Airbnb
2021
CLIENT: (coming to us the week before Thanksgiving) Hi. Can you design and execute a beautifully rendered, graphic novel-esque, cel animated, short film about the history of our company and deliver it before Christmas? US: (casually filing nails and chewing on a long blade of grass) Is that it?
Airbnb was going public and they wanted a film to commemorate the event — a tribute to their humble origins in a small San Francisco apartment.
This film wasn’t trying to mythologize their founding but rather depict how it all went down in a cool, animated, modern graphic-novel style.
The only problem was they wanted it in five weeks. (gulp)
A near-impossible timeline, but never fear — BUCK is always up for a challenge.
Airbnb provided style references that they liked so it was a matter of finding the best and most efficient way to capture that look. But executing cel animation within that tight schedule took some ‘necessity is the mother of invention’-type ingenuity.
After some experimentation, we achieved this striking visual execution by doing the whole spot in 3D previz first and then having cel animators work off that along with some EbSynth thrown into the special sauce. The mixture of techniques combined to create something special. Socks were knocked.
Piece of cake.
In addition to the animated origin story, BUCK was also charged with 87 graphic deliverables ranging from lower thirds to full frame infographics.
BUCK
Executive Creative Director
Kevin Walker
Executive Producer
Nick Carmen
Group Creative Director
Jenny Ko
Creative Direction European Team
Vincent Lammers
Producer
Kirsten Collabolletta
Production Coordinator
Lara Arikan
Art Director
Ana Cezeta
Dae-Han Yi
Debora Cruchon
Hiroshi Endo
Head of 2D Animation
Daniel Coutinho
Head of Design
Brian Won
Head of CG Animation
Alessandro Ceglia
Head of Post Production
Paal Rui
CG Supervisor
Alex Dingfelder
Rigging Supervisor
Ernesto Ruiz Velasco
Composite Lead
Esteban Esquivo
Joe Brooks
Moses Journey
Cel Anim Lead
Junyi Xiao
CG Lead
Joshua Studebaker
3D Animation Lead
Tyler Lancaster
Storyboard
Eddie Lin
Tristyn Pease
Design
Arron Ingold
Artur Sadlos
Brandon Liu
Chelsea Lee
Chris Consani
Guy Shield
Hugh Keenan
Jigyu Yoon
Jong Lee
Marcus Collins
Morgan Schweitzer
Rasmus Bak
Rich Kelly
Soon Joo
Vincent Tsui
Modeling
Alfonso Petersen
Elias Glasch
Ivan Sokol
Jordan Levitt
Kintan Chauhan
Ryan Taylor
Rigging
Jing Huang
Jordan Levitt
Lighting
Yang Liu
Previs/ 3D Animation
Abby Boyce
Anaël Sain-Jean-Vidal
Christopher Meek
Eric Wang
Hillary McCarthy
Josh Baum
Ozan Basaldi
Sam Ortiz
Compositing
Adrian Moran
Andrew Tan
Ben Vinkenburg
Dries Von Broeck
Jeremie Carreon
Min Kim
Pedro Allevato
Preston Brown
Rasmus Bak
Richard Payne
Tim Weiser
Cel Animation
Adam Henderson
Alexander Bernas
Christian Villacanas
Christine Le
Daniel Katz
Griffin Giersch
Jake Armstrong
Junyi Xiao
Lennon Valinhas
Lumi Chang
Matthias Cuciniello
Ryoko Kondo
Sam Scopelitti
Song E Kim
Stephen Loveluck
Taik Lee
Thijs Viegers
Thomas Smolenksi
Timo Prousalis
Editor
Billy Kostka
Colorist
Marc Steinberg
Associate Creative Director
Vincent Lammers
