Burning Midnight
Client: Self Initiated
Year: 2021
Burbank International Film Festival Official Selection
See the BTS and entire case study HERE
Burning Midnight started as a poem, a literary contribution to the Cyberpunk genre — but it became much more. The words inspired a group of us to band together to accompany the text with motion. The goal was to craft a piece entirely in CG, an exercise that we hoped would improve our skillsets in the realm of photo-reality. Though our first attempts garnered us an “A” for effort, we achieved less than satisfactory results. The 3D characters just didn’t evoke the emotional response to match the poetic verse. So we quickly switched gears, called in favors, and threw together a scrappy green screen shoot to capture our main characters in live-action. With the footage in hand, we re-edited the piece using a mixture of 3D scenes and roughly-keyed footage until we had our final visual narrative. After a lengthy compositing phase, we eventually achieved a deliverable that we felt was worthy to submit to film festivals. Though the making of Burning Midnight (executed outside of our day jobs) was a long and tiresome process, we are ultimately proud of what we’ve accomplished.
Production Stills
Style Frames & Early Tests
Credits:
Director: David Viau
Executive Producer: Brian Loehr
CG Artists: Ian Frederick, Austin Hochstatter, Justin Reed, Ryan Eastham, Alex Noelke, Casey Doherty, David Viau
Compositor: Paul Barkshire
End Credit Sequence: Andrew Nam
Story Development: David Viau, Ian Frederick, Mike Morris, Austin Hochstatter, Justin Reed
Editor: Ethan Erickson
Producers: Annie Engelker, Leslie De Lorenzo
Narration: Tamara Fritz
Actors: Jayson Hicks, Abigail Bittle
Director of Photography: Chris Towey
Assistant Camera: Coty James
Gaffer: Dennis Holyfield
Grip: Trevor Payne
Hair & Makeup: Jennifer Popochock
Costume Designer: Kristen Bonnalie
VFX Supervisor: Mike Morris
Colorist: Kevin Adams
DIT: Maurice Morales
Audio: Hearby Sound
Original Score: Alex Kopp
Special Thanks: John Buroker, Nannette Buroker, Ayako High, Keiko Nakayama, Keisha Harris