Animator Seoro Oh reminds us what it's like to fall asleep in class

It’s a feeling we recall all too easily: a too-hot classroom on a muggy afternoon, the soporific drone of an uninspiring teacher, the undecipherable signs and shapes of maths equations swimming before heavy eyelids…

Falling asleep during a lesson is the subject of this excellent new 2D digital animation by Seoro Oh. Afternoon Class makes excellent use of visual metaphor: we watch the protagonist’s heavy head lurk from side to side with lethargy morphing into a bowling ball, a pile of bricks and a sledgehammer. Finally, as sleep overcomes the boy, he enters into a manic dreamscape, in which he attacks his classmates trying to rouse them. On our return to reality, we see that now the entire classroom is filled of sleeping pupils. As the teacher surveys the scene, he takes off his glasses and retires to a chair in the corner to nod off.

Amazingly, although it’s the animator’s graduation film, Afternoon Class has already found recognition in the form of a whole host of awards at Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film, Monstra Lisbon Animated Film Festival, Big Cartoon Festival, Annecy International Animated Film Festival, International Film Festival Etiuda & Anima, NW Animation Festival “Best of the Fest”, Animanima and Hiroshima.