Captive State: Vis-Dev
- Client
- Amblin Partners
- Format
- Feature film
Drawing from the film’s backstory and methodology, explore a distinct design language for Captive State’s antagonists - The Legislators - their ships and the drones that keep tabs on the community, delivering concept designs.
As principal VFX vendors on the film, supervise the on-set shoots, and create all CG elements and environments, delivering over 150 shots.
Our art department worked closely with the Director and Co-Writer, Rupert Wyatt to realise his visions for the world of Captive State. The first task was to tackle the ship design. The team started with creating mood boards collating lots of references and experimenting with different design approaches. Every ship and creature required multiple iterations and refinements, trying out different ideas and accentuating design details. This process led us to designs that were expressive and delivered on Rupert’s vision.
It was important Captive State’s antagonists, the Legislators, exuded complete power, with nuances of vulnerability. This manifested itself in the ‘aliens’ wearing a full conflict armour. This armour had different modes relating to the Legislator’s emotions –a relaxed ‘hirsute’ state which is visible most of the time and a spiky ‘porcupine’ state, which is activated when they are threatened. The aliens within are only exposed at the 11th hour, revealing a frail almost decrepit being, which shows, in actuality, the Legislators’ vulnerability.
In addition to the creature development and heavy CG work, our team delivered a number of set extension shots, One of the biggest environments we worked on was the landing shot of the Legislators’ ships at Soldier Field. We digitally replaced trees and inserted atmospheric dust for when the ship lands. This was all done in Maya and Houdini.
