Maxon, developers of professional software solutions for editors, filmmakers, motion designers, visual effects artists and creators of all types, congratulate the talented teams nominated for the 75th Emmy Awards as members go into the final round of voting. Among those nominated are Stormborn Studios for Five Days At Memorial (“Day 2”), Elastic for their production of The Last of Us title sequences, and Imaginary Forces for the creation of the main titles for Hello Tomorrow!. These companies utilized various Maxon tools in order to achieve their creative visions, as well as ensure a smooth and streamlined production process.
Stormborn Studios, a VFX studio specializing in destruction and simulation-heavy sequences, was recognized for their work on Five Days At Memorial, an Apple TV limited series chronicling the impact of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on a New Orleans hospital, with episode 2 (“Day 2”) nominated for Outstanding Special Visual Effects in a Single Episode. With some of the biggest and most impressive shots of the series featured in this episode–including the levee wall breaking down and flooding New Orleans, a pivotal moment in the series–Stormborn were one of only a few studios worldwide able to produce these scenes at such a high quality. The studio utilized Redshift to ensure a seamless and efficient post-production rendering process, providing them the advantage of rendering faster on fewer machines, simulating significant volumes and particles of water, mist and destruction, and enabling the team to easily send renders from Houdini and upload to AWS.
“Since the inception of Stormborn Studios, Redshift has been one of the core pieces of our pipeline and without it we would not have been able to accomplish these massive simulations with the resources we had. Without Redshift, rendering would have otherwise presented a major hurdle for us and as a result it is a significant reason why, as a small studio, we are able to compete in the VFX category,” says Goran Pavles, VFX Supervisor at Stormborn Studios.
Members of the Elastic team, whose previous work includes the iconic Game of Thrones opening sequences, have also been recognized for their production of the title sequences for The Last of Us with nominations for Outstanding Main Title Design. With the creation of the opening sequence for this series the team knew they had to convey a sense of chaos and increasing fear of the spreading virus. When researching fungi they noticed the similarities between the behavior of the fungus and humans: like humans, fungi create networks, communicate, reproduce and even experience competition and conflict, which ultimately made it the perfect motif to represent a show where the fungal infection has taken over human civilization. Elastic 3D artist, G-Ryun Kim, was responsible for the 3D animation, finer compositing and fungus simulation and found Cinema 4D was the perfect tool for this project. With an aim to balance expectations and appeal to existing fans of the game, as well as attract new viewers and create something wholly different, Kim expected there to be a huge number of ideas and changes throughout the process and needed a tool that would flex with the team’s needs.
“Using Cinema 4D allowed me to set this project up to be easily modified from the beginning,” says Kim. “We intended for there to be multiple cuts, but ultimately decided to create the one take camera animation, which makes the viewers feel as if they are part of the journey. There needed to be careful attention to detail for the fungi animation and I continuously made adjustments to the speed of the spreading mold, aligning it with the modifications to the camera speed and angles. Cinema 4D was essential for this type of situation.”
Imaginary Forces Creative Director, Ronnie Koff, and his team also used Maxon’s suite of products as an integral part of their creation process. From ideation to execution, they seamlessly adapted the suite into the creation of the main titles for Hello Tomorrow! on Apple TV+, which are nominated for Outstanding Main Title Design. Encapsulating the retro-futuristic theme of the series, these titles bring the 1950’s inventions and dreams of tomorrow to life.
“The beauty of Cinema 4D is that it feels like a designer’s tool," says Koff. "We use it for prototyping, sculpting, animation, texture, and lighting without needing to use any additional software.”
Maxon CEO David McGavran said, "We are thrilled to see talented artists and studios recognized for their exceptional work and hear how they use our tools to create such outstanding results. At Maxon, we understand what is necessary to achieve the highest standards of visual effects and we are committed to providing the best resources to help creatives bring these amazing ideas and visuals to life.”
