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
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
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.
