Experience a Year with Uber in This Colourfully Customised Animation

Packed with a base of 5,000 story and song combinations, R/GA Singapore's ‘Year with Uber’ allows each user to generate content that is location-specific and unique. That is why users in Thailand will see tuk-tuks, encounter tai-tais (wealthy aunties) in Singapore, the iconic Melbourne Cup and Sydney’s New Year’s Eve fireworks in Australia, the national sport of cricket in India. Festivals and holidays like Ramadan, Christmas and Deepavali, are also featured.

Each user has a different experience, with up to two and a half minutes of video that's totally customised depending on the personal history of rides of 2017. “Scenes and lyrics are directly informed by user trip data, making each film one of a kind. We built an engine that interprets that data and selects the visuals and lyrics accordingly, stitching them all together to create the final film,” says R/GA creative director, Cyril Louis.

If you are based in the Asia Pacific, you can have the full experience here.

Talking about inspirations for the film, Ralph Karam, Le Cube’s creative director says: “Super Nintendo games like Street Fighter II and Final Fight from the '90s were definitely on the inspiration board. Also, there are tons of references from anime, mainly in the animation style. The mood and feeling are like being in an Asian street market: lots of information, people from all kind and different places, hospitable and full of sensations, flavours, and colours. Such an invigorating mess to delight your senses.”

"The core of the characters reflect the idiosyncrasies of several cultures in Asia, but at the same time, try to build up those peculiarities into a single universe with an integrated art style," concludes Ralph.

The ultimate goal of the creative direction was “to remind people of the role Uber plays in their lives and demonstrate how the use of the ride sharing service is a partnership that enables them to move across cities, every day,” according to Eshan Ponnadurai, marketing director, APAC at Uber.

The creative process required more than 200 scripts before the team landed upon the characters, scenarios, and personalities of Year with Uber’s make-believe universe. “273 seconds of original 2D animation was produced, it took around 200 working hours – over four months to have it all done,“ says Gustavo Karam, EP at Final Frontier.

The project is the debut of the newly created production company Final Frontier, that represents directors and animation studios from all over the world in the Asia and Pacific Markets.

Full Credits

Agency: R/GA Singapore

Executive Creative Director: Calvin Soh

Creative Director, Visual Design: Cyril Louis

Associate Creative Director, Copywriting: Pimwadee Lai

Associate Creative Director, User Experience: Mark Law

Art Director: Bobby Tay

Visual Designer: Daseul An

Senior Producer: Sebastien Py

Group Account Director: Joe Poynter

Senior Technology Director: Laurent Thevenet

Senior Software Engineer, Prototype Studio: Rollen Gomes

Software Engineer: Aaron George

Senior QA Engineer: Donna Gonzales-Mapagu

Senior Technology Director, DevOps: Nauman Hafiz

Software Engineer: Dragon Chiang

NYU Intern, Prototype Studio: Bruce Luo

SUTD Intern, Prototype Studio: Ruth Wong

Production Co.: Final Frontier

Animation: Le Cube

Creative Director: Ralph Karam

Executive Producer: Gustavo Karam, Juan Manuel Freire

General Producer: Juliana Millán

Line Producer: Antonela Castro

Pre Production: Mariano Russo

Storyboard artists: Katherine Pryor, Valentina Candia, Maricel Piazza, Sofía Fernandez Vallejo, Agustín Mari, Marcelo Zamora.

Art Director: Ralph Karam

Character designer, art Developer: Franco Vecchi

Art developer: Florencia Tasso, Sofía Fernandez Vallejo.

Concept artist: Jonatas Cardoso, Felipe Mascharenas, Juan Barabani, Amelia

Vidal, Sebastián Giacobino, Alejandro Briganti, Juan

Background artist: Manuel Tumburus, Alejandro Barbesi, Ramiro Cabrera.

Clean-up: Katherine Pryor, Valentina Candia, Maricel Piazza, Franco Pelliciaro, Diego Frachia, Luis Cantiani, Sofía Fernandez Vallejo, Julieta Culaciati, Ana Artaza, Facundo García, Agostina Salvemini, Florentina Gonzalez, Julieta Soloaga, Giorgio Gore, Mariano del Franco, Inés Fragueiro, Guadalupe Marimorena.

Compositing: Ralph Karam, Mariano Russo, Vicente Ziegler.

Music: Fuse Adventures in Audio

Creative Director: Colin Pereira

Creative Director, Composer, Lyricist: Jon Daou

Senior Mix Engineer: Seng Jinn Wong

Mix Engineer: Rachel Forday

Producer: Jocelyn Teo

Lead Singer, Backing Singer: Brendan Reilly

Rapper: Jeremiah Isaac

Backing Singer: Leandra Lane

Backing Singer: Robert Perlick-Molinari