Chemical Brothers: virtual production and real-time VFX

For the promo for new Chemical Brothers’ single ‘Live Again’!, Outsider’s Dom&Nic and Untold Studios used virtual production and real-time VFX to create a trippy ‘Groundhog-Day-esque’ adventure story.

Outsider and Untold teamed with virtual production specialists from ARRI Solutions, Creative Technology and Lux Machina, with the shoot all hosted on and powered by ARRI Stage London.

On making ‘Live Again’, DOM&NIC said, “Working with the Chemical Brothers is always a dream for us. To have such a strong and inspiring piece of music and blank page to create a visual companion to it is as close to blissful creative freedom as it gets for directors. This was our tenth collaboration with the Chems and we knew time would be tight on the back end of the project. The combination of this and the track’s title inspired the idea of a dance piece with a character caught in a continual loop of death and rebirth. The idea that we could do this in long unbroken shots inspired us to use ARRI Stage London in a way that had never previously been done. We wanted to create real-time rendered environments that could change without cutting the camera. Much of the hard VFX work would take place prior to the shoot, running concurrently with the rest of pre production and ultimately save time in post. But on top of this it inspired an idea that could not really have been achieved in any other way irrespective of time and that was exciting for everyone. We were showered with the generosity of such a strong and huge team of immensely talented companies and individuals that helped us to make this film happen. Many of whom we work with regularly on commercials and a number who have also worked with us on past Chemical Brothers videos. Without their time, talents and generosity, a film like this could never make it out of heads and onto a screen.“

Untold Studios Real-time Supervisor Simon Legrand added, “This project was a perfect storm, with our team at Untold working with Outsider and the ARRI Stage London team to pull out all of the stops to bring DOM&NIC’s bold and innovative concept to life. We pushed the boundaries of what’s possible in virtual production, breaking ground as we went. After designing seven bespoke virtual worlds in pre-production, we were then able to tweak elements on set, on the fly, giving the directors the freedom to play and experiment. This is the first time that virtual environments have been switched live on set in this way and we’re really proud to have been trusted to help make it a reality.”

“Working with the production on this project represented many creative and technical challenges. It was a unique opportunity for all of us involved to really see how hard we could push the boundaries. Technically, this required a huge collaborative effort between camera, lighting, VFX and virtual production supervision to ensure seamless integration. This promo brought the best of the best together across all these disciplines to bring the creative team’s vision to life and deliver an incredibly special end result.” said David Levy, Business Development Director, ARRI Solutions.

Supporting this, Will Case, Director of Innovation, Creative Technology Ltd. said “It was incredibly exciting to have such an innovative and technically challenging project come into the stage. It really pushed the boundaries of working in real-time workflows and technologies to bring to life DOM&NIC’s visually stunning promo. It required everyone involved to work collaboratively to achieve this very challenging but hugely rewarding project together.”

CREDITS

Production Company: Outsider

Producer: John Madsen

Executive Producer: Simon Elborne

Production Manager: Tom Benkins

DOP: Stephen Keith-Roach

Steadicam Operator: Rick Woollard

Choreographer: Supple Nam

1st AD: James Sharpe

Production Designer: Chris Oddy

Stylist: Tara Stift

Dancer: Josipa Kukor

Editor: Ed Cheeseman @ Final Cut

Sound Mix and SFX: Adam Smyth @ String and TinsUntold Studios:

VFX & Real Time Production: Untold Studios

Chief Creative Officer: Neil Davies

Executive Producer: Ian Berry

Producer: George Reid, Simon Downie

Production Assistant: Helena Almeida

Virtual Production & Real-time Supervisor: Simon Legrand

VFX Supervisor: Matt Kavanagh

Technical Artist: Heyden Adams

Artists: Vlad Pascanu, George Rockliffe, Emma Lepuil, Tom Moreland, Carlo Carfor, Ankur Arora, Emien Arkin, Emre Samioglu, Garry Driver, Lucas Girault, Murali Krishna Reddy, Richard Harris, Pillippe Moine, Shariq AltafArri:

Virtual Production Studio: ARRI Stage London

Virtual Production Supervisor: David Levy

Production Consultant: Rob Payton

Stage Manager: Sean Ryan

Board Operation: Shane Greenway

Rigging Operation: Michael Apostolou

Creative Technology:

Project Manager: Connie Glover

Project Coordinator: Anette Moreno

Engine Operator: Joseph Loe

Systems Engineer: Callum Smith-Halvorsen

Systems Engineer: Raoul Mohamdee