At the beginning of summer 2025, PTP was approached by a talented team of filmmakers with the finishing of an interesting project: a four part animated series based on a game. Honestly, we’ve all seen these before, and many times the resulting narrative ends up being little more than a money grab at best, but more often than not, a stain on an otherwise reputable franchise.
This is not the case with Sky: The Two Embers – Part One. This animated origin story is set in the majestic world of Sky: Children of the Light. From the moment you cast your eyes on this ethereal world of beauty, and lend your ears to the flowing score beneath it, you know Evan Viera, the director for the series, has a treat for you. In his own words, “we follow an orphan’s journey to find hope as darkness descends upon a once-thriving kingdom. A meditation on grief, kindness and resilience, it explores the power of holding onto hope even in the darkest of times”.
The premise behind the series was to communicate the primary narrative cinematically, while continuing the experience through interactive gameplay in what has become known as a multi-modal approach to storytelling. Right from the start, this idea was championed by the renowned and award-winning game designer Jenova Chen, also the co-founder of Thatgamecompany. Evan elaborates further: “each chapter premiered weekly, accompanied by playable Seasonal Quests that allowed players to step directly into the locations and events they had just watched. Screenings took place inside the in-game cinema, creating a shared space where the community could gather, experience the story together, and then continue it through play”.
Leading the way
A common trait amongst movies based on gaming worlds is their strong affiliation for character-driven stories. After all, the heart and soul of any game are the players that play them, and by extension the characters they portray. It is around these characters that tales are woven. This is something that grabs your attention with the orphan, the lead character, and the rest of the supporting cast. They lack a mouth. Right. They don’t say anything. Ok… They have the craziest hairstyles!
Yet these design choices make the characters unique and endearing, and force every aspect of the performance. Evan gave us a little more insight: “No dialogue exists in the game so it felt fundamentally out of place in the world of Sky. We quickly committed to telling a wordless film instead. That decision (to omit dialogue) pushed every department to scrutinize each detail with greater care. It elevated every discipline because nothing could rely on words to convey meaning. Every tiny gesture, detail, and texture had to work in harmony, with nothing extraneous to dilute or distract. Although cliche, in our case, less was always more.”
Palettes & Textures
From a finishing perspective, these are always projects you look forward to; working with a creative team with visual decisions anchored in iterative processes of dilution and refinement, but also them understanding that the finishing step exists to enhance all those decisions that had been taken throughout the creation process. On a practical level, we leaned into what was already there, but made sure that each segment felt special, matching the emotional arc of the orphan at large.
For example, during the day the city itself is bathed in warm light, but there is an underlying green that emanates from the tension between the ruthless ruler and the folk they rule over. For the night scenes, especially when the city is under threat from the ‘Krills”, the darkness was accentuated to make it feel more ominous. The sewers and the network of pipes below the city were further plunged into shadow, only to open up into lush green vegetation and light against a backdrop of purple when we discover the Hidden Temple. The scene where the manatee perishes required careful attention as we drained the color from most of the image to augment the feeling of despair. The Vault, and subsequently the Eden dream space was an area where we could stretch our creativity further, adding texture to the sequence in the form of overlays, subtle glows as well as edge-of-lens distortion to truly create an otherworldly feel for the platform floating in a bed of stars.
To be continued…
In Sky, the subtle nuances are everywhere; things like the movement of the characters’ eyelids (who would have thought eyelids could have such a starring role!), the 2D effects done on twos, and the use of color cues to help support the narrative. This attention to detail gives Sky an intimate feel, yet as a piece it is also epic in the allegorical parallels it draws with our own world. The beautiful visuals and soothing soundtrack punch largely above the weight of the team that painstakingly created it.
Finally, for all those touched by this rich tapestry of world and story, Evan assures us there is more to come: “Sky: The Two Embers – Part One isn’t so much a compressed version of a larger story as it is a single thread in a longer storyline. When the whole film is released, we hope it will land all the more powerfully”.
I guess the Part One in the title was always a giveaway 😉
Client: THATGAMECOMPANY
Production: ORCHID & ILLUSORIUM
Jenova Chen: Executive Producer
Evan Viera: Director / Executive Producer
Cecil Kim: Production Designer / Executive Producer
Yui Tanabe: Production Designer
Anna Jahn: Producer
Jenny Pham: Co-producer
Gabe Beresin: Editor
Digital Colorist: Milton Adamou
Finishing Services: Pepper Tree Post, Inc.
Pepper Tree Post, Inc. 