Top Data Stories for November 11, 2021

Rising Sun Pictures Adds Post-Doctoral Machine Learning Researchers to Augment its VFX Capabilities

Rising Sun Pictures, headquartered at 180 Pulteney Street, Adelaide, Australia, has been operational since 1995 and has created some of Hollywood’s most memorable screen moments. This year, the company joined the FuseFX group. The combined entity of FuseFX, Folks VFX, and RSP has eight hundred artists from around eight locations worldwide. The company works with companies like Disney, Marvel, Warner Bros., Netflix, Amazon, and MGM, and has won a range of visual effects and animation awards. 

Rising Sun’s latest filmography includes leading films like the Shang-Chi & the Legend of The Ten Rings, Candyman, Jungle Cruise, Black Widow, Mortal Kombat, The Eight Hundred, Ford Vs. Ferrari, Captain Marvel, The Predator, and more. Of late, the company has added two post-doctoral researchers from the Australian Institute of Machine Learning (AIML) to lead its applied AI initiative. 

The Role of Researchers

The two post-doctoral researchers are Dr. John Bastian and Dr. Ben Ward. Recently, the duo collaborated with RSP on the VFX sequences for Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings, Marvel Studios’ current box office hit. Their work drew special attention as they developed a novel technique for facial replacement in sequences involving high-intensity martial arts. The researchers leveraged machine learning to train neural network models of principal actors and later applied them to the stunt doubles’ faces. The application resulted in a much faster facial replacement process with life-like results. 

The Bastian-Ward duo, in their capacity as post-doctoral researchers, has been working in the field of machine learning and computer vision technology for three years now. Their work can be used in medicine, defense, agriculture, manufacturing, environmental sustainability, and general science. 

Bastian and Ward have earned their doctorates in Computer Science from the University of Adelaide. In their collaboration with RSP, they will work across different projects and apply AI tools to address specific production challenges faced by the company. Apart from their project-specific work, they will also develop general workflow tools for routine 2D and 3D visual effects. 

Ward sees their role in RSP as something that would “help artists improve results, achieve outputs faster and push beyond what was previously possible.” Bastian believes in the empowering quality of AI. He sees it as something that can bring incredible artistic results. To him, the possibilities are limitless as AI can make an actor “taller, shorter, skinnier or muscular.”

On RSP’s part, the managing director, Tony Clark, sees AI as nothing less than revolutionizing. Clark believes that the potential of AI is huge in “accelerating labor-intensive tasks and augmenting human creativity”, and the engagement between scientific researchers and applications like film studios, would produce “spectacular results” and “push development further.”