Peter Chung is a man of many worlds. Born in Korea, he spent a childhood roaming the world with his diplomat father and his family. This imparted early on a cosmopolitan outlook which is very apparent in Æon Flux, a tale of international intrigue which first appeared on MTV's Liquid Television series, then as its own series of 10 half-hour episodes in 1995. For further information on the sexy, dangerous world of Æon Flux, there now is a book, "Æon Flux: The Herodotus File." (Pocket Books) And with multimedia CD ROM adventures in the works, it looks like the intrigue will continue well into the future.
MKH: According to the information I have here, you were born and raised in Korea but went to High School in Virginia...is this right?
PC: Yeah.
MKH: Were you in America before that, or did you come to America around your HS years?
PC: It's a long story...my father was a diplomat for the Korean government. We traveled a lot. I've been to America a lot, though, and started living here continuously around 1974.
MKH: What originally got you interested in animation?
PC: I don't really know how to answer that question....how does anybody get interested in anything? (Laughs) I got into animation because it encompassed a lot of things I was interested in...writing, filmmaking, drawing, designing...it's a combination of a lot of artistic disciplines, which all were of great interest to me. Most of all it's a medium for telling stories and creating characters, and that is the aspect of animation which still motivates me. It's not really the technique of animation that interests me but the ability to tell stories with it.
MKH: I don't necessarily agree with this statement, but a young man, the son of a friend of mine, who is an aspiring animator himself, said that now that there's dialogue in Æon Flux, that it's lost a certain amount of universality. I've also heard sentiments of this kind on Usenet as well.
PC: If what the young man means is that the show has become culturally specific by the use of English, well, there's a certain bit of truth in it but I don't think it will be a bar to other cultures enjoying it. Æon Flux will get sold to other countries and dubbed into other languages just like any other show sold to other countries. I find that the tradeoff, where you get the ability to use words, to use dialogue, is a greater gain than what you lose. To try to tell complex stories in pantomime would start to become contrived and gimmicky in a 1/2 hour format. You'd wonder 'why is nobody talking?' because people talk in real life...it's a natural thing for people to do.
MKH: It seemed like the shorts were kind of unstuck as far as particular cultures were concerned...place and time. This could be anywhere in the world, but then again it could not be anywhere in the world...
PC: People could project anything they wanted to into the shorts, which was how they were designed. On the other hand, one is still able to do this with the new shows...there was actually a lot of frustration on the part of some of the viewers because there was no grounding in terms of time and place.
MKH: I like that, though...
PC: I've tried to not place too much emphasis on the political and historical background of the universe it takes place in. To me those things are fictional and arbitrary, and they are in a sense an excuse for the more interesting things to happen....the interplay of characters and whatever the themes are in a given episode. The important things are the characters and the story, and what's not important is the names of the countries involved, the political systems there... when you come up with that stuff, it's no different than picking names out of a phone book. They can be a distraction if you dwell on them too much.
MKH: It seems as if, with the larger canvas of these 22 minute episodes that you are making a kind of commentary on the morality of how the Western World and the former Soviet Union behaved during the Cold War.
PC: Not at all...that had nothing to do with it. If that's what you want to read into it, that's OK but that's not what I had in mind...
MKH: It's like, both in the Western countries and in Russia and the Soviet Bloc during the Cold War there were movies and TV shows which glorified "our" spies and at the same time portrayed the other side as being villainous...there's James Bond of course in the West, and there were similar counterparts on Russian TV and film. And now, of course, there are stuff coming out where the US was experimenting with Radiation and Germ Warfare on its own citizens, and so did the Russians...questionable stuff....it seemed to me that there was a sense of that in the actions of both Trevor and Æon...neither seem like heroes to me.
PC: That was the premise in the original shorts...examining the idea of the action hero...that isn't a big part of the story now. I feel I explored that whole train of thought to my own satisfaction in the shorts. The disclaimer that MTV runs at the beginning of the show now is not my idea...the show is not necessarily about good and evil. Trevor is not necessarily evil, Æon is not necessarily good...they are like any human being with their own traits and good points and bad points. In some episodes Trevor is actually doing more positive things than Æon is and sometimes the roles are reversed. It's not as if I don't personally think there are moral principles and standards, but this is a work of fiction, and the province of art is not to push any sort of moral standard or political message. I'm interested more in the stimulation of the viewers mind through juxtapositions of imagery and events, among other things. Basically to me the point of any sort of artistic expression is to bring physical form to personal, internal concepts which are formless in the mind of the artist. Art is about making these concepts visible for another person to appreciate and enjoy. Art is a conversation...communication. To convey in a form that is very memorable, using the techniques of what can be described as mythology I think are the things that help to shape a common culture. That's what interests me.
MKH: But it seems that in certain episodes...the one with the Demiurge in particular comes to mind, it seems that both Trevor and Æon are confronting certain actions of theirs in the past and their consequences. In that particular show it seemed like Trevor was seeking redemption and absolution in contact with the Demiurge.
PC: Well, yes...Trevor actually hopes to find that in the Demiurge, where Æon doesn' t buy that concept...the need for redemption or even the existence of such redemption. To her, the burden of responsibility for what she does is with her and her alone. To some degree I would agree with her, although to another degree I can understand Trevor's point of view. The show was really about guilt, faith, and ones relationship with the mystical.
MKH: And in another episode, Æon is stricken with a virus and she sees hallucinations of all the people she has affected, and in a lot of cases wronged. She's having to confront this. Certainly she holds a more existentialist view of this...like you said, the burden of responsibility for her actions is hers alone. I find it an interesting subtext of this series.
PC: I find that...this is really something obvious about action characters who do violent things...if the character is in the least bit introspective that issue has to come up. It's very rarely dealt with, either in movies or in TV. I thought it would be an interesting thing to explore. I mean, it's not so much a fixation of mine, but it seemed like an inevitable theme that needed to be addressed.
MKH: And it's not handled in a preachy manner, but one which provokes people to think. I like that....Ok, in an interview you did with a newspaper from Contra Costa, CA you said, regarding violence, that you had, quote, "gotten it out of (your) system." It seemed to me like you were putting a nice face on something which probably didn't sit well with you. I've noticed that everything in these episodes is so bloodless...only in " Reraizure" when Æon got stabbed have I ever seen blood spilled.
PC: It was forced on us...however, in Episode 3, ( "Thanatophobia" ) there were a lot of people on MTV Online (the MTV area of AOL) who complained about the lack of blood when one of the characters had their legs amputated by the border defenses between Bregna and Monica. They complained that it wasn' t realistic. That sort of took me aback. I was hoping people would be getting more out of the episodes than that....In that case, it was never my intention to have the scene be bloody. It would simply have turned into a gore-fest and distracted from the point I was trying to make in that episode. There are so many deviations from reality in this entire series, and that many of the fans are just picking out that there is a lack of blood spilled is somewhat arbitrary.
On the other hand, there are times when blood would have been helpful in making a point. In Episode 7 ( "Chronophasia") there was a scene which was repeated where she wakes up again and again next to a pool of blood. MTV made us change it to a puddle of some unknown fluid. That completely ruined the show. She was supposed to wake up in a pool of blood and not know where it came from...was it hers? Was it someone she just killed? That's completely lost now. She sees people being killed, and she doesn't know who's doing the killing. Initially the suspicion is that this mutant being which looks like a huge baby is doing it, then the young boy who occasionally shows up, and then she has to confront the possibility that she herself is doing the killing. That was the first episode that I had no part in writing...Garrett Sheldrew and Peter Gaffney wrote that one.
MKH: You went to Korea to supervise work on two episodes...one was the second episode "Isthmus Crypticus," and one has yet to air. (as of 9/26/95 when I did this interview) How much did you personally do on these episodes?
PC: I didn't really do much on the 2nd episode...I got there in the middle of the production. I animated a few scenes and corrected some of the animation, and suggested a few facial expressions. But the vast part of the credit needs to go to Gana Productions, the studio that did the work on the episode...they did a great job. I actually commuted between Korea and Japan...I had more to do with some of the episodes done at Mook in Japan than in Korea. I did a lot of personal work on the 4th episode, the human duplicator episode. The one I had the most involvement with, however, was one that is yet to air, the 9th episode, which was done at Gana. Every episode is different, but you will notice that this one is a complete departure from the rest of them. If anything, this one gets back to the flavor of the original shorts...it's a very way-out episode.
MKH: Was it hard for you to delegate control of the show to others?
PC: In some cases, yes, but in some cases it was exactly what was necessary. Episodes 7 and 10 were ones that I didn't have anything to do with writing, and so it was interesting to see somebody else's vision of the material. The episodes that Howard Baker directed were a little strange for me to get used to...the fact that he was directing meant that he had a little different vision, a different directorial style. The schedule we were working on was so tight that I didn't have the time to look after some of the episodes the way I wanted to, but that might have been actually fortunate for some of the episodes.
MKH: Catherine Winder was telling me that the logistics were kind of crazy...
PC: There were a lot of individual artists working in different places. There was one artist in England, there were a lot of people in San Francisco and some in LA but this show is really a director's show. The people who really tied it together were me and Howard. Everything that is done goes back to the directors. We're the ones who take all the bits and pieces and put them together.
MKH: Do you think that Æon Flux and its success will perhaps inspire other attempts at adult-oriented animation in the future?
PC: It depends, really, on what you mean by adult-oriented animation. There's still this perception that when people talk about 'adult-oriented animation' they are just talking about more graphic violence and sex. I've seen things which call themselves 'adult' but are really just juvenile stories with added sex and gore tacked on. There's nothing inherently more adult about it, nothing more adult about the subject matter or how they are treating it. It's not dealt with in a more sophisticated manner...it's just dealt with in a more graphic way.
MKH: What I was referring to in the sense of adult-oriented animation is serious drama...where serious issues are examined in animated cinema. I consider what you are doing in that category, as I do the other show I am profiling in this article, MTV Oddities: The Maxx. In both cases, there are so many big issues discussed, and yet it's done in an entertaining manner. You enjoy the entertainment value and also it makes you think afterwards. I hope these shows are a wakeup call to the industry...that they will make certain people who hold power at networks and movie studios sit up and come to the realization 'you mean we can do these kind of stories in animation?' I hate the conventional wisdom that animation is just for kids.
PC: I think the people most to blame for the conventional wisdom are people in the animation industry themselves. It's a very backward-looking industry. I don't find a lot of people interested in applying or investing anything of themselves in the work they do. The animation process is so hard and laborious that it's easy to lose sight of one's own personal vision. There are so many people involved...so many points of view which need to be accommodated. There are so many places that the vision can be watered down...where corporate thinking can insinuate itself. In things I've seen from Disney, for example, there is no room for personal vision. Everything is done by committee, and that weakens things. It's all so calculated and corporate. But animation is a time consuming art form. It's really expensive. There are by necessity a lot of people involved. It's difficult to maintain that creative line unless one is involved from the very beginning to the very end. There aren't that many artists who have that kind of involvement. There's a few, but they are in the minority.
MKH: Speaking of art...your artistic style is a very unique one. From where do you draw your artistic inspiration? I don't know of anyone who draws people the way you do...the angular, spindly people....
PC: Consciously, my big influence is an artist named Egon Schiele. His style of work is perfect for animation...it's expressionism, but he's not really in the mainstream of the German Expressionist movement but more an outsider. He was a student of Gustav Klimt. His drawings are extremely expressive, which to me embodies the point of animation, in my view...giving expression to internal states. He was able to accomplish that brilliantly. It's a combination of strong expression in gesture and in faces, but also in the avoidance of sentimentality, of formula and cliches. I don't know if I always can accomplish this, but that's what I strive for.
The artists on the show have to be instructed on my style...I do a lot of the character model sheets for the show. I try to draw as many storyboards as I can too. If you can give the artists a good storyboard to go by, you can make sure the art stays true to your vision. It's interesting that some artists have really internalized the characters and they come up with their own takes on the style of the show. Yes, it perhaps isn't exactly how I would approach something, but by the same token I'm very excited to see other people's spin on my characters. I like collaborating in these situations...it's a pleasure. If they aren't skilled enough, then you run into trouble.
MKH: Is there another season of Æon Flux in the works?
PC: Not in the works...they're taking a 'wait and see' approach. I feel I've done my best, and I've given my best to the show. If people want to see more of this, then great. If they don't, I'll move on to something else. There's really not a lot I can do at this point. I'd like to see MTV promote the show a bit more. They have their own ways of doing things, I suppose.
MKH: And what are your other plans?
PC: Well, we're beginning to talk with, I guess you can say alternative film companies who are discussing the possibilities of an animated feature film. If we don't get another season of Æon then that's probably the direction I'll go. I'm also getting involved in the CD Rom version of Æon Flux...
MKH: There's going to be a CD Rom Æon Flux game?
PC: Yeah. I'm kind of hesitant in getting involved with working on this project, but it looks like an interesting opportunity to do some different things with the characters and the concepts behind them. I think it's actually sort of inevitable for anyone in this industry to get involved with this sort of thing...it's not really a big interest of mine personally, I don't play computer games, so perhaps I really don't know what I'm getting myself into. (laughs)
Check out the Æon Flux episode log
All "Æon Flux" images are ©MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International. The characters in "Æon Flux are ©MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International. All rights reserved by the respective copyright owners.
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Page last updated 1/15/1998
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