Dec 15, 2016

From "The Paper Man" Director John Kers and Chromosphere's Kevin Dart to an animated short film for Lyft

As part of Driver Appreciation Day yesterday, "June," a new animated short produced for the ride-sharing service Lyft, showcases the unique style of Oscar winners John Cars ("Paperman") and Kevin Dart (boutique design and animation studio Chromosphere) showcase their unique styles.

The seven-minute short, which can be seen below, tells the story of a lonely Chicago widow who rides along in a Lyft car and at the same time gets a chance to share a part of her life.

Cartoon Brew spoke with both Kahrs and Dart about the genesis of "June," how their past work influenced the project, and the additional dimension it adds to short films. The film is accompanied by concept artwork used in the making of the film.

Cars worked at Pixar for several years before moving to Walt Disney Animation Studios, where he animated "Bolt," "Tangled," "Wreck-It-Ralph" and "Frozen." He eventually directed the innovative CG/hand-drawn hybrid "Paperman," which was released in 2012. [Meanwhile, Dart worked as art director on Cartoon Network's "Steven Universe" and DreamWorks' "The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show," before joining forces with his regular collaborators to form Chromosphere.

"June" was conceived by Lyft creative director Ricardo Viramontes and produced by Jenny Lim through Broad Reach Pictures. According to Cars, Viramontes came to him "cold" with the idea for a short story about Lyft's drive.

"He already had a strong framework of a single mother woman who had lost her job and was struggling to make ends meet. She grew older and eventually came from an area of Chicago called Bronzeville."

That area of Chicago became the center of the short story after Cars took a research trip there with several actual Lyft drivers. The last driver we went with took us to the Bronzeville neighborhood just south of downtown Chicago. It is very historic, predominantly African-American, and has deep traditions. There was a very particular spatial relationship between the buildings and the vacant lots next to them, the elevated railroad, and the skyline in the distance."

Kers then spent years following his work, especially his "Form in Nature" piece, which pays homage to the mid-century illustration style, especially Charlie Harper's work, before seeking out Dart specifically for June.

"Kevin was immediately enamored with June," Kers recalls. 'He saw my pitch and it wasn't even fully boarded up yet. It was geometric in design and could live in a flat pictorial world. And a photographic sense of light and shadow."

When Dart was asked to come in June, originally as art director, he had just transitioned to running Chromosphere full-time. He has since augmented his crew to about 25 people, mostly freelancers working remotely from locations in Australia, France, and the UK.

"We spent a month and a half on the initial development work and design," he said. We did some early animation testing as proof of concept." After that, the main production lasted a little over three months."

"It's something that has always interested us as a group of artists. One of my main collaborators is Stéphane Koedel, with whom I have worked since my early work." We have always been interested in the idea of taking a graphic 2D design and giving it a photographic, semi-realistic treatment by way of compositing or photography. We feel like we are continuing to push that feeling forward."

"We did a lot of 3D work on this film. A lot of the characters are in 3D, the sets are in 3D. The hand-held camera movements were also done in 3D to help give the film a 3D feel. Even in shots with 2D backgrounds, I used Photoshop to create subtle parallax and distort elements to create depth.

For Kearns, this is not only an intended design element, but also one of the reasons he chose to use Dart for this project. Those are all things I feel strongly about," he told Cartoon Brew. For example, in "The Paper Man," I liked the idea of using black and white, but with a careful and precise choice of tones to create, for lack of a better word, the impression of a photographic gestalt. I think Kevin has a great sense of color, and it was like entering Kevin's world and letting the colors and his own great sense of design take over."

Ultimately, "June" feels like one of those unique commercial films that can have broad appeal thanks to the talented artists behind the work. For Dart in particular, it is still early days in the life of the chromosphere, and he is looking at all available projects to find the right combination.

"We are still trying to find our true identity as a studio and the most desirable projects. The project with John and Rift was really the perfect scenario. It had everything we liked, a really interesting graphic style, a lot of new technology in the mix, and the freedom to work with a variety of artists."