HP makes a movie about data scientists

Unlocked subtly features Z workstations by HP in an interactive film.

Z by HP has rebranded their Z product line as Z by HP and recently released Unlocked, an interactive, 35-minute film that weaves data science challenges into an action-packed story to unlock an ancient mystery. Blending Hollywood-caliber production value, interactive storytelling, and data challenges, data scientists around the world are invited to participate in the project at www.hp.com/unlocked for a chance to win prizes. NBCUniversal and Z by HP debuted Unlocked on Friday, February 18, as the first branded short film to stream on Peacock.

In the film, created and produced by Giant Spoon, Dr. Eva Ramirez is searching for a mysterious flower rumored to cure the rare neurological disease that plagues her family. However, she’s not the only one looking for this elusive plant—a local cartel is dead set on securing it for themselves. When Eva gets caught in the cartel’s crosshairs, she turns to her friends, data scientists Michaela and Damone, for help. As the action unfolds, the friends use their investigative instincts, data, and HP Z workstations to find and protect Eva, while they track down the plant’s location before it falls into the wrong hands.

The film opens with Eva being held captive by members of a fierce cartel in Guatemala. Eva escapes her captors, but Michaela and Damone back home are worried about her and try to track her down on the Web. They find that Eva is on a quest to discover La Eterna, the mysterious plant that could offer her family a cure to their illness. The story unfolds to reveal data challenges to help solve mysteries within the narrative.

Each of the four data challenges presented in the film are accompanied by video tutorials from Z by HP sponsored Data Science Ambassador Ken Jee, with a detailed explanation on his approach to finding a solution.

The first challenge is to assist Damone’s mission to save Eva by creating a data visualization of global deforestation. The second challenge urges participants to make sense of hundreds of pieces of content with a topic model, like the one pointing Michaela and Damone in the right direction, using natural language processing. In the third, the team needs to use audio analysis to predict bird population density using capuchinbird audio files. Finally, using image analysis, the film’s heroes help uncover the truth about La Eterna. All of these challenges are tackled using Z by HP data science workstations and accompanying software stack.

Watch the film, I think you’ll enjoy it. And you can participate in the Unlocked challenge sweepstakes here: http://www.hp.com/unlocked. Data scientists across Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, UK, Sweden, US, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who participate in the challenges via http://www.hp.com/unlocked before April 30, 2022, will be entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win one of 10 ZBook Studio laptops or the grand prize, a trip to the Kaggle Days x Z by HP World Championship in Barcelona, Spain.

Z by HP (Brand/Client)

Vikrant Batra, CMO

Cristina Bondolowski, Global Head of Marketing – HP Personal Systems

Erin Mott, Head of Marketing, Z by HP

Mandy Berquist, WW Integrated Marketing Manager, Z by HP

Ashley Riggs-Zeigen, Global Marketing Campaign & Strategy Lead

Giant Spoon (Advertising Agency & Production)

Jon Haber, Co-Founder

Andrew Mellen, Creative Director

Jamie Samuel, Senior Account Director

Jason Lau, Executive Producer

Allie Haroutunian, Senior Writer

Austin Ho, Senior Art Director

Janina Volpe, Group Strategy Director Sarah Novosad, Senior Producer

Taryn Maloy, Strategist

Nicole Armeno, Senior Project Manager

Matthew Silverman, Design Director

Genevieve Geller, Designer

Dave Groseclose, Editor

Devin Glass, Editor

Savannah Griffith, Associate Producer

Brad Goldstein, Production Artist

UNIT9 (Production Company)

Jonathan Pearson, Director

Laura Deeley, Writer

Emily Malito, Executive Producer

Alanna Dillon, Line Producer

Eric Koretz, Director of Photography

Moving Picture Company (Visual Effects, Color, and Finishing)

Karena Ajamian, Executive Producer, Finishing

Sarah Brennan-Athas, Finishing Producer

Rob Ufer, Flame Lead

Claus Hansen, Creative Director

Meghan Lang, Executive Producer, Color Gabriel Wakeman, Color Producer

Kris Smale, Colorist

Whitehouse Editorial (Editorial)

Lucia Villalta, Post-Producer

Autumn Dea, Editor

Nelson Mustain, Assistant Editor

R79 Digital Inc. (Visual Effects)

Eric Demeusy, Creative Director, Lead Animator, Dmitry Fitisov, Managing Director, Producer

Ben Hurand, 3D Animator

Jehee Lee, Designer

Prashan Subasinghe, 3D Modeling & Texturing Artist Gene Magtoto, Rigging Artist

Rachel Ambelang, Editor

Barking Owl (Sound Mix and Music Composition) Kelly Bayett, Creative Director

Hannah Alter, Producer

Houston Fry, Composer

Matt Keith, Mixer/Sound Designer

Eleven Sound (Sound Mix)

Melissa Elston, Executive Producer

Marco Tornillo, Sound Engineer

Z by HP Ambassadors (Data science tutorials & challenge designers)

Ken Jee, Head of Data Science

Hunter Kempf, Lead Data Scientist

Natalia Sturgill, Data Scientist Consultant

Nick Wan, Data Scientist

Andrada Olteanu, Data Scientist, Kaggle Grand Master