Péter Ungvári

Péter Ungvári

fellow of Bridge Budapest, Prezi, San Francisco, 2013

The Great Project

Prezi is a young company. I’m not only referring to the date of foundation but the atmosphere and motivation that can be felt there from the first day: they’re enthusiastic and honest as a child and professional (well, this professionalism is pretty far from a child’s one). I had the pleasure to take the first steps on the field of “Full-Time Job” there especially because I’ve got an exciting project task: I had to make a promotional film with stop motion technique. It wasn’t a surprise to me because with my supervisor, Ashley, we had talked about the concept before my journey so I could spend the aviation time with thinking about the plans in my mind.

What is stop motion? It’s a video which is set and captured frame by frame and has been used since the end of the 19th century (!), however, nowadays it’s replaced with CGI, so in the new Star Wars film you probably won’t see any huge machine animated with stop motion. So instead of being a widely used animation technique it became a tool for artists, with which you can create creative, funny and unique videos. I have experience in stop motion, I directed several short films in the past, for instance the one for my Bridge Budapest application project but this short film was a new kind of challenge for me.

The video was used in the promotion of Prezi’s Canvas My Campus , so we could call college students to apply and present their campus with a prezi. I worked on the outline for a week, during this time I wrote the narration, the screenplay, and collected the props needed. Ashley helped me a lot, and so the other colleagues in every way. Despite this fact, I had to face unexpected challanges, had some trouble with recording the voiceover and executing the concept was hard too. I had to use the scissors and glue often, and it’s not a strength of mine, but I always got some encouraging words to go on.

You can have a look at the film here!