--
Continuing its association with 20th Century Fox' acclaimed X-Men franchise, Rising Sun Pictures contributed nearly 150 visual effects shots to the latest film in the superhero saga, Dark Phoenix. RSP's work on the film spanned nearly 18 months and involved close collaboration with Director Simon Kinberg, VFX Supervisor Phil Brennan and VFX Producer Kurt Williams.
The focal point of the studio's work was an extended sequence where Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) and Beast (Nicholas Hoult) use the telepathic machine Cerebro to journey into the mind of Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), whose struggle with the mysterious entity Dark Phoenix is the catalyst of the plot. Memories from Jean Grey's troubled past form out of the inky mist of her neural activity as the three mutants search for clues to help save her.
A central task for RSP was to develop a digital environment to represent Jean Grey's thought process and the physical workings of her brain. VFX Supervisor Dennis Jones, who led the studio's team, says they drew part of their inspiration from real-world brain science. I found a fantastic TED Talk about scientists who slice off tiny bits of brain to determine how neuron strands connect its various parts, he explains. We used neurons like those, and their associated electrical activity, to define the space and to act as an anchor point to let the audience know we are inside the anatomy of the brain.
Developing a way to represent memories in a convincing and artistic manner proved a bigger challenge. Working collaboratively, the team hit on the idea of using a viscous liquid, resembling a cloud tank or ink spreading in a pool of water, to represent thoughts. The inky substance moves in wispy, undulating waves in depicting Jean Grey's memories. We wanted to avoid anything that looked like a hologram or objects suspended in space, recalls Jones. The inky material is soft, organic, evolving. It's smoky and fluid, appears in varying shapes and colors, and coalesces naturally into specific visions.
Jones and a team of artists assisted with the production of the live action portion of the scene, involving the actors and the Cerebro set piece. The timing and movement of the live elements had to be precisely choreographed and coordinated with the planned animation. To facilitate that, the effects team placed light panels on the set and projected images simulating Jean Grey's memories onto them so that the actors could react to them naturally.
We shot the sequence on a stage that was essentially a green cube, notes Jones. That allowed us to point cameras in any direction. We did multiple passes with a crane circling around the actors and capturing their performances from a variety of perspectives. We shot the heart of the sequence, start to finish, and got the coverage we needed to tell the story in the most exciting way possible.
Back at RSP's studio in Adelaide, artists built the brain environment and populated it with Jean Grey's memories. Normally when creating a digital environment, the studio's effects artists take the lead in defining the space and filling it with set pieces and props. However, in this instance-as the brain space was amorphous and filled with pulsing neurons that could appear anywhere-the studio's layout artists took the first step by creating a tool that allowed effects artists to generate the basic structure for neurons on-the-fly.
Artists could simply point and click to create neurons, explains Layout Lead Mark Honer. They could connect neurons, move their tendrils and position them in any way that they liked. They could work with individual neurons procedurally and get right down to the nitty gritty, adjusting their position relative to the camera. Once they had a neuron where they wanted it, they added effects and texture to make it look awesome.
Along with the neurons, the effects team filled the brain space with a 3-dimensional inky fluid. Jean Grey's memories were created by mapping photographic images (which were also 3D) onto parts of the ink as it fused into apparently solid forms. The production footage included scenes like young Jean with her mother at a birthday party and splashing through puddles, says Effects Lead Sam Hancock. We produced simulations of those scenes that make them look less photographic and more abstract and airier.
The trick was to make the 3D memory images appear to be composed from the inky thought-substance, rather than as simple projections. It took finesse to achieve the proper balance so that the memories look clear, but not like images on a screen, Hancock explains.
2D Lead Andrew Savchenko says that the team produced many iterations of the inky substance and the memory images to achieve Simon Kinberg's unique creative vision. Our task was to create visuals that hadn't been seen before, he explains, and yet, they had to seem familiar at the same time. We had to achieve something that was by its nature contradictory. It had to look both real and not real.
Lighting inside the brain was also unusual and difficult to execute. Most of the light derived from the neurons, which pulsed in irregular beats, reflecting Jean Grey's growing mental torment. This neural light coursed through the scene in all directions and each beam had to coordinate with the movement of the camera and Cerebro. There were hundreds of moving lights, notes Lighting Lead Arthur Moody, and we needed to control the intensity of each one. When they were close to the camera, the lights needed to appear brighter. When they moved off, they needed to be dialed down.
Each time a neuron fired a light, the beam traveled along a path seeking out' another neuron, Moody adds. We had the option of choosing the shortest path, or one t
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
-- 
