44 THE LIVE LIFE AvatarLabs
LIVE LITTLE PONY Words By Neal Romanek
Lionsgate wanted to promote the release of its new My Little Pony movie in a way that would reach fans directly and leverage the engagement power of social media. AvatarLabs and Adobe had the answer
s a digital marketing agency, AvatarLabs is experienced in developing campaigns for top-end content producers, from
for doing animated characters in a live broadcast. They assembled a demo, which was sent to selected companies with animated properties, which included regular client Lionsgate. The demo showcased how 2D and 3D animated characters might be fully integrated into a scene and interact with live human performers in a live broadcast. There were several technical challenges to solve, including appropriately synchronising and matching footage captured from the Kinect motion capture camera, depth camera and RGB camera. Footage was brought into Unity to render and integrated with Adobe Character Animator. “What we were trying to solve with this demo was how to bring these animated properties into the live streaming space,”
says JB Fondren, AvatarLabs senior digital producer. “We had already been offering live streaming, but how could we bring our clients’ animated characters into the live space as well? “Lionsgate likes to take risks,” she continues, “and so do we. It was the perfect match. They had heard of Adobe Character Animator and were logistically trying to solve similar problems. They had the My Little Pony feature film coming up and they awarded us the opportunity to bring our demo to life.” Adobe Character Animator had been the driver for last year’s live episode of The Simpsons , as well as the tool underpinning live animations of such figures as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert , now developed into the Showtime series Our Cartoon President . As far as AvatarLabs is aware, this was
movie studios to broadcasters to the big streaming services, but as the capacity of internet video empowered companies to take control of their own messaging, Avatar clients are becoming increasingly diversified. Companies such as mega toy brand Mattel as well as companies in such diverse sectors as hospitality and beverages are now regular partners and the company’s traditional partners are seeking ever more innovative ways to promote their properties. AvatarLabs has a dedicated innovation team that is always looking for new ways of using technology to improve its services for clients and had been looking at the potential
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