Ana Uzelac considers her job to be the perfect combination of filmmaking and video games. She is the supervisor and co-founder of the Bunker VFX studio – specialized in the production of cinematics. We had an amazing opportunity to hear more about this studio and get familiar with all creative processes which stand behind the titles such as Phageborn, Pagan Online, Heroic Magic Duel, Crusader Kings 3 at the previous editions of CGA Belgrade Conference. Their latest trailer for the Outlast game got great reviews and certainly announces another successful project of this studio. Since many Serbia Film Commission members are entering the world of gaming, bringing the knowledge they collected in film production, we asked Ana to share with us her experience and enthusiasm in merging these two industries and explain how the pandemics emphasized creativity in creating CG content.
What was your switch to remote work like? How much the organizational structure was challenged by WFH in delegating tasks and your internal communication? Can you describe this shift in your work routine and if you encountered any challenges?
Switching to remote production was certainly a challenge, having in mind the fact that our complete production is 3D, organized through a very clear system and studio pipeline. The first week was especially hard. I really have to give credits to all our artists who dealt with their own challenges in one hand and succeeded in making significant improvements themselves on the other, so that after that first critical week we went back to our “well-oiled machine” spirit. Communication was good and clear; we daily controlled each other’s tasks and helped if there were problems, difficulties and doubts. During the first week we made separate communication channels for chat, calls, creative decisions for each project so nobody was overwhelmed with unnecessary information.
Work from home, as we all now know is not easy, but it taught us to be better organized and skills we got we plan to apply generally in our job, no matter if it is remote or not. We are still working remote, so the whole team can be safe.
Speaking of external factors, we’ve always worked remotely with our clients, so in that aspect there was no change. And again, we turned the whole situation into a nice experience, as always.
Was it hard to maintain a team spirit during the pandemic? We know that Bunker crew has its own Instagram channel. Have you made some personal top lists of best movies, games, tutorials or similar?
I wish, but we didn’t have time for that. We worked a lot, and that was the thing that maintained high team spirit. Using Discord channels for chatting, sharing tutorials and even frustrations – when we had them helped. That’s also part of our team story and makes us family.
Over the last period, most of live action productions had to be stopped and productions have been returning to film sets only now and under restricted rules. What is the future of the CG industry in your opinion and have you noticed any new trend in content production? Has the pandemic changed the number of projects you’ve been hired on?
I believe that a lot of the production will be switching more and more to full CG content. When it comes to Bunker VFX Studio, the pandemics hasn’t changed the amount of work we have, as full CG is what we mainly do, be it game trailers or videos, but I did notice we got more requests for projects that needed a quick solution for switching from live action to CG, thus bridging the impossibility of real on set filming when they hadn’t had another option.
During the quarantine, Bunker produced a trailer for The Outlast Trials that you released a breakdown recently and included remote motion capture. Can you tell us more about the process. What was the hardest part? What have you learned? There are lots of talks about remote shooting, do you have some advice or insight to share?
That’s true. Working on the Outlast Trials was great pleasure and we enjoyed during the process of working on it. The premiere was couple of weeks ago and it has already achieved great results. We feel much satisfaction knowing that our work is appreciated and warmly accepted among gaming audiences which usually have high expectations.
In this case, the biggest challenge was organizing motion capture shooting with only one man in the studio, during the most rigorous time of lock-down. I have to use this opportunity to express my gratitude to our friends from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and their Laboratory of Interactive Arts Branko Sujić and Pavle Dinulović, who performed many different characters using Wi-Fi mocap suit, and since we previously made quite precise preparations, watching them remotely on cameras and monitors was easy. The next thing that could become a little bit harder was assembling scenes in light, meaning we could have problems while making animations, final assets, simulations and rendering preps. By that time we got so well organized working remotely, that we finished everything and continued working remotely even when lock-down was lifted.
We are planning to develop our own small mocap studio, which will be set for remote production, in case we can’t gather in the studio. With the experience we had I believe we will be able to set it up soon and produce complete remote mocap shooting within the studio with the option for clients to take part remotely in the shooting. We learned how important good preparation is and it always brings great results – having precise measurements and actors’ mise-en-scene set up precisely as per the animatic, with enough rehearsals that can be even done remotely – as a result we get the shooting where we can just enjoy and let the process roll. We can’t wait to start the in-house system, but until it happens, we continue working with our great colleagues who are already experienced in remote production and did it well so far.
The number of projects that connect film and gaming industry is growing. You are primarily known as studio that focuses on high end full CG production in video games and now you are embarking on the production of your first animated short film. What knowledge from games you plan to include in this?
For us gaming trailers are perfect match of the art of filmmaking and video games. In these short formats we use classical cinematic language to tell the story a video game. Even if it is fully computer generated we go through all film processes for a short format of just few minutes. In fact, this is the most beautiful challenge in producing a gaming trailers.
To create an animation film was our wish for a long time since we started. A film that would offer modern and educational content for kids, speaking the language of their generation and teaching these things we believe they are interested in. This is a new challenge that we look forward with excitement. It is directed by Lazar Bodroža and written by Mihailo Tešić with working title “Someone”. The short teaser that precedes the feature-length film will be finished very soon and we can’t wait to share it with the world.
Our experience in CG production of gaming trailers has taught us how to successfully operate CG production in general, and how to design a pipeline that will now also serve for the animated short film. We are not always in a position to impact creative decisions in game trailer, so I think animated film is a great opportunity for all our artists to give their bests kills and ideas. On the other hand making feature length of high quality is something we’ve never done before, but step by step – we have the will, the plan and we strongly believe in our capacities to do it. There will be tears occasionally, I am sure. To get somewhere, we need to do things we are not certain of how they will turn out, otherwise they won’t be called challenges, but when you have a plan and strong motive, you are more likely to succeed.
A lot of people used quarantine for learning new skills. Have you acquired any new skills, software or tools? Is there an educational channel, podcast or anything you find inspirational to recommend to your younger colleagues?
The production itself and our job motivate us to constantly learn new softwares, tools and gain new skills. We believe that it is essential in order to be successful in what we do and make progress professionally. In that sense, the quarantine hasn’t changed anything that we were not doing before. Each of our artists continuously develops himself/herself and his/her knowledge through various online courses and conferences, excellent books and websites dedicated to cinematography, light, anatomy-of course depending on his/her specific interest. I noticed that many young colleagues have made great progress in completing the variety of their skills, many of them have moved to an advanced level. That is not depend on software, but on someone’s personal motivation in self-improvement.
On the other hand, I am very glad if this situation left some space for people to discover which area they are interested in, to study more or learn some new skills. That’s how you should always do, regardless of whether you are in quarantine or not, and I advice our younger colleagues to be curious and to investigate! Even, when times are hard, which in Serbia we often had, if you are interested in something – dive into it.
Outlast 3 Breakdown by Bunker VFX animation