Sunwoo USA Sets Up Shop In Burbank
Korean animation studio Sunwoo Entertainment has announced the establishment of Sunwoo USA, headquartered in Burbank, California. The U.S. headquarters will be the new business development, talent recruiting and international content development arm of Sunwoo Entertainment, which has produced hundreds of episodes of television series including RUGRATS for Nickelodeon, PEPPER ANN and RECESS for Disney and THE FAMILY GUY for Fox. Jae Moh, the executive vice president of Sunwoo Entertainment, will become the CEO and president of Sunwoo USA. Brian O'Neal, the former CBS vice president of children's and family programming, has been named senior vice president of Sunwoo USA. O'Neal's mandate will be to seek out co-production partners and new business opportunities. He will also be charged with recruiting talent and working with them to develop content to be produced at Sunwoo USA's sister companies in Korea. He will report to Jae Moh. Jae Moh, who began his career at Sunwoo in 1989, has supervised many of the company's major work for hire projects. Han-Young Kang, founder and CEO of Sunwoo Entertainment, said: "Jae was hired to be our liaison in the U.S. with our clients like Disney, Nickelodeon, Klasky Csupo and Paramount pictures, which he continues to do. But, with the enormous changes taking place in our industry we realized that if we are going to be a player in the future we needed to get into first run production now. Jae was clearly the man to head up our efforts. With his knowledge of our operations and his contacts in the U.S. he will be a very valuable ingredient in insuring our success." Sunwoo Entertainment is headquartered in Seoul, Korea. The company is comprised of three animation studios: Sunwoo Animation, Grimsaem Animation and Anivision Korea. These studios work closely together with Sunwoo Digital International to provide state of the art animation services. Sunwoo also produces live-action commercials and feature films through SunWoo Productions and maintains an Internet presence through Enpop.com an entertainment Website. In addition to television, Sunwoo also completed the feature films RUGRATS IN PARIS and the upcoming THE WILD THORNBERRY'S movie.