VP Brand Creative – Matthew Duntemann
Animation Director – Chris Papa
Animation – Robert Kohr

© 2011 Viacom International Inc. All rights reserved.

The Lift explores the consequences of one very common behavior of not holding the elevator door open for someone rushing to get on or worse, lifting your finger and actively pushing the close button. In this film, an elevator interaction between the two lead characters goes wrong, prompting a young woman to learn about being insensitive and to be more considerate in the future.

The Lift seamlessly marries traditional animation and 3D background illustration into a modern day moral tale that any city dweller should heed. A mix of realism and fantasy helps transport the story from the modern world into a fantasy ala Alice going into the rabbit hole to see what’s on the other side only to then learn that her attitude was wrong.

A true labor of love, it took Robert and his team over 4 years to complete this 5 minute plus film that has been screened in over 55 festivals around the world, winning awards in 15 of them. Robert explored working with artists found online, all of whom he had never met and have developed continued working relationships with some of them. In this day and age it’s important to leverage social networking into your business model and The Lift is an example of this trend.

Robert lives in New York with his fiancé and his computer.

Check out these making-of videos:

I also started reading Writing Short Films, by Linda J. Cowgill after my friend and fellow animator Celia Bullwinkel recommended it on Facebook. It has made me rethink a lot of the structure and plot points of Europa while still reenforcing the path that I am taking and that for the most part it should come out okay. It definitely gives me a lot to think about.

When I was in Houston visiting family this past month I took a trip to the Johnson Space Center and shot tons of reference photos. It was interesting to get a sense of scale (something Europa is lacking) and to smell the rooms (they do smell interesting). I also was able to diagram all the different title cards on the desk in their control room for the International Space Station.

That said I have updated the animatic for Europa, yes music and voice will be added at some point. My question is that I feel it ends a little flat right now. I want the last 2 scenes to have more impact. In the animatic it zooms into the control room screen and you see the last picture of Savannah with the sun in the distance. Originally I wanted to cut to the whole control room in silence, then fade to black. Which would work better? Maybe another suggestion? Note that its not the whole film, no middle only the beginning and end.

FIRST PART
A woman in a space suit holds a joystick trying to take control of her craft, a man is yelling instructions off camera, the name on her suit says Savannah. Cut to a title card. The ship is rattling and bucking violently, a red orange glow erupts from the bottom of the ship followed by a trail of smoke. Cut to another title card. A hand flips switches on a console above, condensation slowly forms over the buttons, a woman yells back what she is doing. Cut to another title card. Savannah clenches the joystick tightly; both her and the captain pull back hard. On the outside of the ship the reverse thrusters ignite. Cut to the title “Europa”. A loud crash sound emits followed by a static hiss. Savannah wakes up, the captain next to her isn’t moving. She starts to shake him then stops realizing he is dead she turns to look for the rest of the crew, all lost, the back of the ship was crushed, she is the only survivor.

SECOND PART
Buzz. Oxygen at 1%. Savannah looks at her computer, she will die here. Mission control continues to reach any survivors of the crash. Her team, Jovian 4, all died in the crash. Savannah remembers her father again, this was her life’s goal she WILL finish her part of the mission. She grabs the icy and starts digging exposing a red substance which she places in her suit’s spectrum analyzer. She then pulls out the built in camera and starts setting up a tripod to take a picture.

Back at mission control: “Jovian 4 has failed, the remaining member, the Mission Documenter’s oxygen ran out 5 minutes ago following the crash. She was the sole survivor.

In the 3D modeling program Blender I made an initial model of the ring. After looking around 47th street and some stores in the village Kat and I realized that we really liked the knife-edge concept and we wanted to have the micro-pave on only one side of the edge. See the first two images.

Armed with this we went to see Lisa. She told us about this really great book, 500 Wedding Rings. Inspired by what we found I sketched the drawing on the second image. Lisa also gave us the idea of having an interlocking wedding band, where the notch in the top helps it form a perfect fit with the engagement band.

With this sketch Lisa and I met to discuss where we can go with this and some of the engineering issues with the sketch. We arrived at the first CAD (Computer Aided Design) design. Its 4 prongs felt too industrial and I wanted something more organic and more curvaceous. Lisa then presented the final CAD which included a bypass setting, something we both wanted, as well as an ‘s’ curve that I wanted down the middle. I also abandoned the idea of having the micro-pave only on one side and instead made it on alternating sides which emphasizes the angle that the bypass created.

In Chinese culture there are 3 things that are pretty important when dealing with marriage, roundness which symbolizes a perfect and ideal marriage, six which symbolizes a fluid and smooth marriage, and 9 which symbolizes longevity. After looking at a handful of stones Kat opted for a conflict free brilliant round over a cushion. The bypass accentuates the roundness and adds more strength than a traditional 4 prong. Kat also previously showed interest in a halo setting, which is another reason for a bypass and the micro-pave that sits on it. In all there are 6 prongs, 2 are the bypass, 2 come up the side as ‘fake’ prongs and 2 more attach to the bypass. The final stone has 36 micro-pave stones, which I thought worked as its divisible by 9. In fact its more important that the 3 + 6 = 9, so I was safe!

Just as a final note, it was REALLY great working with Lisa and we can’t wait to create our wedding bands with her.

All three were supposed to be about 7 seconds in length and bring the logo to life in some way that was indicative of the gaming experience. They were animated in the open source 3D software, Blender. I also had my first experience with rigging (which I really don’t like doing) the ‘i’ as a character. My favorite of the three is when the ‘i’ looks around and jumps on the button. I wanted this slate to have a PIXAR-like feel, of course its nowhere near as good as their stuff, but I am pretty happy

VP Brand Creative – Matthew Duntemann
Design Director – Renato Castilho
Storyboards – Robert Kohr
Audio – Steve Horowitz
Animation – Robert Kohr

© 2010 Viacom International Inc. All rights reserved.

If you have any feedback it’s greatly appreciated, so please comment below. Check out a summary of the action, there will also be a script to follow along with audio.

‘Til next week…

A woman in a space suit holds a joystick trying to take control of her craft, a man is yelling instructions off camera, the name on her suit says Savannah. Cut to a title card. The ship is rattling and bucking violently, a red orange glow erupts from the bottom of the ship followed by a trail of smoke. Cut to another title card. A hand flips switches on a console above, condensation slowly forms over the buttons, a woman yells back what she is doing. Cut to another title card. Savannah clenches the joystick tightly; both her and the captain pull back hard. On the outside of the ship the reverse thrusters ignite. Cut to the title “Europa”. A loud crash sound emits followed by a static hiss. Savannah wakes up, the captain next to her isn’t moving. She starts to shake him then stops realizing he is dead she turns to look for the rest of the crew, all lost, the back of the ship was crushed, she is the only survivor.

Next week I’ll post some thumbs I have been working on as well as a little more about the story. My goal is to start making this a weekly occurrence, most of the time it will be about my film or things I like or have seen, so check back. I will try to keep my promise to post.