Paper Orbit ran six weeks from first thumbnail to broadcast master. Here's the pipeline, step by step, including the checklist that got it delivered.
1. Thumbnails, then boards, then animatic
Sixty thumbnails in two days — tiny, ugly, honest. Twelve survived into boards, and the boards became a timed animatic cut to the launch track. The client approved story, pace and music in week one, which meant every later argument was about craft, never about direction.
2. Scan the real thing
The brand shipped a box of the actual product line. Every sheet was scanned front and back under the film's lighting, so the "paper" on screen is the real stock — same fibers, same tooth, same way it catches an edge light. CG paper fails when artists invent the material; we just photographed it.
3. One fold system for everything
Every object — notebooks, envelopes, orbiting desk planets — shares one fold-and-fiber shading setup. Build the material once, dress the world. Consistency across forty-five seconds comes from shared systems, not per-shot heroics.
4. Music first, motion second
Animation was keyed to the final track, not a temp beat. Every fold lands on something you can hear. Editors forgive a lot, but audiences feel rhythm before they see design — so the timeline followed the waveform.
5. The delivery checklist
Master, 15s, 6s, verticals, stills kit, broadcast legal check, archive. The unglamorous list, run in order, signed off line by line. Paper Orbit delivered a day early because delivery was scheduled like production — not squeezed into its leftovers.