Earlier this year Mr. Hublot–directed by Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares via Zeilt Productions, Luxembourg–won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar. The major stateside splash now continues with the rolling out of the New York Organ Donor Network’s Long Live New York animation short directed by Witz who also served as the project’s executive producer, DP, a renderer and compositor. “Long Live New York” marks the Zeilt studio’s first project for a U.S. ad agency, Y&R New York, and has earned the number one slot in SHOOT’s quarterly Visual Effects/Animation Chart.
Long Live New York opens in Grand Central Station, a now dormant, desolate site in a post-apocalyptic world. The world-famous station’s iconic clock is on the verge of losing power, and New York City at large is crumbling to pieces. A dramatic orchestral music score intensifies as New Yorkers are seen carrying various parts of the city–street signs, manhole covers, park benches, even the Grand Central clock–to a central location. These now seemingly useless objects, however, have a future. From the donated parts, a sculptor creates and unveils a new, beating heart he has built for New York City. We see that hope and life are restored to a once-gloomy, melancholy metropolis.
The short is the centerpiece of a campaign designed to increase organ donor registration in the greater NY metropolitan area, ultimately saving more lives. The campaign also speaks to the duality of donation. Those who do register are not only helping to ensure that New Yorkers and New York live on, but also that they will live on through a meaningful legacy.
New York is currently ranked 49th out of the 50 states in life-saving organ donation. Every 15 hours, another New Yorker dies while waiting for a donated organ. When asked, 83 percent of New Yorkers will tell you that they support organ donation–yet only 23 percent are actually registered to be donors.
For Witz, this compelling message drew him to the project. “It was an honor to work on this film. I chose to dedicate myself to this project because I think signing up to become an organ donor is a wonderful cause and I was struck by the need in New York,” Witz said. “It is my hope that this film inspires New Yorkers, arouses emotions and creates a spark that will drive people to register to become organ donors that could in turn save lives.”
Witz noted that the biggest creative challenge for him was “to put emotion and poetry in this movie. That was my goal. Through emotion we can get the message across.” The 90-second animated film was largely done in 3D animation, with matte paintings deployed for certain background elements.
Sound contributions
“Visually we had to do a lot of work to make this movie happen; lots of prep work,” related Witz who added that his focus went well beyond the visual. “It was very important for me to take care of sound design and music. I worked with the composer who had done lots of versions of the music to arrive at the final composition–the one I had in my head the whole time. The music is great and an important element in building the feel of the piece.”
The alluded to composer was Francois Rousselot. The rest of the music and sound ensemble included assistant composer/conductor Damien Deshayes, sound designer Matthieu Michaux (of Dame Blanche in Brussels), the Macedonia Radio Symphonic Orchestra, orchestra manager Laurent Koppitz and orchestra mixer Marc Gueroult.
Part of Y&R’s creative ensemble came to the Zeilt studio in Luxembourg for the job. Still there was much dialogue and interaction going on remotely between folks still physically at Y&R NY and Witz and his compatriots in Europe. “Though there were many miles separating us and a big time difference, it was really easy to work with Y&R,” assessed Witz. “It was a nice collaboration, for sure. It’s important to take enjoyment in what you’re doing, which helps you become more and more creative. Y&R was very confident in what I could do and we worked well together as a team.”
Glen Jacobs, executive creative director at Y&R New York, “The need for organ donation in New York has never been higher, which is why the work that New York Organ Donor Network is doing is so vital. They remind us that we each have the power to save lives, and they provide us with the path to doing so. We developed the ‘Long Live New York’ campaign as a way to communicate the urgency of the need for organ donation while also emphasizing the power of legacy in donation. It is critically important that we do our part to ensure that all New Yorkers have the chance to live on.”
This sense of purpose is what motivated Witz from the outset. The opportunity for Zeilt to break into the American ad market through this project didn’t enter into his mind at that time, he said. “That wasn’t my goal at all when I decided to do this movie,” related Witz. “I did it because it was an important film for an important cause.”
Now, though, given the positive creative rapport he had with Y&R, Witz noted, “With the movie done, I realize that it’s possible to do other work [in the U.S.].”
The Long Live New York animated short is airing digitally on Facebook, Hulu and Say Media. Among the other campaign elements is LongLiveNY.org, a new online hub designed to encourage New Yorkers to register to become organ donors and to advocate for the cause.
