Portal
Move 78 approached us looking for a film for their client Boson Protocol. Their revolutionary concept involves “Launching physical products in virtual worlds”, “Connecting the Metaverse with the Universe”. In other words, Boson Protocol are building a network to enable players to purchase physical goods within a virtual environment, as NFTs. That way a player can own these products not only in the digital world, but also can redeem them in real life! The brief was to create a teaser film to advertise the launch of their new concept to excite both the gaming industry and retailers, to entice them to join and become one of the forerunners in the bridge between retail/commerce and the digital world. Ultra Studio were involved from the initial concept through to production. We took inspiration from a number of film and TV references such as Stranger Things and Ready Player One, but it was decided that we’d primarily like to pay homage to TRON: Legacy, in particular referencing the mirror scene where Flynn creates Clu, symbolising the birth of the real world crossing over into the digital world, and vice versa. We created the film with both a male and a female model allowing us to interchange between them. We were conscious that the future is for everyone, and the digital world shouldn’t be limited by race or gender. We wanted to create, a black environment similar to ‘The Void’ in Stranger Things and had to explore reflective flooring options that would create the mirror effect we were looking for. We initially considered using water but settled on a very effective high-gloss vinyl which worked perfectly. The CGI elements were created at the Ultra Studio. As the launch was to take place within the digital world of Decentraland, we created animated avatars of the models, based on the aesthetic of the Decentraland characters. It was a challenge trying to adhere to the low-poly style whilst trying to make it feel like a premium quality film but we feel this was achieved by making sure the textures were hi-res and by using sub-surface scattering on the skin. We worked closely with the development team to use the same environment found in Decentraland, working with the models provided to us.