This great short is the tale of Walter, a rookie secret agent faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase.
About the ProductionProduction on the film spanned for nearly 5 years and is the first attempt at animation by writer/director Lucas Martell: "When the project started, it was really just an excuse to learn 3D animation, but by the end of the project I had spent so much time reworking and polishing the story that I just wanted people to laugh."
The end result is a hilarious 6-minute romp through the streets of Washington D.C. as our hero fights to save himself, and the world from the chaos reigned down by a hungry pigeon. Breathtaking visuals and a sweeping soundtrack showcase the work of nearly one-hundred talented artists and musicians, and the film stands as a testament to what can be accomplished by a team of dedicated volunteers working for the love of their craft.
Technical AchievementsAlthough the project started out as a simple test animation, it quickly ballooned into a no-holds-barred attempt at studio-level CGI filmmaking. The repeated emphasis on solid storytelling meant that technical considerations often came second to what the story required. This resulted in a level of technical hurdles far beyond what most independent shorts attempt, especially one that was made for less than $10,000 and created entirely in people’s spare time. Countless weeks were spent optimizing assets in order to render the expansive environment, a passbased look was developed to allow for the use of more expensive ray-tracing techniques, and hundreds of custom tools were written to accommodate the massive amount of data that had to flow through the pipeline.