Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) has rolled out Special Delivery from Oscar-winning studio Aardman Animations. The holiday short is the latest of ATAP’s Spotlight Stories, a new form of storytelling made specifically for mobile and VR. In these 360-degree, interactive stories, the smartphone becomes a window to a world which opens up all around the device’s user. Phone sensors allow the story to be interactive; when the user moves the phone to various scenes, he or she is able to unlock mini-stories within the story, encountering 10 subplots, three potential ways to see the end, and 60-plus moments where the user can decide to follow the story in different ways. Each viewing is unique.
Special Delivery is viewable on the YouTube app on many Android devices. Directed by Tim Ruffle of Aardman Animations, the short follows the adventures of a humble caretaker, disturbed by a mysterious rooftop stranger who is always one step ahead, leaving behind a trail of gifts.
A YouTube 360 version was also made for other Android devices, iOS devices, and the web. Both versions of Special Delivery can be found on the Spotlight Stories YouTube channel, and may also be viewed with Google Cardboard. Plans call for the Google Spotlight Stories to be brought to more Android devices and the YouTube iOS app next year.
Among the other Aardman artisans contributing to Special Delivery were creative directors Peter Lord and Jan Pinkava, EPs Heather Wright, Karen Dufilho and Regina Dugan, producers Jason Fletcher-Bartholomew and Kim Adams, technical art lead Luca Prasso, head of CGI production Jess McKillop, technical supervisors Philip Child, and Ben Toogood, CGI modelers Christopher Livesey, Tom Lord, Jonathan MacDonald and Antonio Mendoza Salado, Mathew Rees who handled CGI animation and supervision, CGI animators Eva Bennett, Olly Davis, Andy Fossey, John Ogden, Terry Reilly and Inez Woldman, and 2D animator Philip Parker. The short film story was written by Lord, Ruffle, Andy Janes and Sam Morrison.
The Google Spotlight ensemble included software lead James Ritts, engineer lead James Beattie, Tools lead Brendan Duncan, program manager Ellen Young, and technical artists Ryan Enslow, Matthew Oursbourn, and Kye Wan Sung.