Sunny, a brand new sci-fi dramedy on Apple TV Plus, is totally different from most visions of the longer term — primarily as a result of it barely has any screens. As a substitute, the present imagines a time when expertise is extra seamlessly built-in into our lives. Telephones rely totally on audio, pleasant robots assist round the home, and laptop displays appear to be they’re product of paper. For showrunner Katie Robbins and the remainder of the manufacturing crew, designing Sunny turned a chance to do one thing totally different within the realm of science fiction.
“It was such an incredible deal with and problem to assume: if we may change issues concerning the world that we reside in, what would we modify?” Robbins explains. “How would we modify the methods we interface with our expertise?”
These variations manifest in a number of methods. Whereas everybody in Sunny appears to hold round a cellphone, as an example, they’re so much totally different from trendy smartphones. Impressed by the design of Japanese lighters from the Sixties, the units are curvy rectangles that may flip open to disclose a display screen. However hardly anybody on the present makes use of them that manner. As a substitute, they pop an AirPods-style headphone in a single ear (the cellphone doubles as an earbud case) and do virtually every part by way of voice.
When the characters have to do one thing visually — browse search outcomes or play a multiplayer recreation — there’s a built-in projector. And when the residents of this future truly work together with a show, whether or not it’s the cellphone or a pc or a TV enjoying 24-hour information at a comfort retailer, the display screen appears to be like prefer it’s made out of digital paper. Robbins says the shows have been all designed to appear to be the shoji screens discovered in lots of Japanese houses in order that they match extra naturally into the atmosphere.
A part of what makes all of it work is that Sunny largely feels out of time. The present follows Suzie (Rashida Jones), who groups up with robotic residence assistant Sunny (Joanna Sotomura) to unravel the thriller of her husband Masa’s (Hidetoshi Nishijima) disappearance. It’s set in Kyoto, however when it takes place isn’t actually clear. The present is vaguely futuristic, with its plentiful robots and voice assistants that may truly perceive you, however it’s additionally decidedly retro on the subject of issues like trend and music. Robbins says that temporal ambiguity is intentional. “We by no means needed to particularly timestamp the present, in order that it may really feel 10 years sooner or later, 30 years sooner or later, or an alt-now,” she says. “We needed it to really feel acquainted and accessible and never futuristic in a extremely overt manner.”
“We needed it to really feel acquainted and accessible and never futuristic in a extremely overt manner.”
Lots of the choices concerning expertise — and screens specifically — additionally got here from a sensible standpoint. “We needed to, as a lot as attainable, keep away from display screen inserts and that form of factor, and characters always selecting up their telephones and scrolling,” says Robbins. Having most communication occur by way of voice makes for a greater expertise for viewers, retaining the deal with the actors, however it additionally creates pressure for the present’s major character. Suzie has lived in Japan for a decade, however due to the ever present real-time translation expertise present in her cellphone, she has by no means truly needed to be taught the language. She merely places within the earbud and carries on a dialog.
“Which is miraculous, and in some methods extremely connective and permits her to reside in a spot the place she wouldn’t in any other case be capable of talk with folks,” Robbins says. “Nonetheless, there may be additionally a barrier inside that expertise. Think about in case you lived in a spot the place virtually your entire interplay with folks you have been listening to translated in your ear. Regardless that the expertise is bringing folks collectively, it’s additionally making a barrier on this manner that I feel is de facto attention-grabbing.”
As for the robots, and Sunny specifically, the idea for a cute and pleasant assistant equally got here from a narrative viewpoint. Suzie is somebody with a deep-seated mistrust of expertise who can be going by means of an extremely tough time with the lack of her husband and son. “What if the robotic is doubtlessly the factor that brings her out of that?” Robbins remembers considering.
“One thing that felt very cute, and approachable, and amiable in order that you could possibly think about falling in love with it.”
After some analysis into the sphere of human-robot interplay — and dealing with the crew at visible results powerhouse Wētā Workshop — Robbins was capable of finding a glance that each Suzie and viewers would relate to, full with a giant spherical face with large, extraordinarily expressive eyes that do an incredible job of conveying emotion. “One thing that felt very cute, and approachable, and amiable in order that you could possibly think about falling in love with it,” Robbins explains.
At a time when many people appear to be desperately trying to find some form of treatment to our overconnected current, there’s quite a lot of enchantment in Sunny’s imaginative and prescient. The bots are largely pleasant and useful if you want them and straightforward to disregard if you don’t. In the meantime, the telephones are connectivity instruments slightly than attention-consuming blackholes, and other people truly speak to one another (even when typically mediated by means of a translator). In a world of Boox Palmas, Daylight tablets, and AI instruments that depart a lot to be desired, the Sunny cellphone may undoubtedly garner an viewers — which was the purpose all alongside.
“That was the hope,” says Robbins. “We get the possibility to design one thing right here. Let’s design one thing that we’d need.”
