“DREAM.ENCODE” – Live Action

This project was commissioned by the College of Computing department of the Georgia Institute of Technology in order to promote their Computer Science program to incoming students. The theme: Helping achieve dreams through code.

As the director of this short film, I collaborated with researchers, scientists, and department directors to come up with a script that is informative, inspiring, and most important of all, showcase the human side of technology. The main theme of this project is incorporating emotions such as love and human communications into something that is usually thought of as cold/mechanical/utility driven (robots). We see a young girl utilizing her method of communication with her deaf mother as an inspiration for her future work in robotics.

Coordination with local crew and casting agencies was essential in executing this project.

Process

What is the goal of the project? What are we showcasing and who is involved?

We wanted to show off iconic areas of research and buildings that are specific to computing, especially some of the cooler projects. At the same time, this film is meant to inspire students to understand that they can fulfill their dreams through a computer science degree.

Challenges

Dealing with robots that would break and hinder an entire day of production. We had to communicate this fact with the main stakeholders and make a decision as to whether we should run with our current plan, or simply change the ending and edit out the robotics scene. We ended up negotiating a budget and agreed on waiting for the robot to be functional as that was a pivotal project for the department.

Production

The resulting video has been shown in press conferences as well as Fox News.