Meet the Unsung Star of ‘Kung Fury’: CGI
It might technically be a live-action film, but Kung Fury, the purposefully garish ’80s action movie fever dream that has taken both the Cannes Film Festival and the Internet by storm, owes much of its success to computer animation—and we’re not just talking about the obviously CG characters like the T-rex and eagle. First, if you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the film:
Swedish director David Sandberg, who was able to turn a shoestring-budget proof-of-concept trailer into a fully-fledged short thanks to a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign that raised $630,000, acknowledges that “vfx played a crucial role in the story.” The final film contains 399 VFX shots that were produced by a 46-person crew at Scandinavian vfx house Fido.
Director Sandberg, a self-taught 3D animator who started his professional career working in visual effects before turning to directing commercials and music videos, created the assets for the original pitch trailer in 3ds Max, which Fido transferred to Maya workstations and used as an aesthetic guideline to generate their own environments, elements, and characters. “Using Maya’s Alembic support, we were able to quickly transfer 3D assets between programs to work efficiently and meet David’s deadlines,” Kung Fury’s vfx supervisor Cameron Scott said in a Autodesk statement.
Kung Fury’s three major environments—a street intersection, a police station interior, and a huge steampunk-inspired Nazi hall—were all created digitally using an Autodesk pipeline, and then integrated with greenscreen footage of live actors. “The movie is essentially a 30-minute VFX rollercoaster ride, so we had our work cut out for us, but having Maya as a pillar of our pipeline put us at ease,” Scott continued. “David [Sandberg] also directs with a strong creative vision and deep understanding of VFX, so even though we faced some pretty crazy challenges, it really helped that he speaks the same language we do.”
Here’s a vfx breakdown from Fido for the film’s accompanying music video, starring ’80s icon David Hasselhoff. Fido labeled this the “The Mayhem Shot” due to all the different layers, greenscreen footage, and digital effects that they composited into a single shot:
What’s next for Kung Fury? A feature-length version is currently being shopped around Hollywood by David Katzenberg, son of DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, through his KatzSmith Productions banner.
Kung Fury Animation and VFX Credits
Director and Writer: David Sandberg
“Ride to Heaven” sequence animator: Will Goodan
“Heaven” sequence — Old Skull Games:
Art direction: Etienne Badia
Storyboard: Rudy Wilde
Background art: Rudy Wilde
Animation: Nicolas Pochet, Rudy Wilde
Compositing: Etienne Badia
Fido VFX crew:
VFX Supervisor: Cameron Scott
Lead Lighting TDs: Johan Gabrielsson & Filip Orrby
Composting Leads: Daniel Norlund & Tomas Näslund
VFX Pre-Production Breakdown: Nils Lagergren, Kaj Steveman, Eva Åkergren
Pipeline Engineer: Erik Johansson
VFX Artists: Alexander Eriksson, Anders Nyman, Cameron Scott, Carlos Correia, Chris Judkins, Daniel Norlund, David Enbom, David Nelin, Egil Eskilsson, Erika Johansson, Filip Orrby, Fredrik Höglin, Fredrik Olsson, Gustav Alexandersson, Janak Thakker, Joakim Eriksson, Joakim Olsson, Johan Gabrielsson, Jonas Lindfors, Jonas Manell, Jonathan Skifs, Karl Rydhe, Klas Trulsson, Kristian Livén, Kristian Rydberg, Kristian Zarins, Laura Andersen, Magnus Eriksson, Martin Borell, Mattias Sandelius, Mattias Snygg, Niklas Lundgren, Rickard Engqvist, Rodrigo Vivedes, Sandra Scholz, Staffan Linder, Stefan Lagerstam, Sven Ahlström, Teo Mathlein, Tomas Näslund, Viktor Andersson, Zebastian Lilja
