Amazon 2021 Product Launch CG

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Client: Amazon

Every Fall, Amazon holds a large press event to announce all of their new devices. My team was entirely responsible for the production of this event. Many people worked on this and there were a lot of components, but this compilation of CG and motion work was solely my contribution. It includes a lot of the early concepts and ideas that never made it past the style frame phase. I got to work on many aspects of the event including the Astro device documentary, animated title slides and transitions. Although my contribution was only a fraction of the work that was created for this event, hopefully seeing some of the early R&D will shed some light on just how massive of an undertaking this project was. Enjoy!

Astro Documentary

This was probably my biggest contribution to the event. Astro is Amazon's newest autonomous device. Our team made a documentary about it, but due to Covid restrictions and incredibly tight deadlines, we were unable to shoot enough B-roll for our editor. My job was to design and animate a 3D research and development lab space for the Astro to show off all of its edge detection, object avoidance and room mapping features. I created over 50 CG B-roll shots.

Early Look Development

Early on in the process we pitched the idea of having colorful flowing cloth swirling around the new devices. This would've been a loop that takes place as people are walking into the event. We played on the idea of cloth being pulled off of something to reveal it, but in our case we wanted our guest speakers to reveal the devices. We designed it so that the cloth never reveals the actual products, it just hints at the forms beneath it and saves the big reveal for later in the presentation. Sadly this idea never made it past the development phase, but I still think it's work that's worth showing.

Ambient Plants R&D

After the cloth idea was shot down, we still needed an ambient animation to play on screen while people walked in as well as a theme for animated transitions between speaker title cards. Our leadership team didn't want the loop to reveal the products before the speakers talk about them. The event was held in the Amazon Bio Spheres, a large greenhouse structure full of lush exotic plant life. We thought it would be eye catching and fun to have a camera push through brightly colored plants gently swaying in the breeze and seamlessly transitioning between one another and to title cards.

Early Animated Transitions & Title Cards

Part of what my team delivered was animated speaker title cards and animated transitions. These are some of my early look development tests that never made it in to the final presentation.

Product Shots

Of course no presentation about devices would be complete without some animated device shots. Here are are few of the final shots I made, as well as some early R&D.