DOA Cat Fight Continues. Retrieved from https://kotaku.com/dead-fantasy-iii-the-epic-final-fantasy-doa-cat-fight-5313636 9.    Monkelban, A. (2009, July 29). Monty Oum – Hail to the King. Retrieved from http://www.popten.net/2009/07/monty-oum-hail-to-the-king/ 10.    (n.d.). Monty Oum. Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3371095/bio?ref_=nm_ql_1 11.    (2012, November 8). Monty Oum. Retrieved from https://rwby.fandom.com/wiki/Monty_Oum 12.    (2019, August 18). Monty Oum. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Oum 13.    (2013, August 16). Monty Oum (Creator). Retrieved from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/MontyOum 14.    Oum, M. (2013, June 16). "@ShawnaKhut: @montyoum Quick question. What's your nationality?" I am Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese! :). Retrieved from https://twitter.com/montyoum/status/346156789307437057 15.    Oum, M. (2015, January 13). wait... did really I only just eat coffee today? Retrieved from https://twitter.com/montyoum/status/554985989601374209 16.    Oum, N. (2016). Neath_Oum's Post. Retrieved from https://roosterteeth.com/post/51200631 17.    Pedersen, E., Bloom, D., Pedersen, E., & Bloom, D. (2019, September 6). Monty Oum Dies: Rooster Teeth Animation Director, 'RWBY' Creator Was 33. Retrieved from https://deadline.com/2015/02/monty-oum-dead-rwby-creator-rooster-teeth-animator-1201365261/ 18.    Ryzik, M. (2015, February 4). An Animator's Death Releases a Flood of Sadness. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/arts/monty-oum-dies-at-33-and-his-fans-grieve.html?a 19.    Solomon, D. (2013, July 19). Monty Oum might've made an unconventional choice leaving gaming, but he's glad he landed at Rooster Teeth. Retrieved from https://www.austinchronicle.com/screens/2013-07-19/the-full-monty/ 20.    Sweet, M. (2009, July 7). Retrieved from http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=meredith+sweet+gd+at+ax&d=4514308941940786&mkt=en-US&setlang=en- US&w=OWiXW5q0dkoE3pVKg9UL0lc047TAGVXc 21.    Teeth, R. (2013, October 24). RWBY Crew Chat | Rooster Teeth. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wU_dQEj7uc&t=542s