boston dynamics - the automated warehouse
creating the story of the future of warehouses with
a lot of robots and not that many humans
Our team of three created a vision film that helped Boston Dynamics score a $15 million investment by DHL.
OUTCOME
Ultimately, our clients were very happy with our projects. The first version of the Automated Warehouse contributed to a $15 million multi-year contract with DHL.
Two years later, Boston Dynamics came back to us for help making flashy marketing materials for premiering the robot publicly at the Modex 2022 Robotics Conference.
TOOLs & Skills
Cinema 4d + Redshift renderer
Adobe After Effects
Stakeholder Interviews & Meetings
Storytelling / Storyboarding
PROCESS
We quickly learned of our players: existing warehouse and supply chain robots: AFL, AMR, and the newest featured robot, Stretch by Boston Dynamics.
For the sales presentation, we learned about the complexities of warehouse work flow including things like palletizing, mixed pallets and other how the other robots, AFL’s and AMR’s, function and move. My colleague and friend James and I worked in parallel. I took over storytelling and direction, the storyboards, human interactions, pre-production, and how the camera moves within the warehouse, while he managed the rigging of the main player, the stretch, and the build and look of the warehouse.
Concept images
Each shot took lots of detailed planning due to the interactions of the 3 types of robots, humans and the cargo they carried. Here are a select few images that show the detail and choreography of the “players”.
Shot 1
Shot 1 - Fly thru of inbound, outbound and warehouse. Inbound trucks go to receiving with containers that are all single use pallets.
Shot 2
For Shot 2, choreography of the Stretches and the background people were very important to the client.
Final Shot 2 - Stretch robots can be used in conjunction with conveyer belts, to load AMRs with palettes. Containers coming in from China would be unpalletized and therefore traditional nor automated forklifts would be unable to unload the boxes.
SHOT 6-7
The flow of traffic was an essential point for the robot. Human characters, labeled Walk, Point and Ipad could not be in the same aisle as any robot. The robots could travel at high speeds with heavy cargo.
Humans were integrated into every shot, but they needed to be more than 10 feet from every robot. The humans were animated with MIxamo.
Final - The Camera shifts focus from Stretches with Single use palettes to Stretches with Multiuse palettes, aka the orders collected by Stretches, which then begin to head to outbound.
marketing shots of robots in action
Client: Boston Dynamics
Account Manager: Alison Lewis / Switch Embassy
Robot Animation, Rigging and Warehouse Build: James Linehan
Concept & Story, Robot to Robot & Robot to Human Interactions: Natalie To
Built with Cinema 4D & Redshift