Shanghai motion director/concept artist Leon Liang indulges his love of building out sci-fi worlds in this vision, created for Pause Originals, of a future where orbiting solar stations have solved the energy question.

Leon Liang: “The energy crisis has always been a dark cloud over technological development. There are many renewable energy solutions being discussed, I think the answer may be right in front of us, we live with the sun every day, and all energy on our planet comes from it.

“The solar power station might be the craziest and most romantic concept I’ve ever seen (first proposed by Isaac Asimov), it looks like a big solar farm but operates as a satellite in low earth orbit. It hasn’t been built yet but China plans to launch a space solar station in 2050 (Japan and Europe also have plans).
 

“I wanted to take the tone of the golden age of sci-fi, as looking up at the stars and being optimistic about technology has become rare in our time.”

 
“So, I used this fact and exaggerated the background of the story in a dramatic way: In the year 2050, space solar stations will generate gigawatts of clean electricity and we can use the excess power for having fun, for example an annual solar car race/festival held in low earth orbit.

“I wanted to take the tone of the golden age of sci-fi, as looking up at the stars and being optimistic about technology has become rare in our time, I hope to encourage people to be exciting about the future again through this animation.”

“This was extraordinarily difficult for a part-time solo filmmaker with limited time and budget. From an animation production perspective, the large scale of the scenes, the fast-paced movement of the shots, and the intricate details of the characters were very time-consuming.”
 
 

 
Client” Pause Fest

Director/animator: Leon Liang
Mechanical concept：Leo Liu, Leon Liang
Character Designer: Leon Liang (special thanks to Zhi Yang)
Graphic Designer: Leon Liang
Smoke VFX: JD, Simon

Music: Everybody
Music coordinator: siCheng
Remix：Axumy, Tadi.Yan, Punx

Sound design: un.studios
Voice over: Ronin@roninleemsd