Bug

We, from Studio 003, created the short film BUG as our Final Course Project in college, but it ended up becoming a bigger project that we are extremely proud of.

Throughout our four years of college, we always made films focused on comedy; it was our comfort zone in a way. When we reached the final year, we thought about doing something that would push us out of that comfort zone, something dramatic, personal, and emotional. In the beginning, we jokingly said, "Let's make others cry!"

BUG gets its title from the Beetle present in the animation, which serves as a key piece for the story's resolution. Additionally, it also works as a pun since the term "bug" is used to refer to a flaw in a code or a problem in a computing context. But in our story, it is precisely the solution.

The idea for the short film came to us through the song "Travel" by The Hunts, which became the film's soundtrack. Interestingly, the aesthetic of the pink clouds surrounding the greenhouse came from an unofficial "lyrics" video of another song, which had an image with pink clouds in the background.

BUG can have various interpretations, and the more people watch the short film and discuss it with us, the more we see that. Regardless of these interpretations, our intention from the beginning was always to make it possible for anyone to identify with the story. Because of that, the main character, the Blue Robot, went through a long phase of concept development until we arrived at a silhouette that pleased us and didn't resemble any specific gender, while still maintaining a humanoid shape.

As for its meaning or message, we can say that it evolved with us as we produced BUG. We concluded that the short film is primarily about three things: Nostalgia, love, and empathy. Ironically, these are things that a robot or an artificial intelligence would hardly feel, but in our opinion, that's exactly why a robot would be the ideal protagonist for this story.

Technically speaking, the production of the short film was fun but challenging at the same time. We had one year to produce the entire short film. We initially started in Blender since we were already familiar with the program. Around the middle of the year, we decided to use Unreal Engine in conjunction with Blender, mainly because of its real-time rendering capabilities. Since we didn't have much time left for rendering, Unreal Engine was a perfect fit for us, and we also gained a lot of knowledge about another important program.

So, we animated in Blender and then transferred the animation to Unreal Engine to combine it with the environments, lighting, and finally render it.

Visually, BUG has two contrasts: the Robot's greenhouse and the world outside it. Colors were primarily used to differentiate these settings. For the outside world, "The Last of Us" was a major reference, using gray combined with dark green vines growing on reddish buildings to convey a clear and immediate sense of abandonment. On the other hand, the greenhouse is the opposite, with vibrant colors and a pink sky to create a feeling of comfort and warmth, both for the viewer and the character.