Carrying their wares across the states, Giant Studios premiered their new short film, “Fruits of Labor” at the Cinequest 2001 The San Jose Film Festival. Conceived and directed by Rudy Poat and executive produced by Giants’ Candice Alger, the story circles an unfortunate animated character named Guy who takes viewers along on a Chaplin-esque ride of misadventure.

Debuting his directorial skills, Poat said his goal was to “create something that looks like stop motion and that fooled both the mind and the eye. We wanted to create genuine confusion about whether what you’re seeing is real or not.” It began simple enough, with an animation test using a bowl of fruit. The team took it a little further and ended up creating a short film. Heading Giant’s efforts, Poat who originated much of the look for “The Matrix” through his work with shader⁽²⁾ technology, turned to shader⁽³⁾ technology to create richer detail and realism. Rendered in video resolution and HDTV as well as 35mm film, Poat said, “We’ve developed a whole new aesthetic and production model for CG imagery, and I believe it is going to set the pace for a lot of other companies as well.”

Giant was also selected by game developer, Tremor Entertainment for their motion capture technology. Gaming it up, Giant Studios will provide motion for the company’s upcoming Xbox game for Microsoft. Motion was captured in the studio’s Los Angeles office with a 12 camera setup.