Pip

After seeing a local animated short film with over 30 million views on YouTube, Southeastern Guide Dogs told us they would like to have their own viral short film featuring their amazing dogs. We tried to manage expectations, after all you can’t just willingly make a viral like that, when there's so many factors we can’t possibly control. Oh well, Pip has reached well over 500 million views and still counting!

We started out with a screenplay written by David Kilgo, Richard Mather and Leslie Rowe based on a story by Titus Herman, to which we made a few tweaks in order to make sure the story worked as well on the screen as it did on the page. The main challenge was to make the story and all its nuances read perfectly clear without the use of dialogue. The comedy, drama and action all had to be balanced just right in order for the film to be effective.

With such a short time to tell the story, we needed the character designs to convey their personalities as quickly as possible. The talented Estrela Lourenço did an amazing job exploring these characters and providing us with different options to choose from. Meanwhile, Silvia Brujas and our animation supervisor Ferran Casas took care of the set and prop designs, based on references from the actual Southeastern Guide Dogs Florida campus.

The next step was turning all the 2D designs into three dimensional assets, consisting of characters, sets and props, which need to be modelled, textured, shaded and rigged. This is where both technical and artistic skills all come together with the common goal of telling the story in the most effective way.

The animators then took these rigged characters and brought them to life, making them move, breathe, think and feel, in a way that’s relatable and appealing to the audience. With Pip there was no dialogue explaining the story, no voice over or subtitles, so it was all down to the character performances to get all the story points across in a clear and engaging way.

Our client mentioned Joe Hisaichi as a reference for the music of Pip, and with that in mind, our composer Aurélien Vieira Lino wrote a beautiful soundtrack consisting of piano and a string quartet.

Client
SOUTHEASTERN GUIDE DOGS

Director
BRUNO SIMÕES

Executive Producer
STACY HOWE

Producer
LAIA ALOMAR

Story
TITUS HERMAN

Screenplay
DAVID KILGO
RICHARD MATHER
LESLIE ROWE

Animation Supervisor
FERRAN CASAS

CG Supervisor
DANI BUHIGAS

Character Design
ESTRELA LOURENÇO

Matte Painting and Prop Design
SILVIA BRUJAS

Storyboard & Animatic
LAURA PORTOLÉS

Layout
BRUNO SIMÕES

Character Modeling
ANDREA GIORDANO

Sets & Prop Modeling
JUAN CARLOS NAVA CONTRERAS

Textures
IGNAZIO ACERENZA
IAINA ESTRELA
ANDREA GIORDANO
EVA DE PRADO

Character Rigging
JORGE BELLOT

Animation
TONI BUENAVIDA
MATTHIEU POIREY
DAVID RUBIO

Title Animation
JORGE RIBEIRO

Grooming and Lighting
DANI BUHIGAS

Compositing
LIONEL ESTIVILL
CRISTIAN MARTÍN
CARLOS NAVARRO

Render Support
DANIEL CARREGADO FERNÁNDEZ
JAVIER FERNÁNDEZ CARBAL
SERGIO GONZÁLEZ SAINZ
JUAN RUIZ ESTEBAN

Music
AURÉLIEN VIEIRA LINO

Sound Design & Final Mix
BRUNO OLIVEIRA

Piano
AURÉLIEN VIEIRA LINO

String Quartet
DANIEL BOLITO
RUI MENDES CRISTÃO
RAQUEL MERRELHO
CÁTIA ALEXANDRE SANTOS

Music Recorded and Mixed at
ESTÚDIO TIMBUKTU

Special Thanks
TONGAL
COLIN DONCASTER
SOFIA HERMAN
ROGER TORRAS
FERNANDO VIÑUALES ALLUÉ
LULU YANG

Technical Partners
PEREGRINE LABS
SUMMUS RENDER