Chaos Innovation Lab rounds up VFX veterans
Production experts offer comedic insights into the industry in an action-packed, Western-themed test of Chaos' new virtual production toolset, Project Arena.
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Credits
powered by
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- Production Company Chaos Innovation Lab
- Director Daniel Thron
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Unlock full credits and more with a Source + shots membership.
Credits
powered by
- Production Company Chaos Innovation Lab
- Director Daniel Thron
- Visual Effects The Scope
- Sound Design Margarita Mix
- Production Designer Erick Schiele
- DP Richard Crudo
- DP Christopher Nicholls
- Music Producer Nick Launay
Credits
powered by
- Production Company Chaos Innovation Lab
- Director Daniel Thron
- Visual Effects The Scope
- Sound Design Margarita Mix
- Production Designer Erick Schiele
- DP Richard Crudo
- DP Christopher Nicholls
- Music Producer Nick Launay
Taking tongue-in-cheek look at some of the challenges facing Hollywood filmmaking and VFX, this comedic short, directed by Daniel Thron through Chaos Innovation Lab, is the first major test for Project Arena, Chaos's virtual production toolset.
Inspired by classics like Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid and Once Upon a Time in the West, and created by production vets from projects like Avengers: Infinity War, Dune: Part Two and Justified, the short, titled Ray Tracing FTW, offers a funny insider's look into what holds productions back from telling great stories.
While a "fix-it-in-post" mentality can certainly cause problems, the short argues that a return to golden-age filmmaking is only lacking real-time tools that truly let people operate in the moment.
“Technology is too often a distraction on set. It crashes, doesn’t respond fast enough, or requires too many specialists to make it work right,” said Christopher Nichols, director of special projects at the Chaos Innovation Lab and VFX supervisor/producer of Ray Tracing FTW. “We’ve been developing Project Arena to change all that, so everyone from the artist to the DP can stop thinking about the technology, and just get back to the natural rhythms of filmmaking.”
Credits
powered by
-
-
- Director Daniel Thron
-
-
Unlock full credits and more with a Source + shots membership.
Credits
powered by
- Director Daniel Thron
- Visual Effects The Scope
- Sound Design Margarita Mix
- Production Designer Erick Schiele
- DP Richard Crudo
- DP. Christopher Nicholls
- Music Producer Nick Launay
Credits
powered by
- Director Daniel Thron
- Visual Effects The Scope
- Sound Design Margarita Mix
- Production Designer Erick Schiele
- DP Richard Crudo
- DP. Christopher Nicholls
- Music Producer Nick Launay
Watching Ray Tracing FTW, you’d be hard-pressed to pinpoint Project Arena’s role on the short. Instead, it worked as intended, bringing over 2 trillion polygons to the screen for three days straight, without any of the expensive crashes that people have come to expect when using game engines in virtual production.
"I was shooting predominantly in an LED volume and I was continually blown away by how genuine the results looked — even to the naked eye. It was so clear how much quicker and more efficient Project Arena made the compositing process, which enabled a much more aggressive sense of creativity in the photography," said Richard Crudo, six-term past-president of the American Society of Cinematographers and director of photography on Ray Tracing FTW.
"By carefully managing the colour and density values of the volume with the live foreground action, I was able to bake-in the exact look I wanted. And since there was no guesswork to burden the special effects supervisor, the DI process was equally invigorating. I'm certain my colleagues will embrace this tech as soon as it becomes available."
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