1stAveMachine's Nico Casavecchia Gets Atomic With IBM

1stAveMachine's Nico Casavecchia Gets Atomic With IBM

Animation is a notoriously time-consuming art form. The painstaking process of conjuring tiny movements to bring life to characters, surroundings and objects is one of the most impressive (and admirable) professional traits of moving-image creators. In fact, there's only one way to impress us more than creating a meticulous cartoon film, and that's to create a meticulous cartoon film on an atomic-scale.


The ability to move single atoms, one of the smallest particles of any element in the universe, has been a crucial part of IBM's research in recent years. However, it's a tough gig to try and speak to the population at large about the teeniest of tiny things without resorting to patronising or boring them. So instead, with the help of 1stAveMachine and agency Ogilvy, the magical nanophysicists decided to use their powers of micro-manipulation to create a charming tale of 'A Boy And His Atom' – getting a Guinness World Record for the smallest animation in the process.

We sat down with the director of the project, 1stAve's Nico Casavecchia, to find out if size really matters.
 

 
'A Boy And His Atom' is the world's smallest animation. How does it feel to be a world-record holder?!
 
I feel like I've been invited to an amazing party. It's only because of the scientists that this was possible, so it feels great to be part of the team.
 
How did you get involved in the project?
 
In November of 2012 I had a call from Sam Penfield, the executive producer in 1st Avenue Machine saying that she might have a great project to do together. At that time we were super busy finishing a commercial but we didn't think twice about getting in and doing it. We started to have the initial meetings with Ogilvy around then.
 
What was your contribution to the animation? 
 
As the director of the piece my role was basically unify all the talents of the team into a single artistic vision. Translating the script from the agency into a visual form, doing initial concepting and working with the designers and animators in the previz piece, then working with the scientists to provide them with the materials they needed to do the job.
 
Did you do any atom manipulation yourself?
 
I was lucky enough to sit at the computer that moved the atoms and try it out. I moved a couple and earned a badge that says "I moved atoms", which was pretty cool. Andreas Heimrich and his team did all the stop motion animation themselves.

 
What were the limitations presented to you when conceptualising the story? 
 
Every day the process presented a new challenge. Initially the scientist told us that they could move a total of 200 atoms, which was absolutely limiting on what could be done. Initial sketches prove to be impossible to use 200 pixels for an entire movie. Then they figured out that taking turns among the whole team they could do around 5000 which made it much better. The second problem we encountered was that all our designs were based on a pixel grid like a computer screen and atoms have to be aligned in an hexagonal grid, like the bricks in a wall. This was a huge challenge in terms of design and animation because such a grid makes it difficult to create comprehensible images. In the end it was a blessing because if you can create a good character out of this system, it ends up being highly iconic. We didn't have a clear set of limitations when we started, we had to find out during the process, and this often made us go back to the drawing board in terms of scripting and design.
 
Were there any things you wanted to incorporate but couldn't?
 
Many. There were designs for a girl in the story, close ups to more detailed faces. And all sorts of animation tricks, but in the end we decided to keep it as simple and compelling as possible and have fun with the minimalistic media.
 
How was the 'shoot'?
 
We created a previz film in Flash using black dots instead of atoms, then broke it down taking out all the repeated frames. Then we wrote software to translate the coordinates of each black dot to something the IBM computers could use. This resulted in a visual guide that was overlaid in those computers they use to move the Scanning Tunneling Microscope. Then the scientists moved each atom by hand to the actual position and saved each image. In 1stAve we put together the frames and reconstructed the previz film with the final images.

Did you run in to many problems?
 
Every day we encountered a new bump in the road. The good thing was these problems were always a challenge - not the kind you find in this business; the nice ones. The initial problem was the communication between the teams. The terms that the scientists used in their everyday life and the concepts they work with resulted in a totally cryptic language for us, so it took us a lot of work to try and understand their process. I finally put together a document renaming complex science jargon with baby words like "dot, line, dark spot", to try to create a common way to deal with things and move forward.

How au-fait were you with the technology? 
 
In the very beginning of the process, when I was researching, I realized how difficult and complex the world of atoms is. The scientists did a very good job explaining themselves and their process. The problem was that with me, the enigma usually started with the explanation. However, I think in the end we all made an effort to comprehend each other and find common ground. The technology behind the STM is amazing, I recommend watching the behind the scenes for a technical explanation from the scientists. 
 
Do you feel smarter after working with the IBM guys?
 
No. I feel the process took me a step closer to understanding how ignorant I am about pretty much anything, which is a beautiful revelation, actually.
 
What was the post process on the film? 
 
From the beginning the philosophy was not to touch the film in post, or as little as possible. We corrected the lighting to make it readable and put one frame after another. Some frames were repeated to avoid reanimating the atoms, like you do in any stop motion film, but we didn't comp any new parts or merge bits together. The ripples in the image are the electrons of the copper surface, they are a water mark that wouldn't allow us to do anything even if we intended to.
 
Did you have to clean it up or did you want to remain pure to the concept?
 
We tried to be faithful to the images the scientists use every day in the lab when visualizing atoms. We didn't do any cleaning process of enhancement. 
 
Have you got any plans to go smaller? 
 
This is the end, you can't go deeper than this, things get pretty unstable under the atomic scale.
 
Are you sure? 'A Small Boy And His Neutrino' has a nice ring to it.
 
I'll see what Andrea's thinks about that title. I'm sure he'll explain why a neutrino would probably be inaccurate, he likes doing that!
 
Are you happy with the reaction the film has received?
 
I was amazed by it. We thought this would get people's attention, but it was so much more than we expected. We are all very happy that it had such an impressive reception by the media.
 
What's up next for you?

Keep working with 1st Avenue Machine on amazing projects!

Posted on 21st May, 2013