Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s second online Commencement • 2021

Watch the Invitation Animation.

Watch the Opening & Title video.

Watch the Degree Conferral video.

Watch the 60-minute Ceremony webcast.

With the global pandemic continuing, and hybrid learning models in place for the 2020-2021 school year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology opted to have Commencement online for a second year, streaming the ceremony on June 4, 2021 to 55,000 people around the world. The Office of Institute Events invited us back to collaborate on this event, following the success of the 2020 version.

We shaped an engaging program that included a 3D Animated Invitation that transformed the Dome of Killian Court into a sort of circular Rubik’s Cube. We managed and directed the remote capture of eight presenters, including Keynote speaker Bryan Stevenson, sending tech support kits with lights and webcams and custom backdrops to each to elevate their look after a year of Zooming into personal living rooms, We created a greeting from Antarctica from a new doctoral candidate and a number of his penguin friends. And our 3D animation, to accompany President Rafael Reif’s remote conferring of degrees to 3,400 recipients, transformed the Dome into a launch tube from which the Mars Ingenuity copter, a solar-powered drone, and a Leonardo da Vinci aerial screw lifted degree-appropriate mortar boards to fly across the Charles River and off to the virtual heads of the graduates around the globe.

President Reif wrote, “Watching last week’s virtual Commencement ceremony, I felt extraordinarily proud of the sendoff we were giving the Class of 2021, and deeply grateful to those whose hard work and dedication made it so special. Thank you for your time, energy, creativity and commitment to our community. While all of us wish we could have celebrated together in person, you gave our graduates and their families an experience they will never forget.”