Fremont, CA - September 18, 2018 - Blackmagic Design today announced that Los Angeles based visual effects (VFX) company Flash Film Works used its VFX and motion graphics software, Fusion Studio, on Studio 8’s action adventure drama Alpha.

An epic adventure set in the last Ice Age, Alpha tells a fascinating, visually stunning story that shines a light on the origins of man’s best friend. While on his first hunt with his tribe’s most elite group, a young man, Keda, is injured and must learn to survive alone in the wilderness. Reluctantly taming a lone wolf abandoned by its pack, Alpha, the pair learn to rely on each other and become unlikely allies, enduring countless dangers and overwhelming odds in order to find their way home before winter arrives.

During their perilous trek, Keda falls through ice and is trapped below the surface. The Flash Film Works team used Fusion Studio to create the VFX sequence.

“The fall through the ice was shot in a tank, with wax used on top as the ice. It needed to look more realistic, so we used Fusion Studio to remove a lot from the plate and add 3D objects back in, so the ice would break in a certain way,” said VFX Supervisor William Mesa.

“Once Keda is in the water, there’s a strong current that pulls him. We used Fusion Studio’s 3D particle system to add ice fragments and bubbles to the water to really show the flow of the current,” Mesa continued. “Then we composited in Ice Age era fish and underwater landscapes to make the water come to life.”

With Keda being trapped under the ice, the Flash Film Works team also used Fusion Studio for face replacements between actor Kodi Smit-McPhee and his stunt double. Then they used Fusion Studio’s 3D tools to project the ice sheet under the water, making it extend even further.

Compositing Supervisor Jeremy Nelson explained, “During the scene, the wolf is looking down at Keda as he struggles under the ice. Some shots were done with a stunt double, so we had to take Smit-McPhee’s face and put it on the stunt double’s body. For this, I used Fusion Studio’s tracking tools to track and stabilize both plates, so I could marry them together. I then used the grid warper to match the faces and retiming tools to fine tune things, so the face’s movements really matched the actor’s performance.”

Flash Films Works also relied on Fusion Studio for additional compositing work on the film. “Whether we were adding people to various shots or changing the landscape to add mountains for flyover scenes, Fusion Studio was our go to tool,” concluded Mesa.

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About Alpha

Directed by Albert Hughes (The Book of Eli, Menace II Society), and starring Kodi Smit-McPhee (X-Men: Apocalypse, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) and Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson (Atomic Blonde, HBO’s “Game of Thrones”), Alpha was written by Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt, based on a story by Albert Hughes. It was produced by Andrew Rona and Albert Hughes.

About Blackmagic Design

Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com

SAN JOSE, CALIF.—Adobe is giving its Flash multimedia graphics animation software an overhaul and a new identity. The company announced this week that Flash will become Animate CC, a complete rewrite that incorporates the “native HTML5 Canvas and Web GL Support,” according to Adobe’s blog. Animate CC is slated to be released next month.

The move comes at a time when Flash is in decline, in part because it’s not supported on smartphones, according to The Verge. Flash players also download like a box of rocks, crash Firefox, and are everywhere, making for a hack portal so exploited Mozilla briefly blocked it last July, according to PC World.

Adobe itself acknowledged that more than one-third of content created with Flash uses HTML5 and reaches more than “1 billion devices.”HTML5 complies with Interactive Advertising Bureau standards, Adobe further notes, and is used by Nickelodeon and Los Angeles animation house, Titmouse, Inc.

Animate CC will become available for install, update and in the Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe said it would continue supporting Flash, and that previous versions would remain available. The Verge said the main focus of Adobe’s support would be on security.

Adobe’s blog has further information on the transition.