{"id":1869,"date":"2026-01-26T08:06:47","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T16:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/?p=1869"},"modified":"2026-01-26T10:35:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T18:35:41","slug":"dear-upstairs-neighbors-at-sundance-story-forum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/dear-upstairs-neighbors-at-sundance-story-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Dear Upstairs Neighbors&#8221; at Sundance Story Forum!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\u201cDear Upstairs Neighbors\u201d (Trailer)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eCk5VFKKz08?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s some exciting news: we made a short film! I worked on this for much of last year, alongside a multitalented and diverse group of artists, engineers, researchers, and musicians. Everyone wore several hats on this project, and for me it was a welcome return to character animation. I got to supervise a small but mighty team of animators (both 2D and 3D) and even animate a few shots myself! This was also a chance for me to dive into working with generative models, discover what they&#8217;re actually good for, and help the researchers developing them make them useful to us, so we could wield them as artistic tools. The process was full of really interesting surprises!  You can read more about how we did it <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/innovation-and-ai\/models-and-research\/google-deepmind\/dear-upstairs-neighbors\/\">here<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve been invited to screen the film, and do an hour-long panel about how we made it, at the <a href=\"https:\/\/collab.sundance.org\/catalog\/Story-Forum-In-Person-Registration\">Sundance Institute&#8217;s Story Forum<\/a> today. I&#8217;m thrilled to be back at Sundance (the last time I was here was for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kL4UfA6wUuw\">Word Wars<\/a> back in 2004!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-1024x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1873\" srcset=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-1536x1536.png 1536w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-2048x2048.png 2048w, https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/DUN_poster_1x1-1-144x144.png 144w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s some exciting news: we made a short film! I worked on this for much of last year, alongside a multitalented and diverse group of artists, engineers, researchers, and musicians. Everyone wore several hats on this project, and for me it was a welcome return to character animation. I got to supervise a small but &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/dear-upstairs-neighbors-at-sundance-story-forum\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;Dear Upstairs Neighbors&#8221; at Sundance Story Forum!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,17],"tags":[248,36],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animation","category-events","category-personal","tag-dear-upstairs-neighbors-2","tag-festivals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1883,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions\/1883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/otherthings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}