An animated short film crafted using a combination of practical miniatures and digital animation, “Share Your Gifts” is a modern day fairytale that tells the story of a young woman named Sofia and her journey towards finding the courage to put herself out there. Billie Eillish, a 16-year-old music artist, created an original track for the film.

Over the last 3 years, a third of all top-grossing movies have been sequels or remakes. Creativity scores have been in decline since the 90’s. And with researchers finding that 7/10 people aren’t acting on their creative potential, one thing is clear: creativity is under threat. However, Apple believes that creativity moves the world forward. Which is why, during the holiday season, the brand wanted to send an inspiring message aimed at creators everywhere.

We took a naturalistic approach to the animation of the characters. The animator responsible for animating our main character had a mirror next to her computer where she would look at her own expressions and apply that to the character. Almost every action in the film was first performed by one of the animators then reproduced by hand as character animation. Everything was done to make their expressions and emotions feel as real and authentic as possible.