I don’t think I watched the first Toy Story in theaters; I probably watched it on VHS or DVD later when I started working in CG. Toy Story 2 reminds me of my time as a newlywed and the early days of my career in Korea, wondering if I could ever work in the US.

Yesterday, I came across a term gaining popularity these days: FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer), particularly within the AI sector. When I searched for the meaning and requirements of that job, I was surprised to find similarities to my TD (Technical Director) job at DreamWorks.

When we first came to the U.S. for my work, we were a young couple who had been married for three years. While I was struggling to establish a career here, my wife was dealing with her own hardships, mostly due to having no local connections. Then, she found a new passion and began this journey while raising our teenage daughter.

Ever since I wrote the Happy New Year post, so many things have happened in 2025.

I can’t believe it’s already 2025. I still remember feeling awkward writing 2024, but now I have to get used to writing 2025. Regardless, happy new year!

Yesterday, DreamWorks celebrated its 30th anniversary at Universal Studios Hollywood with employees and their families. For this event, we had the upper lot of Universal Studios Hollywood to ourselves, and all the food and drinks were free. I brought my wife with me, and we really enjoyed this special night together. It reminds me of our first visit to Universal Studios Hollywood in 2002 and the holiday party for Disney employees at Disneyland in 2010.

I first came to the U.S. on the eve of Thanksgiving in 2002, November 27th. Even though my very first visit to the U.S. was in the summer of 2002 for the SIGGRAPH conference, this time I came with my wife to the U.S., and we’ve been here ever since.

Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the feature films eligible for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 97th Academy Awards. Honorably, Kung Fu Panda 4, on which I had the privilege of being the lead TD, and The Wild Robot from DreamWorks Animation made it to that list along with other films like Inside Out 2 from Pixar and Moana 2 from Disney.

Today, the official trailer for the upcoming DreamWorks animated film, The Bad Guys 2, was released. (Click the image below to watch the trailer.) Even though I didn’t participate in the making of this movie, I work closely with the team and am so happy to see this trailer. But I saw that some people on the internet are demanding more original films from DreamWorks.

I think it was back in 2023 when the news about the live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon first came out. Disney has been remaking their animated films since 1994, but I think audiences are already getting tired of these remakes after so many. Naturally, many were skeptical about the remake plan, but there was a silver lining: Dean DeBlois, the co-director of the original animated film, would direct this live-action adpataion.

AWN has published this interesting interview article, Reflecting on 30 years of DreamWorks Animation, where they interviewed Chris Sanders, Raymond and Christopher Zibach, Rebecca Huntley, Joel Crawford, and Jason Mayer. Among those I worked with Joel on Croods: A New Age (2020) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), Rebecca and Jason on Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024).

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