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Uglies

Prologue & In-Scene Elements for Netflix
One of our favorite challenges is figuring out how to tell a specific, complex story in a concise and compelling way, which is exactly what McG tasked us to do for his Netflix film Uglies.

Based on Scott Westerfield’s dystopian novel, Uglies takes place in a society that transforms its citizens into physical perfection when they become sixteen. Our challenge was to create a prologue sequence that not only sets the film up tonally, but also communicates the backstory of this radical, futuristic society in an engaging way. As the first scene of the film, it both establishes the historical roots of the society and acts as a teaser for the rest of the story.

what we did

Working with the filmmakers, we devised a concept and created a sequence that provides a brief history of the Earth’s demise and subsequent rise to an advanced social order, while drawing out the idea that a beautiful and perfect society is one of unity and peace.

It was important for the sequence to ground the movie in reality, building upon the themes of climate change, civil unrest, and destruction that we see in our daily news feeds. In the aftermath of that devastation, we present the salve of technological advancements with a sleeker visual language, which we further developed for in-scene graphics later on in the film.

With a blend of live action, mixed media, found footage, and CG elements, the result is equal parts documentary and propaganda.

We think it’s “Pretty” provocative.