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Home » Hi From The Future

Hi From The Future

Hi From The Future is here, ready to save you from production woes

Interview: Elliot Higgins & Mark Rubbo from Brooklyn Studio

Hi From The Future isn’t a time machine movie, but a Brooklyn studio that produces interactive content that ranges from Spike Lee and Cadillac to Pharrel Williams and Netflix. Recently, we Zoomed with founders Elliot Higgins and Mark Rubbo to discuss how they produced the video for Duckwrth’s “Find a Way” in five weeks—despite pandemic protocols.

Q: First, a little about your studio. When did it form and can you give some info on the way it came together?

Mark: Elliot and I are longtime friends who had a vision of a creative studio that uses new tech to solve age-old production problems. At the time, the projects we were working on didn’t seem to be optimized for a 21st-century media landscape. What was needed was a new kind of studio that could create content across digital channels and could act as a partner for larger studios, brands and artists who needed such work. 

Hi From the Future’s Find A Way music video relied heavily on real-time technology and prebuilt assets such as Unreal Engine and Quixel Megascans.

Q: How important are real-time technologies to your studio? How important do you feel they are to VFX and why?

Elliot: Real-time technology is essential. Tools like Reallusion’s iClone and Character Creator extend the creative period. Because we can iterate almost until delivery, we sidestep the limitations of the traditional production, where you are forced to lock in creative in the early stages of development. 

Q: How did the project for Find A Way come to be? Can you explain a little on how your studio became involved?

Mark: The short answer is Resolve Media’s Chad Tennies, who later became co-director on the project, brought us the opportunity: five weeks, exciting, young artist, could we pull off an animated shoot despite the lockdown and limited access to the artist? Of course, the real answer is longer, and more complex. “Find a Way” is a project we had been preparing for for years. All the research and testing we did on different software platforms and figuring out a proper workflow was key. So was all our experience on traditional shoots, which we adapted to a virtual production. 

“Utopia” One of the impressive scenes built by the team at Hi From the Future.

Q: Can you give me an idea about your process for pre-viz? Was the project storyboarded ahead of time, or did you make it up as you went along?

Elliot: Due to the five-week crunch, we didn’t have time for traditional storyboarding. Mood boards, style frames and other reference material was the substitute for creating a through-line in the production and assuring that the vision was consistent with expectation. 

Some of the real-time environments created for Find A Way.

Q: How did you make the characters? What software did you use? What role did Reallusion’s Character Creator play?  

Mark: We started with Zoom calls with the artists, where we got a general sense of their style and what they wanted to bring to their performance. These sessions became mood boards, from which we began developing the characters. The advantage of working with video game tools is that you never start from zero. Character Creator assets all came pre-rigged, which allowed us to apply custom motion-capture or dub over stock animations to give an extra layer of polish. 

The character workflow went something like this: We used Character Creator for the base, then punched it up in ZBrush. Substance Painter was used for texturing skin and clothes. Reallusion’s iClone was where we did all the animation. Maya’s XGen for hair groom was next, before export to Unreal. When we had to make changes, we simply jumped back to an earlier step. Thankfully, we were working with stylized avatars, so we didn’t have to worry about photogrammetry. 

Facial Mocap was done using Reallusion’s LIVE FACE

Q: I believe that the facial expressions and performance were done with Reallusion Faceware tools. Is that so? Were there any other techniques? Did you manually animate any of the faces with morph targets? 

Elliot: Yes, that’s correct. We used Reallusion’s LIVE FACE for the close-ups. We worked with artists over Zoom to capture their performances. The mocap provided a rough base, with manual adjustments tuning the details and accentuating key expressions. For more advanced features, such as hair, we had to pull out all the stops. We wound up using a new plugin from Unreal that supported real-time hair simulation. We hadn’t used the plugin before, but it soon turned into a great tool to render Duckwrth and Radio Ahlee’s beards, and to do justice to Alex Mali’s green curls and Bayli’s Bantu knots.

Alex Mali’s curls were created with a new hair plugin for Unreal.

Q: Can you give us an idea about the animation? How much did you rely on motion capture? Seeing how this project was most likely created during the Covid era, what processes did you use for motion capture of the dancing?

Mark: Markerless motion capture sessions through Zoom helped us to nail down the performance sequences, whether the performers were dancing, singing, or rapping. Everything was 100% virtual due to pandemic restrictions, especially when we were working on this project last spring, during the first wave of infections. For each session, we had the artists download (Maxon’s) Moves by Maxon app and hit record. These sequences were later combined with stock moves, such as when Duckwrth jumps off the cliff (1:36). 

Unreal Engine’s real-time cinematography has emerged as an important tool.

Q: Regarding the environments, I believe that they were created, lit, and passed along to the final rendering all within Unreal Engine. Was that the case? What are some of the benefits to using Unreal Engine? After using it on this project, do you see it playing an important role in future productions?

Elliot: As with character development, working with pre-existing assets from Quixel Megascans and the Epic Marketplace gave us a major head-start in creating the environments. The objective was fitting environments to the storyboard to advance the narrative. It was also about replacing preconfigured design elements with custom assets that connect directly and personally with character.

For instance, there is the illuminated rune that takes us into the video. That object was taken from Duckwrth’s sigil, or personal talisman, used in the album art. It introduces the questing, adventurous tone we were going for, as well as making that personal connection to Duckwrth’s outlook and album art. 

The process of curating and customizing environment assets combines level design for a video game with set design for a film shoot. The intent of changes was to communicate that the stock elements we used as a starting point weren’t fully environments. They were individual rocks, trees, textures, buildings, and other features.

The shoot in Unreal was both the easiest part of the process and the most stressful. After bringing all the major assets into our main staging level, we spent the final week nailing down camera angles and making sure the tone and quality of the piece were consistent. Since we were dealing with technology designed to do something different than what we wanted it to do, slight problems were constantly arising and our team had to keep refining and debugging. The ideal we were shooting for throughout was real-time decision-making and live changes. 

A scene from Duckwrth’s Find A Way music video by Hi From the Future. Click here to see the video on YouTube.

Q: What were some of the challenges you faced working on this project? How could real-time production be better?

Mark: Beyond the extreme time-constraint and the pandemic protocols, the major challenges we faced involved collaboration between the character and the environment teams. Multiple artists working on the same shot would be ideal. For us, real-time production could improve by better approximating the collaborative dynamism of an actual film set. 

Q: What cool projects are coming up at Hi From the Future?

Elliot: The “Find a Way” project has been a great conversation-starter for us. People who were resistant before the pandemic are now embracing the possibilities of what can be accomplished with real-time technology. As a studio, we are working on our own original content, in addition to adding our expertise to Twitch, VR game, film, and TV projects. What we predicted a few years ago has come true–and it’s a lot of fun!

About Joe Herman

Joe Herman is a filmmaker, artist and post production specialist and writes often about the industry. You can reach him at joe[at]legendmultimedia[dot]com. Or reach and follow him on Twitter @JoeHermanTweets.

Community & Partner Links

LA Sees 43-percent Film Permit Boost Since January

Film permit requests in the city were up 43 percent this past month compared to the top of the year.

Filming in Los Angeles is beginning to pick back up again.

FilmLA, the organization that tracks production in the city, says it received 777 film permit applications in February, representing a 43 percent increase compared to the month of January. The organization notes that a late-month surge in production took place, making February the third busiest month the city has experienced with regards to filming since last June.

For the full story in the Hollywood Reporter, click here.

Rupert Neve, the Father of Modern Studio Recording, Dies at 94

When the Seattle grunge band Nirvana recorded their breakthrough album, “Nevermind,” at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, Calif., in 1991, they used a massive mixing console created by a British engineer named Rupert Neve.

The Neve 8028 console and others he made had by then become studio staples, hailed by many as the most superior consoles of their kind in manipulating and combining instrumental and vocal signals. They were responsible in great part for the audio quality of albums by groups like Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Grateful Dead, and Pink Floyd.

Read the full obit in the New York Times.

New York City Movie Theaters Can Reopen at Limited Capacity, Gov. Cuomo Says

After nearly a year of closures, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has given movie theaters in New York City permission to reopen at limited capacity starting on March 5.

During his daily press briefing, the Empire State leader said cinemas in the city will be permitted to operate at 25% capacity, with no more than 50 people. Moreover, other safety measures such as masks, social distancing, and heightened sanitizing measures will be required. Last October, New York venues outside of the city were allowed to reopen with similar restrictions.

To read the full article in Variety, click here.

Stimulus Offers $15 Billion in Relief for Struggling Arts Venues

The coronavirus relief package that Congressional leaders agreed to this week includes grant money that many small proprietors described as a last hope for survival.

For the music venue owners, theater producers and cultural institutions that have suffered through the pandemic with no business, the coronavirus relief package that Congress passed on Monday night offers the prospect of aid at last.

To read the full article on The New York Times’ site, click here.

If you want to start production, here’s the latest news from the Mayor’s Office

Phase 4 production guidance is available on the Film Permit website. All production activity, whether it requires a Film Permit or not, must comply with New York Forward Industry Guidance.

For more information see, please refer to the State Department of Health’s Interim Guidance for Media Production During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. Please review the guidelines and FAQ before submitting permit applications. The Film Office is operating remotely, so please allow additional time for Film Permit processing.

The above paragraphs contain links to the various FAQ – just mouse over the relevant words.

Amazon Prime Video Direct and the Dystopian Decision to Stop Accepting Docs


Chris Lindahl and Dana Harris-Bridson outlined Amazon’s position in IndieWire: “When Amazon made a unilateral decision in early February to stop accepting documentaries and short films via Prime Video Direct (a policy that also covers ‘slide shows, vlogs, podcasts, tutorials, filmed conferences, monologues, toy play, music videos, and voiceover gameplay’), the announcement also served as a quiet purge.

The above continues on to some surprising conclusions on DOC NYCs Monday Memo, 

Disney to Close Upstate Blue Sky Studios

Various sources have reported that Disney is in the process of shuttering Blue Sky Studios, the largest animation studio on the East coast. The former 20th Century Fox animation division pulled in $5.9 billion churning out 13 feature films including the Ice Age franchise.

Publications have noted how Disney – which had three animation studios including Pixar and Disney Animation – couldn’t make the case to have these many houses when the pandemic took a toll on the company’s profits.

Some 450 employees will lose their jobs, though some hope to get into one of Disney’s other animation houses.

Here’s Deadline’s report.

Here’s Variety’s report.

Epix Announces ‘Godfather of Harlem’ Season 2 Premiere Date

Epix revealed that the second season of “Godfather of Harlem” will premiere on April 18. Set in 1964, the crime drama series explores the collision of the criminal underworld and civil rights movement. The second season will follow Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker) battling the New York crime families for control of the French Connection, a pipeline for heroin that runs from Marseilles to New York Harbor.

To read the full Variety article, click here.

Sony’s FX3 is a compact $3,900 camera for filmmakers

Sony has announced the FX3. As expected, the camera is essentially an A7S III with features from the company’s Cinema line crammed into a body that looks like the A7C. Its backside-illuminated full-frame sensor has an effective resolution of 10.2-megapixel when shooting video and 15 stops of dynamic range.

To read the full story on Engadget, click here.

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