Protest is a dreamlike meditation on the plight of the elephant, whose natural habitat shrinks each year. lt is set to the recognizable aria from the opera La Wally.

I did not set out to create a film that had an environmental theme. Protest came about because of a simple image I had of an Elephant falling. In working out the narrative, it became clear that the conclusion to the story had to be tragic, because that is the actual situation for these magnificent animals. In that sense you could say that the design and research process for Protest forced me to extract a more universal message than would have been the case with a project that concentrated on design alone.
Protest was entirely done using 3D Studio Max, Photoshop and After Effects, and only 6 seconds were shot in 35 mm.This project was done on a HD format and transferred onto film by Sony High Definition. It is an independent project.

Steve Katz (US) is a filmmaker/writer and a partner in Pitch Studio, a NYC based production and content company. He is the author of the best-selling Books Shot by Shot and Cinematic Motion and a contributing Editor to Millimeter Magazine.

Josselin Mahot (US) is scenic designer and digital model maker and was also head of the texture team for "Protest".