Nexus Studios' charming short for Google I/O animates what happens when pixels work together

For the second year in a row, Fx Goby, a director at Nexus Studios, has created the opening animated short for the Google I/O conference. Taking place annually in California, the conference brings together developers from around the world to celebrate their work and contributions to the technologies we use and will continue to use in the future.

Having created The Story of an Idea for 2017’s conference, Google asked Fx to celebrate collaboration and how people join together to make great things for 2018’s opening. “We only had a few days, so we wrote several scripts and this one stood out,” Fx tells It’s Nice That. Using the metaphor of a pixel, Nexus imagined a world where millions of pixels come together to turn a slightly bland world into one filled with colour. “A pixel on its own is worthless,” Fx adds, “but when you have a group of pixels you can create images and content.” This coming together embodies the very nature of Google I/O as an event which celebrates the individuals around the world who join together to advance technology and the thinking around it.

The short, Make Good Things Together, opens on a static screen which zooms in to reveal a world of pixels, devoid of colour. When two accidentally bump into each other, they realise their potential to create a colourful world where working together, they can do much more than they initially thought. “I wanted to have a visual change throughout the film, to show an improvement to the pixels’ world once they work together,” Fx remarks, “but I didn’t want to start on a bleak 1984-esque kind of world. On the contrary, I wanted to start with a monotone world that had charm and a lot of potential, that just needed a twist to become gorgeous and inspiring.”

Working with Jack Cunningham, one of the directors at Nexus Studios and Melanie Climent, the studio’s in-house art director, Fx established a visual language which is endearing and hopeful, despite a somewhat dreary start. Although light-hearted, Fx’s short is an apt and subtle representation of the technological communities. “This short is their story,” he concludes, “it tackles, albeit lightly, many subjects where technology has the strongest impact: health, communication and education. With this film, we don’t celebrate the hero that leads the story but all the people around, in the shadows, that are nonetheless essential to progress.”

Watch the full film and a making-of video below.