While working at The Mill in Culver City I was selected to be part of the Call of Duty: Ghosts “Cinematics” team. It was a small team comprised of designers, cg artist, houdini fx artist, compositors and several producers.
My duties included multi pass cg compositing and look development using The Foundry’s Nuke. I was provided passes rendered from Arnold out of Autodesk’s Maya. Particulates and blood from Adobe After Effects. Dust and particles from Houdini.
Call of Duty: Ghosts “Cinematics” from The Mill on Vimeo.
Here is the synopsis:
The team at Infinity Ward had a vision for how cinematics could further help to bring the new narrative to life. Developing the look in collaboration with Mill+ led to a new and unique level of cinematics that is sure to captivate and immerse players into the experience.
The highly-stylized look was created from scratch, but reads as a hybrid of live-action and CG. High contrast, sharp shard-like shapes distinguish enemy Federation forces from the light and smoke elements that characterize the underdog Ghosts. Each cinematic delivers a story, with ‘Loki,’for example, depicting a clinical and clean outer space vista using reflections, lights, flare and spills of light, while ‘Legends Never Die’ uses explosions, fire, smoke and fog, looking down at South America, then at city level in Caracas after the demise of the continent.
Mill+ Creative Director Paul Mitchell, based in Los Angeles, drew upon over a decade’s worth of experience in design and visual effects. “The most intriguing aspect of Ghosts was the opportunity to combine storytelling with design and visual effects,” Mitchell says. “We created something unique to each based on the story Infinity Ward wanted to tell. Through the overall process, we made sure there was a cohesive look and feel.”
“This project owes so much to Infinity Ward’s vision and desire to raise the level of creative aesthetic,” Stephen Venning, Executive Director, Mill+ says. “The team wanted contemporary, unique graphics that would reflect the sophisticated storytelling. Working with his lead designers Ed Laag and Eugene Gauran, Mill+’s Mitchell built style frames and narratives that are comparable to anything you would see in a movie.”
Credits:
Agency
Game Developer: Infinity Ward
Publisher: Activision Publishing Inc.
Directors: Neel Kar, Jake Rowell
Producer: Luke Vernon
Cinematic Director: Sylvain Doreau
Story: Scott Pease, Justin Harris, Stephen Gaghan, Brian Bloom
Audio: Stephen Miller, Charles Deenen
Concept Artist: Richard Kriegler
Production
Production: Mill+
Executive Producer: Stephen Venning
Creative Director/Director: Paul Mitchell
Art Directors: Ed Laag, Eugene Gauran
Storyboard Artists: Max Forward, Brian Yang
Pre-vis Artists: Matt Neapolitan, Blake Guest, Benito Vargas, Jerry Zigounakis
Designers: Andrew Proctor, Manija Emran, Helen Hsu, Andrew Huang, Amy Graham,
VFX & Design
VFX & Design: The Mill
Senior VFX Producer: Will Lemmon
VFX Producers: Lee Buckley, Elizabeth Newman, Ian Berry, Jarrad Vladich, Tom Walter
VFX Coordinators: Phillip Andrew Morton, Jacqueline Sand, Angela Barry, Samantha Banack
3D Lead Artists: David Lawson, Josh Hatton, Suraj Harrington-Odedra
Lead Compositors: Jake Maymudes, Pete Hodsman, Hugo Guerra, Greg Spencer
Compositors: Victor Duncan, Remedy Huynh, Ben Smith, Daniel Thuresson, David Hochstadter, Joy Tiernan, Ed Laag, Eugene Gauran, Cameron Smither, Georgina Ford, Zissis Papatzikis, Greg Howe-Davies, Alasdair McNeill, Leonardo Costa, Helen Brownell, Anne-Sofie Tholander
Pre-vis Artists: Alberto Lara, Arthur Larson, Sauce Vilas
Effects Artists: Stu Mintz, Ryan Hurd, Brett Angelillis, Hartwell Durfor, Meng-Yang Lu, Phill Mayer, Denis Gauthier, Todd Dufour, Jaymie Miguel, Yorie Kumalasari, Ashraf Ghoniem, Ian Baxter, Paul Donnellan, Tom Raynor, Michael Hunault, Carlo Volpati, Christos Parliaros, Juan Brockhaus, Lukas Lundberg, Richard Lim, Andy Nicholas, Peter Agg
After Effects Animators: Justin Sucara, Ken Pelletier, Kyle Moore, Byron Slaybaugh, Helen Hsu, Ben Hurand
Lighting & Rendering: Rich Shallcross, Matt Bohnert, Isaac Irvin, Chris Brown, Milton Ramirez, Greg Gangemi, Barry Dempsey, Adam Droy, Margaux Huneau, Mike Chapman, Fabrice Le Nezet, Yoann Gouraud, Adrian Russell, Frederic Bonpapa, Jon Uriarte, Sam Driscoll, Jules Janaud
Modeling & Layout: Blake Sullivan, Krystal Sae Eua, Kristan Kelly, Miguel Guerrero, David Hempstead, Luke Tickner, Sergio Xisto, Rebecca Fercuson, Rosemary Eve
Rigging: Nole Murphy
Editors: Luke Kraman, Gabriel J. Diaz