MAXON, the leading developer of professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions, today announced that Culver City-based design and visual effects studio Cantina Creative relied on its acclaimed 3D software solution, Cinema 4D, as a central digital content creation tool to generate 120 visual effects shots and 30 hologram shots ranging from holograms, animated posters, monitor shots and user interface (UI) graphics that appear throughout the Lionsgate sequel, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.
Tweet This: The @CantinaCreative design team fires-up #Cinema4D toolset to create 120 #VFX shots on #MockingjayPart2 bit.ly/1I4tJ4g @maxon3d
Mockingjay Part 2 is the fourth and final epic science fiction dystopian film installment in the The Hunger Games film series, and the second of two films based on the novel Mockingjay, the final book in The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. The film follows Jennifer Lawrence who reprises her role as Katniss Everdeen, the reluctant leader of the rebellion against the Capitol district in the post apocalyptic nation of Panem who must bring together an army, while all she holds dear hangs in the balance. The film was released on November 20, 2015 in the United States.
The Cantina Creative VFX team on Mockingjay Part 2 which also provided extensive visual effects for Mockingjay Part 1 comprised of VFX Supervisors Jay Grunfeld and Venti Hristova, VFX Producer Donna Cullen, Compositing Supervisor and Cantina Creative Co-founder, Stephen Lawes, and Executive Producer and Cantina Creative Co-founder, Sean Cushing, again worked closely with Mockingjay Part 2 Director, Francis Lawrence, and VFX Supervisor, Charles Gibson, who provided creative direction in terms of design content requirements.
Other artists on the Cantina Creative team included: Jayse Hansen, Alan Torres, Stephen Morton, Sang Youb Shin, Nhi Ngoc Vo, Alexandra Boden, Julianne Dome, Aaron Eaton, Matt Eaton, Junghwa Hong, Lauren Hulsey, Jennifer Kennedy, Karla Curby, Tony Lupoi, Leown Nowlin, Jr., and Fernando Raigoza, Jr.
Hristova explains that the studio's primary focus on Mockingjay Part 1 was to generate interactive on-set monitor graphics that would stream live during shooting and that for Mockingjay Part 2 the team was given a more extensive range of post-heavy challenges that included the exclusive use of Cinema 4D to create two main hologram effects and to composite hero monitor screens that required story specific information and animations to advance key plot sequences.
Our aesthetic reach in this film was much broader and required us to deliver a more advanced design style as we were asked to create detailed 3D hologram content for the Capitol - marking the first time that The Hunger Games film audiences could get a close-up look at the capital city of Panem and the Capitol, its chief legislative building, as well as a collection of other Panem districts, says Grunfeld. We were also tasked with generating the hologram for the Nut, a strategic military compound located in an underground mountain bunker which houses all the military equipment for the Capitol.
Although Lawrence and the Lionsgate team had very clear ideas in regards to the aesthetic needs of each corresponding environment in Mockingjay Part 2, the collaboration gave us plenty of liberty to experiment with style and feel, said Grunfeld. To meet the technical complexities of a movie of this scope demanded that we rely on the various toolsets in our Cinema 4D pipeline which provided us the creative flexibility to explore and tweak story notes throughout the project, critical in delivering a number of beautiful storytelling graphics on some very challenging design sequences. In combination with After Effects, we were able to generate external compositing tags and compositing project files throughout all of the hologram sequences that further resulted in an efficient workflow.
The Nut hologram, in particular, challenged the Cantina Creative team to deliver a fully detailed, 3D photoreal and precise mountain range with only a single 2D matte painting to use as reference. 3D artist Jayse Hansen who worked with Cantina on Mockingjay Part 2 in preproduction and on location designed the initial hologram concept including the entire interior of the Nut (crew quarters, armory, hovercraft hangars, etc.) explains: Leveraging the landscape generator in Cinema 4D to block off shapes and the expansive sculpting tools in the software provided great creative latitude so that I could hand off a number of very precise hologram looks and models of the mountainous terrain surrounding the Nut and Capitol from different perspectives, said Hansen. These concepts were then further refined by Stephen Morton who created a final workable version that helped the team work out positions for important story elements for several hologram sequences.
In addition to the sculpting tools which proved critical in allowing artists to further customize and organize the project in layers and work nondestructively to churn out dozens of iterations of mountain topography, we used Cinema 4D to render a number of passes, namely a few variations of cel renders, layered procedural shaders, and a depth map. We also exported light and null data to use for additional elements in comp, adds Morton.
The time effector tool was also extremely useful on the mountain hologram to rotate topography designs uniformly across nearly 30 shots in the sequence and made it easy to explore rotation speeds and successfully arrive at something that both the client and we were pleased with.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 was released in the US on November 20, 2015.
About MAXON
Headquartered in Friedrichsdorf, Germany, MAXON Computer is a developer of professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions. Its award-
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
MAXON, the leading developer of professional 3D modeling, painting, animation and rendering solutions, today announced that Culver City-based design and visual effects studio Cantina Creative relied on its acclaimed 3D software solution, Cinema 4D, as a central digital content creation tool to generate 120 visual effects shots and 30 hologram shots ranging from holograms, animated posters, monitor shots and user interface (UI) graphics that appear throughout the Lionsgate sequel, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.
