THE PROJECT.
A message for all.
In 2020, a tragedy struck us all: young Willy Monteiro lost his life during a beating while trying to protect a friend. In that moment, we realized we had to do something to honor his heroic act.
We tried to imagine what would have happened if one of the young people present—who was busy filming the scene—had realized that, even though he wasn’t directly participating in the violence, he was still an accomplice to it. We took it a step further, imagining his inner struggle after a spark of humanity had made him change his mind.
This story touched us deeply here at Side Academy, and we thought it might inspire many other people, especially if told with the immediacy and expressive power of a cartoon.
Based on an idea by Stefano Siganakis (CEO and Founder of the academy), in collaboration with Sarah Arduini and Marilù Rainò, we decided to involve as many students as possible, turning the project into a full-fledged production, just like they do at studios such as Disney, Pixar, and DreamWorks.
THE CHARACTERS
Character Creation and Design.
The character concept was developed after the first sketches of the setting were completed.
We decided to give the aliens a human-like appearance so that viewers could better identify with the short film’s protagonists and their inner struggles.
We worked with the color palette to highlight each character’s unique traits and to convey their personality through it.
Environmet
Willy's World
We started by creating the city from scratch, envisioning it as a futuristic version of one of our major cities, but with a distinctly science-fiction atmosphere. Since the short film begins right in the thick of the action, we needed to create a setting that would immediately convey to the viewer the reality of the world in which the story takes place.
SHADOW and LIGHT
Xen consciousness.
The short film’s other settings unfold in two contrasting spaces: a dark void and a white one, both minimalist, representing the protagonist’s inner thoughts. Incorporating visual effects while keeping the scenes simple yet visually engaging was a major challenge: we wanted the setting to enhance the animation and storytelling, rather than distract the viewer’s attention.
UNREAL ENGINE.
The real challenge.
For this project, we decided to challenge the students by asking them to create it entirely using Unreal Engine.
Unreal is a rendering engine used to create video games, but it is increasingly being studied and leveraged for producing short films and cinematics. This is because, thanks to real-time rendering, it allows creators to see the result immediately without having to wait for long calculation times, as happens with more traditional software such as Maya/Arnold.
