Animation Studio Out of This World with Mars Mission

Kevin Lane may not know if there is life on Mars but he certainly knows a lot about the red planet. Lane and his team of freelance artists spent nine months working on a short film about the Curiosity, the Mars rover scheduled to launch in late November for an eight-month journey through space. The rover will study the habitability of the planet and test rocks and soil in an on-board laboratory. Bohemian Grey, the animation and visual effects firm Lane owns in Granada Hills, produced the film for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA. The film has had thousands of views at the JPL website and on YouTube as a way to educate the public about the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory Project, NASA’s robotic exploration program of that planet. By contributing to JPL’s main project, Lane anticipates the exposure for Bohemian Grey will bring in additional science-related work. “I am hoping the animation we have done starts getting used by the likes of the Discovery Channel and the Science Channel,” Lane said. “It is out there to be used.” Bohemian Grey was among three companies competing for the contract to make the animated film depicting Curiosity from its launch aboard an Atlas V rocket to landing on Mars, where it will carry out its mission. The contract is valued at more than $100,000, Lane said. Lane has ties with JPL that go back several years. He worked at the company’s La Canada-Flintridge facility before going out on his own almost five years ago. Bohemian Grey does animation work for a series on the Syfy channel and other entertainment companies, but the JPL project has kept the company especially busy in recent months. The Curiosity project was an intense experience, Lane said, noting the project continued evolving and changing long after he thought it was finished. That made working for JPL somewhat different than working for an entertainment industry client, Lane said. “Generally a client for TV will sign off on something and that will be it,” Lane said. “You can hold them to their decision.” JPL was the technical consultant on the film, providing schematics for designing the animated rover and topography data of the Martian landscape, said Kevin Hussey, manager of the Visualization Technology Applications and Development Group at JPL. (Lane worked in the visualization group while at JPL.) Still, Lane and his team of artists had to take some artistic license. Curiosity, for example, moves at a faster speed in the film than it does in real life. The landing site in the film needed the addition of rock layers not visible in the map provided to Lane, Hussey said. “He went ahead and made it even more beautiful by adding in detail based on reality,” Hussey said. Looking at the rover in the film, no one would guess that a modeler worked for eight months to get the details right, Lane said. “It had to be up to a certain level so the people who built it would look at it and say, ‘That is done right,’” Lane added. When Curiosity lands on Mars next summer it will be the third rover sent by JPL to explore the planet. Spirit and Opportunity began their respective missions in January 2004. Opportunity remains active on the Martian surface while JPL lost contact with Spirit in 2010. Curiosity is larger and heavier than its two predecessors. As the Nov. 25 launch nears, Lane said he expects the animated film will bring in more viewers. Bohemian Grey made a four-minute narrated version and an 11-minute non-narrated version. When the government is spending so much money on the program, the public should know just what Curiosity will do once on Mars, Hussey said. “It should inspire Americans into understanding that technologically we are doing some amazing things in this country,” Hussey said. Lane wants Bohemian Grey to stay involved with the work JPL is doing in space exploration. For example, there is a proposed Mars Science Laboratory film project for planetariums that would be attractive for the company to do, he said. The company’s future may also involve branching out into more documentary work for cable channels, Lane said. “At the same time, the entertainment (work) helps pay the bills,” Lane said. “It is no less fun, but we will see which way the industry takes us.”