Meet My Anh Ngo | Animator

We had the good fortune of connecting with My Anh Ngo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi My Anh, have you ever found yourself in a spot where you had to decide whether to give up or keep going? How did you make the choice?
Usually when something takes a toll on my physical and mental health over a period of time, it needs to be reconsidered. I believe our body knows itself best but we often time do not pay attention to it because we are so caught up with our life. Being sensitive and do not ignore signs my body give me is how I know changes are needed. Over the years, I have learned that when I feel stuck, I need to distant myself from the issues for a bit and revisit it later. If the feeling persists, I will reach out to friends or someone I look up to as a mentor and talk to them. I have friends whom I always go to to think out loud and all I need them to do in these moments is to listen and acknowledge how I feel at the moment. I would like to also talk about the idea of “giving up”. The whole idea has such a negative connotation with the way I was brought up that there are occasions in the past I refused to give up on certain things for fear of being a failure. I learn to see moment of giving up on things like a project or a habit as a change for the better and not the ultimate end like the word suggested. This change in way of thinking has helped me navigating through many stressful time and I am sure it is helpful to someone out there as well.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My journey to become a 2D animator was not straight-forward as some of my colleagues. The first art class I ever took was in high school when I came all the way from Vietnam to study abroad here in the US. Despite loving to draw since a kid, I always viewed it as a hobby that I put aside for other subjects that are deemed more important to get me into college. My first semester in college, I was a business major but I quickly found out business was not for me. I switched to Fine Arts and later, while taking the foundation classes, switched again to Illustration. There were definitely challenges. the biggest one being taking risk in choosing a major that my parents did not want me to go into while being their dependent. On top of this, my status of being an international student limited my choice of transferring to another school with better art program. I would lose my scholarship and would have to pay full tuition if I transfer. Third semester into the Illustration program in college, the department got closed down which means resources were limited. Despite all of these, I made the most out of what I had and graduated with a bachelor degree in Illustration. After a year of interning at a studio giving one-on-one art lessons to middle school children, I decided to go back to school to get a degree in Animation. My BFA in Illustration proved useful in preparing me for the MFA in animation program. In the last year of my MFA program, I got an internship at Bento Box Entertainment working as an animator for an Apple TV+ show. After this internship, I finished my thesis and graduated from my MFA. I am now working full-time as a 2D animator at Floyd County Production. What I am most proud of is my thesis film that I co-directed and animation supervised called The Ocean Duck. The film took two years to finish and one of those two years, the production was completely virtual due to the pandemic. I learned so much from the experiences and I am grateful for the love and support the film has been given. The most important lesson I learned from working in animation is the power of human connection and teamwork. An animated film is so labor intensive that it is sometimes impossible for an individual to do it alone. I find that this applies to my life as well. Whenever I am face with a challenge that seems bigger than myself, I can reach out to people for help. I think this is an important message to many people as well. Sometimes helping does not need to be more than offering company. Sometimes a challenge might just be a task that we need to talk to someone about.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love food and hiking so I definitely would bring them on food trips and the many beautiful parks and hiking trails in Atlanta. Food wise, I would go to Duluth where a lot of good and authentic Asian restaurants are. For outdoor activities, there are so many things you can do in Georgia but definitely visiting Arabia mountain, Chattahoochee River trails, Amicalola Falls and Helen city. In case my friends also want to watch people and sketch because that is what artists do, I would bring them to Ponce City Market. We can also walk on the Beltline and explore the restaurants there. Atlantic Station is also a nice hanging out spot to explore food and watch people going about their day.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Being an international student living in a country half the earth away from home, I would not be here without the support from my second family which consists of friends and mentors. I want to give a shoutout particularly to my friend and mentor Huda Razzak. Her kindness and unwavering determination on achieving anything she sets her mind to inspire me everyday. The experience I got working with Huda on our thesis film The Ocean Duck, of which Huda is the director and I am co-director and animation supervisor, helped kickstart my professional career. Being a student film production, we had limited resources and many challenges. On top of this, we produced the film over the course of the lockdown due to the pandemic. Facing all these challenges, Huda told me something that stuck with me ever since which is to look at these challenges as tasks so that we do not feel discourage even before looking into what they are. From time to time when being faced with something challenging, I would ask myself what Huda would do in this situation and I am immediately empowered to approach the task without fear.

Website: https://www.anhngoart.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anhs.art/