Q&A with Method Studios
Method Studios is an award-winning VFX company working on feature films, TV, commercials, and real-time experiences. We sat down with Karina Partington, Executive Producer, to talk about stunts, guns, and a history of working with Animatrik.
How did you get introduced to Animatrik?
Around two years ago we had been working with another mocap studio in Vancouver but we were looking for a change. Sam McGlynn, our Executive Creative Director, has previously worked with Animatrik when he was at Electronic Arts, so he suggested them and the rest is history. The quality and ease of working with Animatrik were fantastic, so we stuck with them ever since.
What projects have you worked on together and what was the process like?
We did Call of Duty: Vanguard and Back 4 Blood, using a mix of both performance and motion capture. For the former, we were working on character vignettes, which are short videos you watch before selecting a character. We had a waterfall-style production schedule for that so every six-to-eight weeks we’d do a shoot with Animatrik.
The work we did for Back 4 Blood was a bit different,. It was mostly downloadable content requiring less stunt work, and was more dialogue-heavy which required acting chops. We mostly used facial capture for that one with head mounted cameras.
We actually started working together during the pandemic, so the options were a little more limited at the time. Especially how we worked with stunt actors, the number of people allowed on set, and how everyone had to be masked at all times and get tested regularly. It was usually me on set along with two or three other people. But even then, Animatrik made it so easy for us, just rolling with all the restrictions and making sure we got what we needed out of our sessions.
How does your day look like when you’re on set?
I’m the Executive Producer, so I’m the person sitting in the corner typing away on a laptop, going over scripts, and talking to the client. They often join via Zoom to see how things are progressing, giving me notes and feedback. That doesn’t always happen, it depends on who the client is and their preferences — sometimes they leave it entirely in our hands and don’t get involved. But it’s common enough practice for us to have them watching along and chiming in with their ideas.
When it comes to choreography, do you experiment a lot on the floor or come to the set with a definitive idea of what you need to achieve?
Usually, we have the choreography fleshed out and either send the team at Animatrik clear directions on what we need or a recording of the choreography itself, so they know what sets to build, and what props to prepare Then we go over the plan in the morning together to make sure we’re all on the same page. Most of our projects require quite a bit of stunt work — we work on pretty spicy video games — so planning is essential.
How does the process change when it comes to stunt work?
Animatrik connected us with the talent agency they work with, so we book both the stunt actors and a stunt coordinator through that for our projects. When it comes to the core team, we tend to use the same people every time, and then cast for specific characters as needed.
The space is incredible — the volume is so big that no matter what we ask for, what the vision is, it can be accommodated. If a vehicle needs to be simulated, Animatrik figures it out. If we need someone to ride a horse, they set it up. We always get the data we need from them, no matter how big or small the idea is. We’ve probably asked them to build every single gun known to man as a prop at this point, and they’ve just rolled with it, building a version of it in-house in their prop department or renting the real thing from somewhere. Having props that simulate the real thing as closely as possible is really important for projects like Call of Duty. I feel like we’ve thrown quite a few challenges at Animatrik and they handled every single one of them.
How does the data you get from Animatrik integrate with your post production pipeline?
We work entirely in an Unreal Engine pipeline, and while I’m sure we’re not the only Animatrik client to do that, the technology is still pretty new to the market. Most recently, we’ve even been using some R&D functions and beta tools that aren’t universally accessible just yet. We work heavily with the Metahuman Animator too, and we have specific rigs that we share in advance, so Animatrik knows exactly what we need. With all of that going on, we’ve probably exposed them to some new techniques but they’ve been a great partner and worked with us to further refine and develop the solutions we had. They have a very smooth workflow internally which helped us keep the more experimental parts of our work on track.
What were the biggest challenges to overcome for you?
I feel like it was more the other way around — what challenges we presented them with. For example, when we started doing facial capture, using a brand new Metahuman rig was probably challenging. But they took to it really well and figured it out, getting us the data we needed on time, which can be one of the biggest hurdles. We’ve had some bad experiences in the past working with other studios who didn’t get the data to us on time and it ended up setting us back by months and costing a lot of money. This was never the case with Animatrik, they’re an incredibly reliable partner to work with.
We’ve talked about the challenges — what about the highlights?
The work we did for Call of Duty — the stunts and the sequences I’m really proud of, it was a lot of fun to work on that project. Some of it’s actually quite outlandish! At one time we had this scene where the character had to throw themselves off a flight of stairs, so the team built a giant prop to accommodate the stunt for that. I’m always in awe when watching stunt actors work as they hurl themselves off things and do all these incredible moves without hurting themselves.