{"id":11371,"date":"2021-01-19T12:23:47","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T10:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/?p=11371"},"modified":"2021-01-19T12:23:53","modified_gmt":"2021-01-19T10:23:53","slug":"sokrispymedia-uses-blackmagic-design-to-bring-stick-figure-war-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/blog\/2021\/01\/19\/sokrispymedia-uses-blackmagic-design-to-bring-stick-figure-war-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"SoKrispyMedia Uses Blackmagic Design To Bring “Stick Figure War” To Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Blackmagic Design announced today that production company SoKrispyMedia\u2019s newest release, \u201cStick Figure War\u201d was shot in Blackmagic RAW using Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 and Micro Studio Camera 4Ks, with post work done in DaVinci Resolve Studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The 2016 \u201cStick Figure Battle,\u201d which has garnered more than 23 million views, pitted two students against each other as they draw fighting stick figures on a classroom white board. The recently released \u201cStick Figure War\u201d increases the stakes, not only incorporating an entire classroom of students, but bringing extensive cutting edge visual effects to bear. Created by filmmakers Sam Wickert and Eric Leigh, the two are no strangers to pushing the envelope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Production of the live action took a single day, despite the 70 shots slated, and was shot entirely with the Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2. \u201cBlackmagic cameras are our current go to cameras for any production we\u2019re working on,\u201d said SoKrispyMedia\u2019s producer Micah Malinics. \u201cFrom the early beginnings of this project, we knew we were going to shoot on the Ursa Mini Pro G2. We had previously used it on \u2018Chalk Warfare 4\u2019 and it really took our cinematography (and the total look of the film) to the next level. Blackmagic Design cameras fit perfectly into the mantra of our channel and our work. They allow us to capture an incredible image while operating on a very run and gun, small team style production.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In preparation for extensive speed ramps in post, Wickert used the camera\u2019s high frame rate capabilities during production. \u201cWe shot the actor\u2019s performance sequences at 60 frames per second to allow for speed ramps later, and all in Blackmagic RAW,\u201d said Wickert. \u201cThe Blackmagic Micro Studio Camera 4K, on a rail system fed into a Blackmagic Video Assist 7\u201d monitor for recording, was used for the top down hand shots for the students drawing. The portability of the Micro Studio Camera allowed us to also set up a matching top down shot of a desk in our office for added shots later. This allowed us to always iterate and have a camera that was setup ready for us to shoot great new shots on the fly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With principal photography finished, the often arduous task of completing visual effects was accomplished quickly and efficiently with the combination of Unreal Engine and DaVinci Resolve Studio. Editing started in DaVinci Resolve Studio, while Wickert, who also served as Visual Effects Supervisor, worked with visual effects artist Brendan Forde in managing the elements to build each shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe utilized Fusion for a number of shots,\u201d said Forde. \u201cFusion’s 3D system makes it really easy to apply and manipulate our stick figures as textures once we track the paper that they are on, particularly for the airplane sequence. With the texture node, we can render UV passes of our rotomation, and that allows us to retexture paper with our stick figures and have them respond to the bending and flexing of the paper in compositing, making iteration much quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flexibility of DaVinci Resolve Studio proved valuable once again to Wickert. \u201cWe used every panel in Resolve. It was my one stop shop for the entire post of the film. Brendan is the node man, so he loves the node based architecture in the Fusion workflow. As for me, I was responsible for all editing and color. And it\u2019s so easy because it\u2019s all just in one package.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the previous installment of \u201cStick Figure Battle,\u201d the team was required to manually render elements for each shot, using a massively time consuming iterative render process. For the newest film Wickert chose to incorporate Blackmagic Design camera and post production technology with Epic Games\u2019 Unreal Engine, the Dell XPS Precision 7750 mobile workstation and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 GPU, a combination which would provide real time rendering, and immediate response both on set and in post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWorking on a pipeline between Blackmagic Design cameras, DaVinci Resolve software and Unreal Engine was surprisingly easy and intuitive,\u201d said Wickert. \u201cBetween the full Blackmagic ecosystem with cameras, capture and playback and Resolve, we\u2019re able to quickly and easily get up and running and integrate with Unreal Engine\u2019s virtual production tools. To be honest, I don\u2019t think if we had tried it any other way, it would have worked. Our current pipeline is running so smoothly, and we\u2019re really happy with the images we\u2019re getting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the process, the team realized they were only scratching the surface of what they could do combining Blackmagic gear with tools like Unreal Engine. \u201cWe really feel Blackmagic cameras are the go to solution for working with Unreal and virtual production,\u201d said Malinics. \u201cWhen a Blackmagic camera is connected via SDI to a computer using a DeckLink 8K Pro card, for example, you unlock access to the cameras feed through Unreal Engine\u2019s plugins and Blueprint nodes. This literally allows you to directly access and code you video feed into your Unreal Engine scene.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process began with motion capture at MOTIVE School of Movement, where the team could live capture the action for the stick figures and view them directly through Unreal Engine. This ability to preview the animations even as they were captured gave the team high confidence that what they were seeing would work. The stick figure characters themselves were built in 3D, then imported into Unreal, along with a variety of other models from the Unreal Engine Marketplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the success of \u201cStick Figure Battle\u201d the team is already looking on to the next project, where they can take the existing technology and push it to the next level. \u201cWe are looking forward to doing some live virtual production in the future, where we can combine live video from our BMD cameras, live and\/or prerecorded motion capture, and virtual assets all coming together inside the Unreal Engine workspace,\u201d said Forde. \u201cBlackmagic’s products and tools are the most accessible, being both easy to work with and affordable, for all our work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As virtual production quickly becomes the buzz word in the entertainment industry, SoKrispyMedia is eager to show off their capabilities, all done without massive budgets. \u201cWe\u2019re on the brink of another big breakthrough for content creators in the form of 3D tools, CGI and real time rendering,\u201d said Wickert. \u201cThis type of technology, usually reserved for big VFX studios working on Hollywood blockbusters, is now becoming more accessible to small teams and creators on YouTube. Take that new found technology and combine it with Blackmagic Design\u2019s affordable yet ultra powerful hardware and software, and now anybody can produce high quality content without massive budgets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Blackmagic Design announced today that production company SoKrispyMedia\u2019s newest release, \u201cStick Figure War\u201d was shot in Blackmagic RAW using Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 4.6K G2 and Micro Studio Camera 4Ks, with post work done in DaVinci Resolve Studio. The 2016 \u201cStick Figure Battle,\u201d which has garnered more than 23 million views, pitted two students against… Continue reading SoKrispyMedia Uses Blackmagic Design To Bring “Stick Figure War” To Life<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[189],"class_list":["post-11371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardware-software","tag-blackmagic","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samdb.co.za\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}