Title	WE WILL BE MARTIANS
Brand	WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL
Product/Service	EXPLAINER MOVIE
Category	B04. Animation
Entrant	TRY REKLAME Oslo, NORWAY
Idea Creation	TRY REKLAME Oslo, NORWAY
Production	TRY REKLAME Oslo, NORWAY

Name	Company	Position
Rebecka Taule	TRY	Motion Designer
Kim M. Jensen	TRY	Sound Designer
John Plummer	World Science Festival	Script
Frode Alver Nilsen	TRY	Consultant
Jessica Frey	Freelance	Voice Actor
Christopher Young	World Science Festival	Producer

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

“We will Be Martians” is an animated documentary short exploring how we as humans continuously have evolved our understanding of Mars. The keyword is curiosity. It was curiosity that made the ancient Mesopotamians describe and write down their thoughts, when looking enthralled up at the sky. Just as curiosity has been the driving force behind all our new learned wisdom after having sent crafts to Mars, thanks to the opportunities given us through modern technology. And, just maybe, if we one day in the future will be able build and nurture human settlements on the red planet, it will be thanks to our curiosity and thirst for knowledge of the unknown.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

“We will Be Martians” played an integral part of the World Science Festival in Brisbane and New York in 2019. First as an introduction to a panel discussing the technological, physical and psychological challenges of sending the first humans to Mars. Later the film was also released to the public as a stand-alone version on the World Science Festival YouTube-channel. The YouTube-launch was done in February 2020, as a deliberate action to share the content with new audiences, who did not see the movie in connection with the two festivals. In addition, the festivals used the YouTube-launch to re-introduce the movie to viewers who did see it upon its original release, but who maybe had forgotten about it. The main-target audience for the movie is people with some knowledge and interest for science, appealing to the sense of wonder and curiosity which lies at the foundation of all scientific achievement.

Tell the jury about type(s) of animation used and summarise any relevant challenges or techniques.

The film is a motion design piece, created in Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D. A keyword for the visuals is “signals”. That is because everything we know about Mars, has been taught to us through different types of signals reverted back to Earth; from observations made at a distance through a medium, through a telescope or through images and readings made by crafts sent to Mars. The illustrations are inherently simple and graphical, in order to intentionally create a vague impression of what Mars could be like, and the graphic elements and typography are inspired by the look of the images that NASA’s first crafts to Mars sent back to Earth in the 1970s. The soundtrack is both informative and poetic, in order to honor the value of the scientific work that has been done to give us a greater and more in-depth understanding of Mars.