Client
By Breon
Role

Founder

Category
  • Augmented Reality
What I Did
  • Art Direction
  • Concept Development
  • Card Design
  • Motion Design

The best meeting is no meeting.

This was one of the most fun and challenging projects I’ve worked on for my Holiday Free Of series. The 10th edition, focuses on that cherished gift of the pandemic… Zoom meetings. It wishes viewers a holiday free of Zoom calls from Hell.

The physical card is 5x7in letterpressed with 2 colors on thick 184 brilliant white savoy paper. Using Augmented Reality, viewers are able to view a very special Zoom meeting.

Hopefully you haven’t had a Zoom call like this.

Video and photography by Tom Trinh

Inspiration

A major inspiration was the sock puppet work I did for an early Holiday Free Of drop. I wanted the AR experience to reflect on the pandemic’s collective experience humorously, using sock puppets as the perfect medium.

Goals

1

Feel Like You’re There

Look realistic so that viewers believe that they’re part of the meeting.
2

Level 10 Awkwardness

Feel absurd but not outside of the realm of possibility.
3

Must Be Funny

Provide a humorous distraction during the challenging times of the pandemic.

From Idea To Video

I had never done something as complicated as this before, so a big challenge was figuring out how to pull it off. Scriptwriting, puppeteering, and green screen filming were all new territories for me. Thankfully I had a great collaborator in Tom Trinh, whose expertise in videography was crucial to our success.

How To Make It 

How To Make It 

How To Make It 

How To Make It 

How To Make It 

How To Make It 

How to make a meeting hellish

It's likely unsurprising to many that envisioning a virtual meeting you'd want to avoid was not difficult. From people talking at the same time to forgetting your camera is on, I considered a wide range of meeting mishaps. Creating the cast of characters was one of the most fun parts of the project.

Ideation sketches for the card experience.
Ideation sketches for the card experience.
Ideation sketches for the Zoom Call experience.
Color studies for fire cone character.
Film screen used for letterpress printing process of the card.
Different content created for Instagram.

Lights Camera Action

Having not worked with green screen before, I made a ton of mistakes and had to figure out how to get the look I was going for. A thousand thanks to Tom Trinh for being patient with me through all of our test shoots and re-shoots.

View The Zoom Call
Pattern of front and back of cards on a red background.

Behind the madness

Looking back it’s pretty wild to think that we shot all of this in my garage. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the madness that was Zoom Calls from Hell.

Video still of behind-the-scenes of Zoom Calls from Hell.
Storyboard sketch of Harold accidentally showing his underwear.

Guiding Light

Here’s a glimpse at the animatic that helped me visualize how the Zoom call would work.