At work, it’s pretty noticeable when one of your colleagues is away a lot.
August Hakansson, a visual effects artist and animator from Stockholm, definitely found this, and decided to troll her unfortunate co-worker. She placed a cardboard cutout of him at his empty desk to see if anyone at work noticed the difference, and she posted the result on Reddit.
erik_v02_1 – Create, Discover and Share Awesome GIFs on GfycatWatch this GIF by august_hakansson on Gfycat. Discover more GIFS online on Gfycat
But hold up: the eagle-eyed on Reddit noticed that something is a bit off with the GIF. As August is a talented animator, it’s actually a faked 3D composite, and not a cardboard cutout IRL.
“It’s made by taking a still frame from a photo, making it into a 3D mode and compositing it into the video using various camera tracking techniques,” August says. Err…sure. We might leave that kind of digital manipulation to the experts.
Here’s a closer look at how the composite is made, if you were interested.
August says: “It was mostly meant to be sent out to our work network as a bit of a laugh at the guy’s expense,” but it’s gone viral.
But why not just make an actual model of the guy and put it at his desk? Well, August says it’s “much cheaper and easier than printing and making a real cardboard cutout!”
It might be easier for August to digitally manipulate something like that, but everyone else will probably have to stick to physical cardboard if you wanted to prank your colleague.
