Microsoft Build Conference 3D Stage

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Client: Microsoft

I worked with Trifilm to design and build a digital stage for Microsoft's annual build conference. Since people weren't allowed to have large gatherings due to the global pandemic, Microsoft in their true innovative fashion decided to host their conference digitally and have their keynote speakers record their talks using an Xbox Kinect which automatically rotoscoped the speaker without the use of a green screen so that they could be composited onto the digital stage that I built. While there were multiple stages, the one I specifically worked on was intended to look surreal. Trifilm had previously designed and animated a bumper intro for the speakers. I needed to take the end of their animation which was a top down white paper box and seamlessly transform it into the stage that the speakers would stand on, and then create some fun and subtle looping animations around the stage environment to make it feel more alive. This was really fun, challenging and exciting to work on something in tandem as the cutting edge Kinect technology was being developed.

Look Development

The brief was fairly open in terms of look and feel. It was supposed to be surreal feeling but not "techy." I initially made a pretty wide variety of stages with some interesting motion tests. We eventually settled on a stage made of cubes in the Microsoft colors that was in a self contained grassy field environment inside of a white paper box. This felt the most on-brand, and keeping it inside the paper box allowed me to animate a seamless transition from Trifilm's previously created paper-box animation into my stage environment. Below are some of the early style frames.