How Did A Shot From Wes Ball's Short Film 'Ruin' End Up In J.J. Abrams And Jon Favreau's 'Revolution' Trailer?

In March, I posted an Wes Ball's awesome computer animated post-apocalyptic short film Ruin. I've heard that the short got many in Hollywood talking. Since the release, I've been waiting and expecting to see Ball's name in a headline of a Hollywood trade news break.

That has yet to happen, so I was surprised when watching the trailer for J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau's new NBC television series Revolution to see a shot from Ball's short film. How did a shot from an animated short film end up in a trailer for Bad Robot's latest? Did JJ and crew pay Ball for the clip or was it completely ripped-off? Answers after the jump.

For the sake of comparison, here is a screenshot of the shot from the Revolution Trailer, about 1:05 in:

And here is the shot from Wes' original short film Ruin, 23 seconds in:

So how did this happen? Well, it seems like Bad Robot asked for permission. Here is a tweet from Wes Ball:

To all concerned folks asking me... My friends at Bad Robot asked to use my RUIN shots in the Revolution promo. Pitch forks not needed. :)

— Wes Ball (@wesball) May 14, 2012

And my inside sources tell me that JJ Abrams was a big fan of Ball's short film. So there you have it. Might we see Ball set-up a project at Bad Robot in the near future? Who knows...