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18 cgw a p r i l • m ay • j u n e 2 0 2 2 Rogue Initiative Studios was founded in 2015 by alumni from a number of leading game companies, including Activision and Sony. CEO/creative director Pete Blumel has spent more than 25 years working in feature film, animation, immersive reality, and triple-A games. He was a part of Activision's Infinity Ward game develop- ment studio, where he held a key role in the creation of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise. Co-founder/chief of production and producer Cathy Twigg got her start finding new talent at MTV Films, before going on to hold executive positions in production, writing, and worldwide distribu- tion at Dreamworks Animation, Dreamworks Television Animation, Sony Pictures Television, NBC, and Bandeira Entertainment. Today, Rogue Initiative has teams in Los Angeles, UK, Beijing, and Hong Kong. The headquarter studio is home to a growing cadre of artists, interactive designers, and engineers. At press time, Rogue Ini- tiative executives were further scouting for talent at Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. In addition to their work on video games and high-end interactive simulations, Rogue Initiative recently extended their list of services by capitalizing on their expertise in game development and game engine technology. The studio now provides previs and virtual production services for feature films in partnership with Area of Effect, a real-time visualization studio founded with re- nowned filmmaker and visual effects supervisor Robert Legato. AoE is currently working on several high-profile projects, including collabora- tions with some of Hollywood's leading filmmakers. "Pete and I started Rogue Initiative on a mission to create original story-worlds with a deep lore and nuanced characters in collabora- tion with blockbuster filmmakers and veteran game talent," Cathy Twigg explains. "As producers across several mediums, we're taking our decades of experience in deal-making, film production, game development, and real-time technology to build and co-own the properties we create, along with our gied and diverse development teams," adds Pete Blumel. "Hollywood talent can finally own and partici- pate in what they write, direct, and produce with our model and framework. It took years to get those kinds of agreements drawn up between major film studios, talent, and financiers. There was no precedent, but we're there now." Area of Effect, the partner studio handling previs and real-time filmmaking, leverages Rogue Initiative's collective technical and artistic experience in triple-A video game development and immer- sive experiences. "We've developed tools, techniques, and advanced processes born and honed from big-budget video game development," notes Devin Ehrig, general manager of AoE. "We continue to refine our pro- prietary soware to meet the ever-growing needs for real-time and virtual production services in feature film, TV and, commercial work. This allows us — from the early stages all the way through the entire production pipeline — to apply video game and real-time rendering technologies and best practices to our workflows. "When people say 'virtual production,' a lot of times they imme- diately think of LED displays and hardware, which is great when you display while shooting," Ehrig continues. "We also work with in-camera effects, but tend to dive deeper, towards previs, tech-vis, and now science-vis is an area we're exploring, which is really quite fascinating. We understand that most of the excitement about vir- tual production comes from new facilities, but we believe the most impactful changes it brings to Hollywood happen before a single pixel lights up." The studio is working with several noteworthy filmmakers, in- cluding director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, 13 Hours, Ambulance, and the Transformers franchise) on a yet-to-be-an- nounced Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures feature film, of which both Blumel and Twigg are producers, leveraging a unified virtual art department, all based on intellectual property developed through the partnership. Rogue Initiative created initial environments, locations, and big action sequences for previs with an eye toward assets for potential final pixel. The team has assembled a virtual film crew to collabo- rate remotely over a secure private network with Michael Bay block- ing and directing while in a VR headset. His shots are then output from Unreal Engine and processed in post. "At Rogue Initiative we love finding solutions to complex technical and creative tasks. Never tell a director he can't have a shot," states Blumel of the studio's workflow, which involved both significant soware engineering and interactive design using Unreal Engine, with the director in Florida and the Rogue Initiative/Area of Effect teams in Los Angeles. "This type of remote, iterative collaboration is the future of filmmaking and game development. Adjustments and follow-up shots are happening in real-time. A director can play with depth of field, move the camera, and get a shot from any perspec- ROGUE INITIATIVE / AREA OF EFFECT COMBINING TRIPLE-A GAME DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES AND SOPHISTICATED Z BY HP WORKSTATIONS TO EMPOWER A NEW WAY OF FILMMAKING BY MARC LOFTUS S P O N SO R E D CO N T E N T