NEW YORK — MPC (moving-picture.com), here, recently completed work on the second installment in its MPC Shorts series, Sunny & Steve. In
Sunny & Steve Meet Sally, the office worker and his playful purple bunny are introduced to a new employee: the polite and very professional Sally. While Steve has love on his mind, Sunny’s horseplay takes place at all the wrong moments.
The light-hearted animated short was written and directed by MPC’s Ty Coyle and Bill Dorais. The passion project is part of an on-going creative platform at the studio that allows artists to collaborate, experiment and develop talent within the MPC NY character design team.
Like its predecessor Enjoy the Sweets,
Meet Sally is blend of traditional stop-motion techniques and the latest animation technologies.
Enjoy the Sweets was screened at a number of animation and short film festivals, and was selected as a Vimeo Staff Pick.
The MPC team embarked on this second effort to conceptualize and create a three-minute short that follows the 1970s-inspired characters after the Easter holiday and onwards into Valentine’s Day. This second film is slightly longer, includes an additional character and a set extension from the original environment.
“We wanted to expand the world of Sunny and Steve,” explains Ty Coyle. “By doing so, we could emphasize and highly contrast the personalities of our run-of-the-mill Steve with the picture-perfect employee, Sally. The opportunity to choreograph the humor between these two was limitless, so we ran with it.”
“Doing a story about an office crush gave us the opportunity to create Sally as a new character, which was the highlight of creating our second film,” adds Bill Dorais. “At MPC we have some incredible character designers, modelers and animators who all brought Sally to life through their own creativity, expertise and input. MPC is known for its character work, and creating these short films has been a great outlet to build upon this body of work and learn from each other in the process.”
Lead concept artist Emma Gilli describes the character and look development of introducing Sally as a new character: “We wanted to find a good match for Steve, almost like finding him a girlfriend. So everything he isn't; she is. He's fat and short and she's tall and skinny. He’s sort of bumbling and a little bit over the top, whereas she's very put together and neat and nice.”
“Everything from her nose to her buttoned up waistcoat was catered to fit her persona,” Gilli adds. “By keeping her outfit clean and pleasant – socks matching, waistcoat buttoned up – you can start to manipulate how you want her to be perceived. This allowed the writers to play off her looks and surprise everyone with her personality.”