David OReilly (artist)

David OReilly

OReilly in 2017

Born|  (1985-06-21) 21 June 1985 (age 39)

Kilkenny, Ireland

Nationality| Irish
Website| davidoreilly.com

David OReilly (born 1985) is an Irish artist, film maker and game developer based in Los Angeles, California, United States.

## Work

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### Animation

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OReilly began his animation career at the age of 14, where he worked at Cartoon Saloon.

Aside from a 1-minute film entitled Ident, from which he draws his logo, the earliest work available on his website is WOFL2106.[1] This short draws equally on original designs and popular internet memes to create a disturbing landscape of serenity juxtaposed with chaos. This film sets the tone for his entire œuvre, though the direct inclusion of outside memes disappears in his later work.

He created several animation sequences and props for the 2007 film Son of Rambow,[2] as well as animation for the "guide" sequences in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Shynola.[3]

He created the first video for Irish rock band U2's single "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight".[4] The video was released on U2.com on 21 July 2009.

In 2007, he produced the surreal short film "RGB XYZ" which tells the story of a young man kicked out of his parents' house to work in the big city, while using low poly graphics, compression artefacts, text to speech voices, jarring colour palettes, and discordant tones.

His short film Please Say Something was awarded the Golden Bear at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival, Best Narrative Short at the 2009 Ottawa International Animation Festival[5] and several other awards.[6]

His short film, The External World, premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival and the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and has since won over forty awards on its festival circuit including the IFTA for Best Animation.[7]

He wrote, directed, produced and animated the Adventure Time episode "A Glitch Is a Glitch" for Cartoon Network, becoming the first guest director in the network's 20-year history.

In 2013 he worked on the Spike Jonze movie Her as animation director on the sequences where the characters are playing video games.

### Octocat Adventure

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On 13 March 2008, a YouTube user named RANDYPETERS1, a 9-year-old boy from Chicago, submitted a hand-drawn animated video about Octocat, a red cat head with eight long legs looking for his parents. The videos featured crude MS Paint animation and a loud, high-pitched, childlike voice narrating. On 7 September, the fifth, final episode was released, but featured an unexpected twist – at about 25 seconds in, the crude sketchy animation switched to intricately crafted 3D with an orchestral soundtrack; the whole Octocat story (and as such, the Randy Peters persona) was revealed to be by David OReilly.[8]

### Video games

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David announced his first game Mountain at MOCA Los Angeles in June 2014,[9] and released it the following month in partnership with Double Fine Productions for personal computers and mobile devices. Mountain features little interactivity but allows the player to create and watch a solitary mountain floating in space as it offers its thoughts to the player, and as random objects collide and become embedded within it.[10] It was generally praised by critics, noting it as a subversion of what one normally expects for a video game.[11]

In 2016, OReilly announced a second game, Everything, a "simulator of everything", on which the player can play as anything, from bacteria to galaxies.[12] Everything was released on 21 March 2017 on PlayStation 4, with Windows and Mac versions to follow on 21 April 2017.[13][14] Everything became the first realtime project to qualify for an Academy Award.[15]

## Style

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OReilly's work is often characterised by the use of intentionally stripped down 3d graphics. He is known for popularising the use of low-poly 3d and the use of 3d software as a personal and artistic tool, as outlined in his 2009 essay "Basic Animation Aesthetics".[16] He was an early adopter of glitch effects[17] and uses elements of the software used inside his work.[18] "[David] has been the man to lead animation through a conceptual blockage—3D animation was being dominated by commercial aesthetics....he deconstructed 3D to the point of absurdity."[19]

## Video games

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* Everything[20] (2017)
* Mountain[21] (2014)

## Short films

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* The External World[22] (2010, 17 min)
* Please Say Something[23] (2009, 10 min)
* Octocat Adventure (2008, 6 min)[24][25]
* Serial Entoptics (2008, 10 min)
* RGB XYZ (2007, 12 min)[26]
* Wofl2106[27] (2006, 4 min)
* ?????[28]

## Music videos

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* "Szamár Madár" (Venetian Snares, 2005, 4 min)
* "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" (U2, 2009, 4 min)[4]

## References

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1. ^ "THE DAVID OREILLY INTERNET WEBSITE – Work". Archived from the original on 17 February 2011. Retrieved 21 August 2021.
2. ^ Wolff, Ellen (2 May 2008). "David OReilly: The 'Wrist' Behind Son of Rambow". Animation World Magazine. Archived from the original on 20 July 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2008.
3. ^ "IMDB page". IMDb. 10 September 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2008.
4. ^ a b "Go Crazy". U2.com. 17 June 2009.
5. ^ "Ottawa International Animation Festival – About OIAF 11". Animationfestival.ca. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
6. ^ "Please Say Something". Short Film Central. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
7. ^ "The External World". davidoreilly.com. 30 June 2011. Archived from the original on 2 July 2011. Retrieved 30 June 2011.
8. ^ "Octocat Adventures (HD)".
9. ^ "Playing 'Her' animator David OReilly's hypnotic video game 'Mountain'". Los Angeles Times. 7 July 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
10. ^ "More invasive than Facebook: 'Mountain' from creator of games in 'Her'". Los Angeles Times. 1 July 2014.
11. ^ Wilde, Tyler (20 August 2014). "Why critics love Mountain, but Steam users are calling it "worthless"". PC Gamer. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
12. ^ Muncy, Julie. "In the New Game Everything, You Can Be, Well, Everything". WIRED. Retrieved 7 December 2017.
13. ^ "Everything review". Polygon. 21 March 2017. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
14. ^ "David OReilly, Double Fine Launching 'Everything' Game". Animation World Network. Retrieved 21 March 2017.
15. ^ "Video Game Short Qualifies for Oscars for the First Time". ScreenRant. 8 June 2017. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
16. ^ "Article on Basic Animation Aesthetics".
17. ^ "Artful error". Archived from the original on 20 April 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2012.
18. ^ "Juxtapoz Profile". Retrieved 21 May 2012.
19. ^ "SOTW Awards". Archived from the original on 15 June 2012. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
20. ^ "☁️️ EVERYTHING ☁️️ - out now on PS4, PC, Mac & Linux #everythinggame". Everything. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
21. ^ "🗻 MOUNTAIN 2.0 - now available for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS & tvOS #mountaingame". mountain-game.com. Retrieved 28 November 2019.
22. ^ "theexternalworld.com - Registered at Namecheap.com". theexternalworld.com.
23. ^ "THE DAVID OREILLY ANIMATION INTERNET WEBSITE — Please Say Something". Archived from the original on 9 July 2009. Retrieved 27 October 2009.
24. ^ Cone, Justin (9 September 2008). "David O'Reilly: Octocat Adventure 5". Motionographer. Retrieved 10 September 2008.
25. ^ OReilly, David (7 September 2008). "OCTOCAT ADVENTURE". David OReilly. Retrieved 10 September 2008.
26. ^ "RGB XYZ (2008)". IMDb. 10 September 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2008.
27. ^ "WOFL 2106 (HD)".
28. ^ "?????".

## External links

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* David OReilly's Website featuring clips of his work.
* David OReilly at IMDb

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States

People|

* Deutsche Biographie