“Life is better when you share the ride.”

“June” is the story of a woman who becomes more connected to her community through ridesharing. Chromosphere was approached by Academy Award-winning director John Kahrs and Lyft to provide complete design and animation services for this project. We worked directly with John from the earliest concept designs through to the final frames, making sure that everything we did enhanced the story that he wanted to tell.

In the beginning we see only a small slice of the world around June in Chicago’s southside, but by the end we are taken on a whirlwind journey through all of Chicago’s diverse and colorful neighborhoods. For visualizing these environments we first tapped designer Théo Guignard whose rich color sensibilities brought out the beauty in every single place June visits.

One of our biggest challenges was to design, build, and rig June, our central character. She needed to be appealing and fit in with our graphic style, but also have the ability to exhibit subtle emotions. For her design, as well as all of the other characters in the film, we enlisted Tiffany Ford to capture her personality. Tiffany’s designs have an authentic and specific feel that is often hard to come by in mainstream animation.

To bring the characters to life we had to assemble a team of animators who could embrace the visual style of the short and also understand the subtlety of acting required to make the piece feel authentic. Leading this team was Nelson Boles, who lent his extremely sophisticated sensibilities to June’s movements and facial expressions.

The final product is a vibrant mix of 2D and 3D assembled by our skilled team of international compositors and animators. We’re incredibly proud to have been a part of this beautiful project. Check out our full production credits below:

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Kevin Dart

DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION Myles Shioda

DESIGN Théo Guignard Arthur Chaumay Tiffany Ford Jasmin Lai Emily Paik Sylvia Liu

CG Pedro Vergani Feed Me Light: Felipe Hansen, Denis Bodart, Denis Bouyer, Richard Kazuo Maegaki Mattias Bjurström Theresa Latzko

ANIMATION Nelson Boles Claudio Salas Alex Grigg Jonathan Djob Nkondo Bill Northcott Vitaliy Strokous

LIGHTING & RENDERING Camille Perrin

COMPOSITING Stéphane Coëdel Rob Ward H. Kristen Campbell Alasdair Brotherston