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Monty Oum

American animator and voice actor (1981–2015)

Summary

American animator and voice actor (1981–2015)

Field	Value
name	Monty Oum
image	Monty Oum at PAX Prime 2013 (9669012406) (cropped).jpg
caption	Oum at PAX 2013
birth_name	Monyreak Oum
birth_date
birth_place	Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
death_date
death_place	Austin, Texas, U.S.
occupation
years active	2002–2015
employer	Rooster Teeth Productions
notable works
parents
spouse
signature	Mounty Oum signature.svg

Monyreak "Monty" Oum ( ; June 22, 1981 – February 1, 2015) was an American web-based animator and writer.

Oum attracted attention within the gaming community after releasing an animated video in 2007, titled Haloid, where characters from the Halo and Metroid video game franchises fight against each other*,* which went viral. In October of the same year, he released a follow-up, Dead Fantasy. Oum began working for Rooster Teeth, serving as the lead animator for Red vs. Blue, and creating the original animated series RWBY.

Oum had a severe iatrogenic allergic reaction and fell into a coma in January 2015. He died on February 1, 2015 in Austin, Texas.

Early life

Oum was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1981. He was of Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese heritage. He had four older brothers (including Neath, who took over voicing RWBY character Lie Ren after Oum's death) and two older sisters. As a teenager, he was a student at New Urban Arts, a community art studio for high school students in Providence.

Career

Independent work

Oum dropped out of high school and began putting together gaming fan videos as early as 2002. In January 2007, he discovered some reverse engineering techniques online that allowed him to extract models from Halo 2 and, utilizing assets from Super Smash Bros. Melee, created the "ultimate showdown" between a SPARTAN (Halo) and Samus Aran (Metroid) in Haloid, a portmanteau of their respective franchises. The videos garnered a significant number of views online. Later in 2007, Oum produced a series called "Dead Fantasy" in which characters from Final Fantasy and Dead or Alive fight.

Industry work

Two months after the premiere of Haloid, many gaming companies sought Oum, and he was eventually hired by Midway Games as a combat designer. In 2008 he was hired by Namco Bandai Games as a combat designer and animator for Afro Samurai. The brief experience in the gaming industry frustrated Oum, It wasn't until PAX East 2010 that it was announced that Oum had been hired as an animator for the company's long-running web series Red vs. Blue.

His next work, the animated series RWBY, featured highly involved and fantastical combat sequences between super-powered characters that garnered a following online. RWBY was a commercial success for Rooster Teeth, and critical reviews highlighted the high quality of its animated fight scenes. Two seasons of the show were produced, with a third in production at the time of Oum's death in early 2015. The show has now run for nine seasons.

Death

On January 22, 2015, Oum had an unspecified severe allergic reaction during a "simple medical procedure". On January 30, Rooster Teeth co-founder Burnie Burns stated that Oum was "in critical care and it is not known if he will recover". A donation page was set up for the medical expenses on GoFundMe, which received over $210,000. On February 1, 2015, at 4:34 p.m., Oum died as a result of anaphylaxis at the age of 33.

Filmography

Year	Name	Notes
2007	Haloid	Producer, cinematographer, editor, visual effects
2007–09	Dead Fantasy	Creator
2009	Afro Samurai	Additional designer
2010–12	Red vs. Blue	Cinematographer
2010–14	Immersion
2013	Internet Box Panel, RTX 2013	P. F. Chang's Deliveryman
2013–16	RWBY	Creator, voice of Ren (Volumes 1 and 2)

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Title of work
2014	Streamy Awards	Best Animated (Channel, Show or Series)	RWBY
2014	International Academy of Web Television	Best Animated Series	RWBY
2012	Producers Guild of America	Outstanding Digital Series	Red vs. Blue

References

(26 February 2015). "r/roosterteeth - I am Sheena Duquette Oum. Ask me anything.".
"Rooster Teeth · Farewell Monty".
Slotnik, Daniel E.. (February 3, 2015). "Monty Oum, Web-Series Animator, Dies at 33". New York Times.
Oum, Monty. (2013-06-15). ""@ShawnaKhut: @montyoum Quick question. What's your nationality?" I am Cambodian, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Japanese! :)".
Oum, Monty. (6 October 2012). "Passing".
Denmead, Tyler. (2019-11-08). "The creative underclass: youth, race, and the gentrifying city".
Sweet, Meredith. (2009-07-07). "GD at AX: Interview with Monty Oum". Gaming Dead.
Ryzik, Melena. (2015-02-04). "An Animator's Death Releases a Flood of Sadness (Published 2015)". The New York Times.
Kietzmann, Ludwig. (October 3, 2007). "Haloid creator mashes up Final Fantasy and Dead or Alive {{!}} Joystiq".
Solomon, Dan. [https://www.austinchronicle.com/screens/2013-07-19/the-full-monty/ "The Full Monty"] (July 19, 2013), ''Austin Chronicle''
Monkelban, Andrew. (2009-07-29). "Monty Oum – Hail to the King". Popten.
Dean, Sam. (2010-04-21). "Monty Oum Interview (PAX East 2010)".
Burns, Burnie. (2010-03-29). "Monty Oum signs on with Rooster Teeth". Rooster Teeth Productions.
Ryzik. (February 4, 2015). "An Animator's Death Releases a Flood of Sadness". The New York Times.
(February 3, 2015). "Monty Oum Dies: Rooster Teeth Animation Director, 'RWBY' Creator Was 33".
Eisenbeis, Richard. (November 11, 2014). "Another Season of RWBY Means More Epic Fights".
Cardine, Kyle. (January 24, 2023). "RWBY Volume 9 Premieres on Crunchyroll on February 18".
Hullum, Matt. (February 2, 2015). "Monty Oum has passed away".
Burns, Burnie. (January 30, 2015). "Monty Oum hospitalized".
Klepek, Patrick. (February 2, 2015). "Rooster Teeth Animator Monty Oum Dies At 33". [[Gawker Media]].

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1981-births 2015-deaths 21st-century-american-male-actors accidental-deaths-in-texas american-animated-film-directors american-directors american-male-screenwriters american-male-voice-actors american-male-web-series-actors american-people-of-cambodian-descent american-people-of-chinese-descent american-people-of-japanese-descent american-people-of-vietnamese-descent american-artists-of-chinese-descent american-artists-of-japanese-descent american-artists-of-vietnamese-descent animators-from-rhode-island animators-from-texas artists-from-austin,-texas artists-from-providence,-rhode-island deaths-from-anaphylaxis male-actors-from-austin,-texas male-actors-from-providence,-rhode-island respiratory-disease-deaths-in-texas rooster-teeth-people rwby screenwriters-from-rhode-island screenwriters-from-texas writers-from-austin,-texas writers-from-providence,-rhode-island

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