The short film stars Knick, a small and lively snowman, trapped in his glass sphere engraved with the label “North Pole”. The sphere sits on a shelf crowded with exotic souvenirs, including a series of figurines from warm, sunny places. Among them, a charming figurine depicting a woman in a bikini, labelled ‘Sunny Miami’, particularly catches Knick's eye. Eager for company and desperate to escape his icy prison, Knick embarks on a series of hilarious and violent escape attempts. Using every means at his disposal, Knick lunges, pounds and bangs against the sphere, trying to break it, crack it or smash it, but the glass proves invulnerable. Finally, he finds a clever solution: Knick notices that the snow inside the globe, shaken, begins to melt. Using the accumulated water, the snowman manages to unbalance the sphere, causing it to fall disastrously from the shelf. Finally free from his confinement, Knick lands in a water-filled aquarium located directly below. Filled with joy at his newfound freedom, Knick swims eagerly towards an alluring mermaid figurine in the aquarium. However, fate conspires against him: just as he is about to reach the mermaid, the glass dome of his old globe also falls from the shelf and lands, trapping him once again in another glass prison, just inches from his longed-for freedom.
To achieve stereoscopy, the team had to generate two views of the scene: one for the left eye and one for the right eye, with a slight difference in angle (interocular distance) to simulate depth perception. The technique required double calculation of the camera views and careful management of geometries/occlusions to avoid stereo artefacts.
