Director Kobi Vogman in Israel: “When the client first approached me to direct a product video for Wordtune, they wanted the main character to be an old analog typewriter, and they also wanted to make an ‘adorable’ video.”

“However, as the main idea behind AI21Labs is to create AI tools for the benefit of humankind and not tools that make the human element unneeded, my first suggestion was that making a machine come to life will create the opposite impression.

“So we had to think about a different approach. As the primary users of Wordtune are academics and professionals, we developed a concept using a human-like animal and a writer’s most common problem, writer’s block. We tried different animals, and the one that worked best was a cat – a sophisticated animal, but most of all, cats are super cute!

“The challenge was time. We had a tight deadline of seven weeks to produce everything from scratch, the script, character and set design, storyboards, etc. By working around the clock and building a precise 3D animatic that demos the lighting, acting, and camera movements, we finished right on time.”

Watch the 3D animatic:
 

 
 
Watch the time-lapse BTS:
 

 

 
Client: AI21Labs
Product and Marketing lead: Amos Meron

Director: Kobi Vogman
Producer: Omer Ben-David
Cinematographer: Omri Barzilai
Editor: Aviv Cohen
Art Director: Liran Koren
Lead Animator: Liron Narunsky
Concept Artist/Character Designer: Tom Apfel
Puppet Maker: Moria Koren
Art Assistants: Liron Narunsky, Shany Dahan
Motion Designer: Ran Daskal, Gur Margalit
Compositor: Ofeq Shemer
Color Grading: Kobi Vogman
Production Assistant: Alon Avidar
Runner: Ofer Holan

Sound Designer: Noam Ofir
Sound Recording: Lenny Cohen
VO: Damon Webb
Cat Voices: Liron Narunsky