Brief

We worked with 215 McCann to provide a huge-scale of VFX on Xbox’s Series X global launch campaign. The film features Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Black Panther) transformed into CGI as he falls through a thrilling adventure dream world, gradually gaining control and power within it.

Approach

Using the very latest techniques together with 4D facial capture, we were able to bring the fantastical elements to life and recreate Daniel as a digital human with his own face and body movements, grooming techniques for hair and realistic cloth simulation for his clothes. We joined forces with talent from our Academy Award-winning Film team, working together to concept the creative range and six different environments. Unreal Engine allowed us to visualise the whole film and provide Ian Pons Jewell and Xbox with a high quality and highly interactive previsualization process.

Impact

The film was recognised at the Shots Awards, The Americas and the AEAF Awards, winning the Silver and Bronze awards for Visual Effects and was nominated for a VES Award for Outstanding Visual Effects. Since launched, the campaign has had over 1 million views on YouTube and was covered extensively within the media, with features including Ad Week, The Drum and Shoot.

+1M
YouTube views
3
Awards for VFX
+1.5M
Instagram reach
Brand

Xbox

Agency

215McCann

Production Company

RESET

Director

Ian Pons Jewell

“The human eye is extremely sensitive to the qualities of human skin and so subtle changes to the material quality can make a digital human look uncanny. It was essential to obtain excellent data of the talent being recreated. One of the specific challenges of compositing was the varying scale of our worlds. Daniel is huge in comparison to one planet – but he is also human-size on the surface of another – all in the pan of one shot.”
Fabian Frank, Head of Creature Development, The Mill/MPC
“Our team scanned Daniel in real life to obtain 4D facial capture footage of his performance, which we enhanced with rigs and key frame animation. The body performance was fully key framed, as a full motion capture shoot wasn’t possible. We applied high-res micro and scanned details to recreate an intricate digital double of Daniel and used highly comprehensive rigs and muscle simulations for the hands. The Mill/MPC’s hair pipeline based around Houdini was utilised to recreate this incredibly detailed, photoreal Daniel.”
Fabian Frank, Head of Creature Development, The Mill/MPC

Credits

AGENCY TEAM
215McCann:
Chief Creative Director: Scott Duchon
Creative Director: Mat Bunnell
Senior Art Director: Savannah Hicks
Director of Integrated Production: Mandi Holdorf
Senior Producer: Nina Roussarie
Associate Producer: Jessie YBarra
PRODUCTION TEAM
RESET:
Director: Ian Pons Jewell
DOP: Mauro Chiarello
Executive Producer: Deannie O’Neil
Line Producer: Megan Moore
POST PRODUCTION TEAM
The Mill/MPC:
Executive Producer: Elexis Stearn
VFX Producers: Nicole Saccardi, Warwick Hewett, Mireille Antoine
VFX Coordinators: John Edson, Jamie Hughes
Line Producer: Neela Kumuda P
Production Coordinator: Sakshi Gaur
Senior Executive Producer, Colour: Meghan Lang Bice
Colour Producer: Sasha Pace