We saved a production 52% of their rotoscoping budget. Here’s how.
The situation.
Electric Sheep was approached by the post-production team for High Wire, in which “A British-Chinese takeaway girl discovers artistic bravery and the freedom in forging her own path when a circus comes to her small English town.”
The latest feature from the award-winning Silent D Pictures team, including director Calif Chong and producer Djonny Chen, promised thrills and tugged heartstrings, but also presented significant VFX challenges.
What they wanted.
High Wire required rotoscoping across 106 shots (303 seconds), with a range of shot complexities - from the relatively straightforward to the highly challenging. Not only that, having previously experienced significant delays while waiting for shots to be processed, High Wire needed a faster turnaround - at a lower cost - than traditional vendors could provide.
Complex scenes, coupled with a small and busy post-production team meant enlisting the help of Electric Sheep to bring their vision to life.
What we did.
Step one was to eyeball the footage and gauge what was appropriate for AI, and what was better for processing via traditional workflows.
Next, using their annotations, our platform then ran parallel processes - it used them to instruct the AI on what to be rotoscoped and also sent the instructions to our trusted vendor for bids - all neatly packaged in an all-in-one process.
What happened.
Electric Sheep’s AI accurately rotoscoped 220 seconds (72%) of High Wire’s footage. For those that were too complex for AI, we commissioned a traditional roto vendor.
Compared to Silent D’s alternative provider who would have done all 106 shots the traditional way, by using Electric Sheep’s platform to effortlessly slide AI into the workflow, they saved 52% of their expected budget.
“The cost savings significantly helped our bottom line,” said producer Djonny Chen, “and the VFX team were amazed when the shots turned up halfway through the expected timeline.”
And when can we look forward to High Wire coming out? The film will debut at the Cannes Film Festival later this year. We can’t wait to see it.
Electric Sheep
Electric Sheep’s end-to-end VFX platform combines the speed and cost savings of AI with the accuracy and reliability of traditional techniques.
Interested to see how Electric Sheep can help reduce your outsourcing costs?