The Team Lava Lamp for ITESM

[Ozkar]

Mexico
Short Film
We are 2 BSc's who met in 2005 in university. We come from Mexico's State right next to Mexico City. Our interests are film, animation, art and design. We just got back from the Cannes Film Festival where we won a couple of awards from the RIS08 competition. As we have graduated right now we are looking to secure a job in the film/animation/creative industry (we need to pay the bills :p) and yes we are very excited to have made it to the finals in Paris!

The Team ITESM CEM

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Q & A
Team Members:
Grace Montoya, Aldo Murillo

Film Title:
My Organic Robot

Film Storyline:
Our film is about a new kind of robot that made of pieces of technology, wires and plants! The Wobot, or Green Robot, was born just in time to save the planet from an unhappy ending.It all started when technology wasn’t environmentally friendly, causing the planet to become a trashy place to live. Luckily a girl realized one day that humanity had a huge problem and that something needed to be done about it. She started building a perfect robot that could help solve the pollution problems. The Wobot was born. It helped not only to make Planet Earth a greener, cleaner and better place – It was also a friend and a teacher to all of those who needed help saving their towns, cities, and of course the planet.

Technology/software used:

Adobe Flash CS3
Adobe After Effects CS3
Adobe Premiere CS3
Adobe Photoshop CS3
Adobe Illustrator CS3
Audacity 1.3.3
Microsoft Word and PowerPoint 2003
Mac Book
Toshiba Satellite Notebook A75 S226
Canon Rebel XTi Digital Camera
What inspired you to enter the Microsoft Imagine Cup and why did you choose the Short Film invitational?
The most important thing was that every year the Imagine Cup has a new theme, and every year it is a challenge for us to think about that theme. This year’s Imagine Cup was no exception, but because we are in love with short film contests we decided to try to win in this category.

Background on your team: Who are you and how did you meet?
We are two students studying for bachelor degrees in Computer Science with interests in film, animation, art, and design. We met in 2005 in school because we had the same interests and since that time we have participating in many student and non-student contests related to our interests. Even though some people might think our Bachelor’s is not really related with the creative field we have already won some awards already such as semifinalist distinctions at the Adobe Design Achievement Awards 2007 and 2008, and also awards from the Reel Ideas Studio Cannes Program 2007 and 2008 to name a few.

Team Experience: What experience did you have with short film before competing in the Imagine Cup?
We just got back from the Cannes Film Festival 2008 where we received awards from the Reel Ideas Studio. Our documentaries were screened in the Palais at the Jean Louis Bory Theatre and judged by Rob Epstein, the Oscar winning documentarian together with Christopher Coppola of EARSXXI and PAH-Nation, Sheila Sofia of University of Southern California, and Mike Kanfer, Adobe Business Development Manager. Aldo’s Documentary won Jury Prize Winner the top award from the program, and also The People’s Choice Award he participated as the Motion Graphics designer. Grace’s documentary won Distinguished Documentary Award, she participated as the cinematographer. At Cannes we also were participating in the Short Film Corner with a couple of short films, one of them titled “Traffic Jam” which was also honored as Distinguished Community Documentary at the Reel Ideas last year.

What has been your favorite part of the Imagine Cup competition thus far?
The challenge the theme gives to you. We both like the idea of thinking about something related to a new theme every year.

How did you come up with your idea? What personal or technological challenges did you face while developing your project?
We came up with the idea because nowadays organic products are gaining popularity all around the world. Then the idea just came... What if there was an organic machine? We just loved the idea of combining organic thoughts with technology. The biggest technological challenges were working in our laptops. So for me (Grace) the RAM and hard drive memory has always been a problem as my computer is a bit old. And as for personal challenges we were really busy with school at the beginning of the competition, then getting ourselves ready for Cannes. And our jobs were time consuming, so we had to work on a really tight schedule to finish our film on time. Other challenges were economical because we had to provide ourselves with everything we needed for our short film.

What do you plan on doing after the Imagine Cup finals in France? Do you plan to use your project to launch a career in the film industry?
We are right now working as freelancers but we would love to get a scholarship study our master’s in film/animation/design. We would also like to get a steady job in the film related industry. Also right now we are planning to turn “Traffic Jam” into an independent documentary film. “Traffic Jam” is about the traffic vehicle in Mexico City, it is 100% environmental related to this year’s Imagine Cup. In Mexico City some people are spending as much as 7 hours every day in traffic jams, there are just too many vehicles and pollution. So we would like to try to make people aware of the environmental impact this huge problem has. And take this documentary to Cannes on the upcoming year.

What are you most looking forward to experiencing at the Worldwide Finals in France?
We are looking forward to experiencing the satisfaction of doing a great job representing our country and to meeting the other teams and getting along with each other so that it all feels like home, without the pressure of being in a different place without knowing anyone. We are also looking forward to meeting all the talented people who make the Imagine Cup possible and networking with them.