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After nearly a year of bringing our space rom-com to life, we’ve finally reached the end of our mission! 
Behind the Scenes As we wrap up the program, we wanted to share some fun BTS moments from our story team! Our story artists and revisionists have spent countless hours bringing our characters and their personalities to life, while also finding plenty of ways to have fun along the way. It’s been such a joy getting little glimpses into their processes throughout the program!  Our wonderful story artist, Jenny Yi, working on her sequence.  A glimpse into our story revisionist's, Schantelle Alonzo, desk. Pick Ups With our story team wrapped and all sequences complete, we were able to see our animatic come together visually for the very first time. Our story artists added creative new moments through the boards that called for new dialogue, and we even discovered additional moments that could be strengthened by more dialogue and efforts as well to help fill out each scene. And, honestly, we’d never miss an opportunity to work with our lovely actors again, so we brought them all back in for pick-up sessions to record these new lines. These pick up sessions were hugely successful, whether we were recording additional jokes or looking to deepen emotional moments. This is a love story after all, so strong emotion is a requirement, and our actors certainly brought it, pouring parts of themselves and their lives into their characters whenever possible! Design Over the past few weeks, our design team has been having a lot of fun bringing the world of the film to life beyond the animatic! While wrapping up additional character poses and backgrounds, they’ve been hard at work, designing options for our film’s poster, logo, and color script! Developing several poster concepts and logo options, our artists have experimented with different compositions, typography, and character poses. A lot needs to be communicated in a film’s poster and logo, so designing one is no small feat! The team is extremely happy about how both the poster and logo turned out and are looking forward to sharing them soon. In addition, our color script has helped us define the emotional journey of our film through color. It’s really helped us map out the mood of each sequence, from the quieter, more intimate romantic moments to the more adventurous beats of our story. It’s been so exciting seeing our entire animatic laid out visually through color!  Music With our time-locked picture, our composers, Sean-Paul Gouw and Carina Lim, have been diving into the exciting final stages of the score! It’s been so rewarding to hear the film transform, and we’re repeatedly amazed by the emotion that great music can bring out! Lyricist Victoria Cho has also been hard at work, making sure the lyrics for our song aligns with our film’s themes.  Edit
Our edit team, made up of Lead Editor Hannah Duncan and Assistant Editor Angelica Ramos, have been instrumental in bringing the animatic together, shaping the story one cut at a time. Working closely with director Peri Segel, they’ve spent countless hours in live edit sessions, fine-tuning everything from tiny timing adjustments to the rhythm of each scene. Those small tweaks can make a huge difference, and their collaborative, detail-oriented work has helped the film find its pacing, personality, and flow. So much of our film’s personality has been discovered in edit sessions. Especially when it comes to rom-coms, a reaction lasting half a second longer can completely change whether or not a joke lands. In addition, our editors have helped us shape the emotion of our film, allowing us to discover when to let scenes breathe, or opt for faster cuts to create more energy and urgency. Combining the rom-com and sci-fi space genres, there’s a delicate balance, so identifying when to slow a moment down or speed it up is essential. In addition, Sound Designer Margareth Gunawan has shaped our world with beautiful sound effects, and since our story takes place in the future, her creativity has been an essential part of exploring our world and bringing it to life. The most exciting part of it all: edit sessions mark the first time the team gets to see all of the elements of the project come together – the visuals, the dialogue, the sound effects, the music. These are the moments that truly allow us to appreciate the magic of animation. What’s Next It's been an exhilarating ride since we began development on this feature project nearly a year ago, and in that time we have come so far! Thanks to the thousands of hours that the whole team put in, we've succeeded in our ambitious goal to create a proof-of-concept animatic for our spectacular sci-fi romcom, honing and showcasing the versatile talents of a rising generation of Asian talent. However, just as our protagonists are setting out on a journey of a lifetime across the stars, this is just the beginning of a long road ahead for our feature. Though we've reached the end of this program, we're strapping in for the long haul. Keep an eye out for more news and exciting announcements in the near future!
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 Artist: Betty Liu This month, we officially started our Post Production section with Compositing, FX, Lighting, and Animation launched. In addition, we are wrapping up our 2D Design phase and closing out our 3D modeling and texturing phase. In regards to our crew, we sent our the call for additional teammates and you all answered the call heartily! We brought on an additional 20+ people to help support our Animation, Lighting, Texturing, and FX teams. 2D & 3D Asset: This month, we wrapped up the creation of our 3D Models from base to UV approved and started texturing. With the addition of 3 texturing artists, we're slowly seeing the colors of our models come to life and we are really proud of how they are turning out so far! Our 2D team has also been hard at work finalizing our color script and style frames, making it easier for lighting and compositing to get started matching the key frames for our final look. They've also graciously been assisting with other detailed requests from our 3D team.  Artist: Shuyi Li Animation: Our animators have been given their shot assignments and with our crew rounding out to 11 members, we're expecting to allow our animators to really work on polishing and refining their shots and making sure that our characters' emotions and personalities are clearly defined.  Animator: Anthony Liu Lighting/FX: Our Lighting and FX teams have just gotten launched on their initial assignments! With 13 lighters and 5 FX artists, the team is raring to go, utilizing both Unreal Engine and Houdini to create the dynamics of the world around us. Compositing: We most recently launched Compositing! Our Lighting and Compositing teams will work hand in hand to make sure that we are matching the Color Scripts and Style Frames to the best of their ability. These two teams will be our last line of defense to make sure our film is finalized to the best of their abilities. Music & Sound: Our Composers have finished ideating on the soundtrack and are currently working on polishing each section. Our Sound Designer is starting to refine the sounds that we hear in the streets of Aden. Their combined ability to incorporate Southwest Asian music with the street sounds of Aden add the last bit of refinement our film is seeking. What's Next: We have one more monthly update to go and we are on track to finish production in October! We hope to see you in our last update with more information about our release plan soon.  Artist: Mimi Kwan
Written by Andrew Frastaci, Background Artist The FOREST team is currently deep in production, executing on a year’s worth of planning, writing, storyboarding, and pre-production art! The final vision of our short film is beginning to take shape, with our lovable characters beginning to move on top of lush backgrounds. Crafting the Landscape of FOREST Our setting, a pint-sized town in the midst of a fantastical forest, is as much of a character as our main cast. Background artists are responsible for communicating our short’s unique sense of scale while supporting the emotional beat of the story. Our artists are held to a professional standard for maintaining continuity between shots, keeping in mind size, proportion, and color. During this production, our background artists have also learned technical tricks to help them not only paint faster, but even more accurately, allowing them to enhance their skill sets. 
Background art teams must constantly reference each other’s work to ensure a sense of consistency in each shot. Bringing It All Together: Compositing All of our individual art teams must work together to ensure a sense of cohesiveness across assets, but the compositing team is where our short film literally comes together! We can’t just slap our animated characters on top of our backgrounds and call it a day - characters need to feel grounded in the world created for them. The compositing team layers in extra shadows, atmosphere, and effects to create a sense of immersion in each shot. “Animation, as a medium, is at its best when it is collaborative, pulling from the artistic experiences of everyone involved. Compositing is where all the different schools of animation magic become one. The Comp team takes the lovingly crafted lines of the animation team and the beautifully painted images from the background team, then combines them to make a cohesive whole. The collected creative output of the entire crew, distilled down into one perfect image, one frame at a time.” -Eric Wolford, Compositing Lead.
Rough Animator: Grace Jung | Clean & Color Animator: Gab Talan | Compositors: Eric Wolford, Fionna Chang This compositing test shows just one shot on its way to completion. Modern compositing might look a little different from the days of laying clear animation cells over painted backgrounds, but the fundamentals are still the same. Crafting the SOUNDscape of FOREST: SFX and Soundtrack
While we have a good idea of what our world looks like, if you close your eyes and picture a dense forest, what does it sound like? That’s the question our SFX team is hard at work answering, a key complementary element of bringing our 2D Short to life. We didn’t set out to make a silent film, so everything from footsteps to falling fruit will need to be captured over the coming weeks to complete FOREST. And last but certainly not least, our soundtrack: the emotional heartbeat of our short film. Rumors among the crew say that as much as 5 minutes of the soundtrack have been recorded so far, and it already has rave reviews! A powerful score drives the point home on a film such as ours. Next Steps
Our feature is flying into its final stretch this month and we can’t wait to share many exciting updates about storyboards, design, production, music, and editing! Story Team After many weeks of creativity, collaboration, and countless iterations, our story team has officially wrapped! The journey began with our story artists pitching rough storyboard sequences, exploring the film’s pacing, emotion, and comedy. Following the Rough Pitch, they refined those ideas and began to clean up their storyboards: sharpening the acting, staging, and cinematography while incorporating feedback from each weekly review. Once the sequences were locked, our incredible revisionists jumped in to help polish every frame for final delivery, ensuring the animatic was in its strongest state. It truly took the dedication and talent of the entire team to bring this animatic to life. A huge congratulations and thank you to our unstoppable team of story artists – Ashley Hua, Serena Lee, Bianca Nassar, Katie Wang, Jenny Yi, Jenny Wu, and, of course, Head of Story, Al Teng – and revisionists – Schantelle Alonzo, Stella Kim, Sophie Ludes, Chloe Pineda, and Emily Chao – for their hard work, craftsmanship, and commitment throughout every stage of the process.  Art by Andy Xiaoxia Jiang Design While the Story team brought the film to life through the animatic, our Design team has been hard at work shaping the visual identity of the project. From developing the beautiful backgrounds featured throughout the animatic to creating expressive character poses that capture each character’s dynamic personality, every piece of art they’ve created has helped define the world of the film. The team is also hard at work creating key art work for our pitch deck, including posters and other marketing materials that communicate the heart and tone of the story. Their creativity, attention to detail, and ability to balance stunning details with thoughtful storytelling and worldbuilding is truly unmatched. A huge thank you to our incredible design team, led by Jade Mahal Lew, Isa Kim, and Juris Anton Tungpalan: Shruti Ada, Kelly Xin Chen, Ten Cho, Fernando Gutierrez-Garcia, Ylan Ha, Eri Iguchi, Sara Kubo, Andy Xiaoxia Jiang, An Mai, and Jady Zhao.
Production Behind every successful production is an extraordinary production team keeping everything running smoothly, and ours has been nothing short of exceptional. We’ll be honest in saying we all would have lost our minds by now if it wasn’t for production keeping us feeling calm, prepared, and motivated to take on any challenge or deadline. Our fearless team of Production Assistants – Darcy Bergstein, Ollie Otou-Branckaert, Sally Pan, Alicia Paz, Brynn Straley, and Amiya Tuhina – have been the backbone of our day-to-day operation. They do everything, from taking detailed notes, coordinating meetings, managing everyone’s ever-changing schedules, tracking countless moving pieces at all times, and stepping in to solve problems before most of us even know they exist. Their organization, adaptability, positive attitude, and tireless support have made an immeasurable difference throughout production. This month also marked an exciting milestone as our Executive Assistant Amber Liu stepped into her shiny new role as Production Coordinator for the Design and Music teams. She has embraced this promotion with professionalism, thoughtfulness, and incredible attention to detail, keeping multiple departments aligned while supporting everyone on the team every step of the way. In addition, Alexis Wong, our Story Production Coordinator, continues to do a phenomenal job shepherding the storyboard process, coordinating pitches, communicating across departments, and ensuring the story team has everything they need to stay focused on their beautiful work! Our production supervisors, Pla Pichetpongsa and Jennifer Vu have expertly guided the production through every major milestone, balancing the big picture with the countless small details that make this production possible. Their leadership, quick problem-solving, and enthusiasm has kept every department more confident than ever moving forward. Last, but certainly not least: leading it all is our Producer Saira Umar and Production Manager Andrew Velazco! Their ability to oversee the entire production, anticipate challenges, and keep every team aligned is nothing short of magic. Saira is a wealth of knowledge who is endlessly reliable and always happily willing to help, and Andrew is our cool, calm, and competent leader who leads every meeting with positivity, enthusiasm, and humor. These two create an environment where everyone can do their best work. We are incredibly grateful to the entire Production team for everything they have done to bring our film to life!  Background by Andy Xiaoxia Jiang Music Our Music Team, made up of composers Sean-Paul Gouw and Carina Lim, and lyricist Victoria Cho, have begun one of the most exciting stages of the production process, laying the emotional foundation for the entire film through their beautiful, beautiful music! Alongside Writer-Director Peri Segel and Writer-Producer Allen Wu, the team has started spotting cues across the animatic, identifying where music can deepen emotion and bring each moment to life. From there, the team has begun delivering early demos for review. At the same time, our talented lyricist, Victoria, has been working on a special song for our project, beautifully capturing the themes and heart of our film. We can’t wait to hear more!  Art by Juris Tungpalan
August brings a major operational turning for our production. With Rigging, 3D Modeling, and Set Layout officially completed, our teams are actively transitioning into Animation, Blocking, and Texturing. Below is a look of our latest milestones, team highlights, and the steps ahead as we enter our final two months of production. Design (3D and 2D) This month, we’re wrapping up some of our most important 3D designs for our characters, environments, and props. We’ve just begun working on texturing to fully complete our assets and have even started to see some of these designs come to life!  Art by Gaby Chiong In addition to our 3D art, our 2D team is working on solidifying our color scripts and some additional style frames to narrow down the exact style of our film. Once completed, they will be delivered to lighting and compositing so they can start their R&D work to find the best mechanisms and processes to recreate their scenes within Unreal Engine and Nuke.  Art by Olivia Lee Layout
Our 3D Asset Team, Animation Team, and Editor continue working closely to create our film. They have worked their way through set layout and blocking, having completed all of the shots that we saw in our animatic. In addition, our Composers and Sound Designer have been hard at work creating the auditory landscape and we’ve been fortunate to see how they all mesh together in our layout passes. Our screening of the completed layout pass is during the first week of August and we are all really excited to update you on how that went! Rigging Our Rigging team through the collaboration of Adnan Hussain, one of our Directors, and Rashi Sinha, our Rigging Technical Director, have completed all of the rigs needed for our film. For the characters, they were able to use pre-existing Metahumans for the base and adjust and add any controls necessary for the animation team. Specifically, our characters need to be able to perform soccer tricks so we needed to make sure that our characters were able to move fluidly, like a soccer player would. What’s Next: While we’ve met so many amazing milestones this month, we’re excited to continue our push into Post-Production. In August, our lighting team, FX, and Compositing start, and then it’s just 2 more months until our film is completed. We’re so lucky to have many amazing and passionate artists who are in full support of our film and we can’t wait to share it with you. Stay tuned as we work our way through the final section of our film! |
AuthorThe Program & Production Team Archives
September 2026
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