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December 2018

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www.postmagazine.com 35 POST DECEMBER 2018 OUTLOOK O OUTLOOK O OUTLOOK VISUAL EFFECTS E very year in the visual effects industry, new tools and technolo- gy advancements seem to open up fresh pathways for efficiency and creativity. Looking ahead to 2019, I think that one important opportunity for visual effects shops, whether in film, television, immersive or advertising, lies in leveraging realtime tools to handle more deliverables in less time. According to a report commissioned by Forrester Consulting, over 79 percent of content creators in media and enter- tainment say that realtime technology has revolutionized how they are deliver- ing projects to customers. As media continues to traverse more and more platforms from cinema and TV to online to social media to experiential, VFX facilities often face one of two prob- lems: their creative contributions become increasingly siloed as deliverables are split up across vendors, or they are asked to deliver an ever-growing number of deliverables with a largely unchanged budget. Realtime technology can enable facilities to grow their businesses by cre- ating more — and better — content while keeping costs down. One great use case exemplifying this type of scenario is The Mill and their stunning work for Monster.com. When the employment site recently launched a rebrand campaign, The Mill was tasked with creating a photoreal, fully-CG monster for the campaign. The :90 spot, Opportunity Roars, features a building-sized purple monster who plucks a woman from her stifling office and physically carries her King Kong- style through the city to a new, more fulfilling, job opportunity. The spot was a success with viewers and even earned The Mill a Cannes Lions award for visual effects. However, with that success came a new request, for The Mill to build upon the campaign with dozens of additional web and social media vid- eos featuring the monster — all in only three weeks. Using a realtime workflow powered by game engine technology, the team at The Mill created a virtual puppeteer- ing rig that allowed them to generate the monster's performance live and make instantaneous adjustments, drastically accelerating the content creation and client approval process to meet the deadline. Having a practical way to generate a lot of animated con- tent for social media, cost-effectively, proved to be a game-changer for the studio, and Unreal Engine will continue to play an active role in their pipeline moving forward. It's easy to see how faster and more flexible technology can pave the way for business growth. Being able to take on more pieces of the pie such as social media marketing and other digital deliverables, rather than just the hero feature VFX or broadcast spot, allows VFX shops to adapt to the new de- mands of modern media and become more indispensable to clients. All the while, realtime is also enabling greater creative efficiency and lower overhead in-house. For companies willing to invest in building realtime workflows, there are numerous benefits to business offerings, artistry, budgets, timelines and so much more. REALTIME TOOLS ARE OPENING NEW VFX DOORS IN POST BY MARC PETIT GM UNREAL ENGINE ENTERPRISE EPIC GAMES CARY, NC WWW.UNREALENGINE.COM a lot more than that. Both the music and the ads they support are drawing upon larger cultural touchpoints of our time: one being diversity and the other being the general angst and tension of our politics. These are topics that are resonating in the mind of every working artist and so it's only natural that our creative output would be influenced by the state of our world. To put it another way: art is reflecting life. Most experts seem to agree that the tense political climate is not going away anytime soon, and so I expect to see these musical trends continue for another few years. The Mill's recent Opportunity Roars spot for Monster.com. Game engine technology powered this spot.

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