Graphy Animation Interview

PUBLISHED: 15 AUGUST 2024
WRITER: THANUT RUJITANONT

Soravith Pongpakdee on ‘Living Will’ (พินัยกรรมชีวิต) 

Welcome to an interview with the director of Living Will, Soravith Pongpakdee. His black-and-white animated short film will have its screening at Microwave Film Festival between 17-25 August 2024 in Pakk Taii Design Week at Songkhla, Thailand. By the time he was finishing Living Will, I had a chance to talk with Pongpakdee in a coffeehouse at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. 

Below, Pongpakdee tells us why the film was important to him, how he settled on the idea of Living Will, and what he learned in his time at King Mongkut’s Insitute of Technology Ladkrabang. 

Graphy Animation: The film is your graduation project. Is it your first animated short film? And what was it like to work on the film?  

Soravith Pongpakdee: Yes, this is my first animated short film. I mean, before this film; I made some animations for commissioned works or assigned projects during my studies at my university. But I felt it so different from those works. The process of making this film was much more intense than all the work I have done before. Perhaps, because it is my “Graduation Project”.  I think it is meaningful for all film students when they create their last project in the university, before they go into the real world of film production and the animation industry. And that happened to me too. I felt it would be the last project that I could do whatever I wanted before going into the industry. So, I created this film with skills, knowledge, and everything I had. And it was very hard (HAHA). 

The film begins with a text ‘You that seek what life is in death, now find it air that once was breath’ How do you come up with the text? 

Soravith Pongpakdee: This text comes from “Caelica 83” by Baron Brooke Fulke Greville in the book “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi. My aunt gave this book to me when I shared the idea of this film with my family. The content of this book is about the life of a writer who is going to be a professional doctor. But he suddenly found out that he was in the fourth stage of cancer. I had not read the whole book, but the first poem of this book was very touching. I kept thinking about this poem for a long time. And somehow, it became the reference of this film. 

The film is interested in how we think of living and death – how, in a sense, your animation represents a kind of overlooked time in life and creates a continuity of moving frames out of paper, how do you respond to that? 

Soravith Pongpakdee: I think life is just like an animation and everyone is animator. We have 24 frames per second in every second of our life. Sometimes, it runs very quickly. But sometimes, It is very slow. Some frames are very bad, and some frames are good. But all of those things are under the simple law “Move Forward”. Quick, slow, bad or good. It must move forward. And this film too. The main character finds many bad moments in his mind. But in the end, he must move forward to another frame and another frame. That method affected me as the role of creator. Some frames I was drawing were very long; some were short. Some frames were very bad for me, some were the best. But I didn not have enough time to fix every frame or spend time to be impressed by them. I must move forward to finish this film. And I think that is what “Living Will” means to me. Every breath in your life does matter. Just like every paper that was animated in this film. It was hard to create, but was easy to go. Just like that. 

I saw quite many people involved with the film as drawing artists in the credits and your film technique is drawing on paper, how easy or hard was it to keep the consistency of your film’s style while working with a team? 

Soravith Pongpakdee: In the first place, I thought I could control all the artists with some prepared drawing workshops. But when the time came, I found that I could not control everything (HAHA). Controlling the drawings from each artist was hard, but controlling the time each artist needed was harder. That made me crazy and felt depressed. But at some point, I must down my expectations to all the artists and focused on the overall of the film. That made me find joy of creating this film again. I think the hardest part was the expectation I had towards my team. Because you were working on something that you could not make them perfect. And it would be bad if you thought you could make them perfect. It was just like life (HAHA). But in the end, I was very thankful and appreciative to all the artists who helped me finish this film. If I did not have them, my life would be just like my main character (HAHA). Thank you! 

The film was developed and completed as a BFA thesis in Film and Digital Media from KMITL (King’s Mongkut Institute of Technology Ladkrabang), what was the most important thing you learned while studying at the university? 

Soravith Pongpakdee: I learned a lot from this university. Thanks to my two great professors in my animation department who taught me a lot regarding the world of animation and design. Also, thanks to all the professors in the film department who taught me how to survive in the world of the film industry (HAHA). The biggest lesson I learned from life in university would be “Trust Yourself”. Every professor or anyone could confuse you to do this or that. But you are the only one who could direct your path. If it failed, it is ok. At least it is your direction, it is not from someone who does not care about you. What you need the most is your instinct. So, trust yourself (HAHA). 

You completed the film in May 2024, do you have any plan for the distribution?  

Soravith Pongpakdee: It will be released in the KMITL thesis film show. And then I think I will send my film to many film festivals around the world as many as I can. I will distribute the film on a video platform when this film has done its job from its film festival run. 

You have just graduated recently. What is your next step? And when can we expect to see your new film work? Can you share a glimpse of your next project? 

Soravith Pongpakdee: Now, I have many projects I want to create for different purposes. Some are adult cartoon series that will talk about Thailand school life. The working title is “Ideology Acadamy (อุดมการณ์วิทยาลัย)” I also have some short film projects that talk about extincting animals in Thailand. Those animals are leaving marks by their names in districts of regions. I also have many more projects toward my mysterious future (HAHA). I will do my best.