Release Date: 08/13/2021
Production Company: 20th Century Studios
Director: Shawn Levy
Visual Effects Supervisor: Nikos Kalaitzidis
THE SYNOPSIS
For Twentieth Century Studios’ Free Guy, Digital Domain Visual Effects Supervisor Nikos Kalaitzidis led a team of about 254 artists, creating 347 VFX shots for the film. From replacing actors with digidoubles to creating entire CG cities, Digital Domain was also responsible for the 87 gameplay shots that take place inside of Free City, along with the exciting, action-packed opening sequence we call “The Oner,” which truly sets the tone for the film.
Our VFX team also called on our Digital Human Group for assistance as Free Guy marks one of the first feature film uses of our proprietary face-swapping tool, Charlatan. Utilizing Charlatan, Digital Domain created a realistic digital avatar that mimicked Channing Tatum’s facial mannerisms and movements, which allowed us to successfully swap out the actor’s original speech without having to reshoot the scene.