The Mill – Morten Vinther | Earth Revival: The Shadow of Akrid
Meet Morten Vinther, the cinematic sorcerer who’s spent years making pixels weep, villains shiver, and gamers forget to blink. Fresh off weaving visual magic for ‘The Last of Us Part 2″ and “Wild Hearts”, Vinther’s latest trick is a pulse-pounding trailer for “Earth Revival: Shadow of Akrid”—Bytedance’s sci-fi saga where three brainiacs in hazmat suits poke a dilapidated alien world with sticks (metaphorically, until things explode). Behind the blockbuster-ready chaos? A three-day mocap marathon at L.A.’s Rouge Studios, where actors flung themselves into motion-capture suits to nail every desperate sprint and panicked flinch. Then, The Mill’s Shanghai and Bangalore squads sprinkled their VFX fairy dust, transforming raw data into a world where crumbling ruins ooze menace and alien skies look ‘almost’ too pretty to doom humanity. Spoiler: They’re not.This globe-trotting collab—mixing Hollywood stunts with Shanghai-Bangalore digital wizardry—proves gaming’s future is a team sport. Vinther’s trailer is a love letter to mad scientists, mocap magic, and the art of making “run!” feel like poetry. Grab your popcorn (or a radiation suit). The apocalypse has never looked this stylish.
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Stunt Coordinator/Rigger: Derron Ross
Stunt Talent: Ben Middleton, Hunter Douglas Cooper, Brandon Belieu, Jake Hicks, Morgan Benoit
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L.A. Production
Producer: Terry Gallagher
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Rouge Motion Capture
Production Manager: Will Reinbold
Head of Production: Sam Stark
Producer: Patrick Bishop
Stage Manager: John Zymali
Associate Producer: Katherine Bottoms
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DI4D Facial Capture
Supervisor: Colin Urquhart, Lewis Tatler
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Music: 2WEI
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The Mill Shanghai
Executive Producers: Lily Li, Chris Li
Senior Producer: Minzy Li
Editor: Marshall Raj
Editing Assistant: Jane Yang
Colorist: Agua Jiang
Color Assistants: Peter Yu, Christine Wang, Zhenkun Mei
VFX Supervisor: Christian Kalata
CG Supervisor: Yao Zhang
2D Supervisor: Zhongyan Dai
Senior Compositors: Zijian Wu, Alaric Liu, Fan Wang
Compositors: Fei Li, Jiabin Cao, Minnie Chen, Chloe Gao
Asset Leads: Simon Glas, Aram Hakze
CG Artists: Cathy Xi, Iris Jiao, Fiona Shi
Generalists: Jony He, Jianxin Bian
Junior Generalists: Miya Shen, Christine Stevens
Animation Lead: Alexey Petryaev
Animators: Voach Wang, Jane Kang, Jade Ma, Ruichen Wang
Previs: Al Lee, Yih Yao
FX Lead: Vivian Zhang
FX Artists: Anton Zheltiakov, Igor Kuchavo
Senior Lighting: Angela Liu
Matte Painters: Ria Zhao, Taylor He
Storyboard Artist: Sam
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The Mill Bangalore
Project Lead: Jaspreet Kaur Dua
Production Managers: Tarun Misra, Vinamra Bhartia
Production Coordinator: Tejas Solanki
3D Team: Shobith Nair, Yash Chauhan, Aman Kumar Mayur, Arnab Bhattacharya, Kailash Pol, Naveen Srinivasan, Rakesh Pujari, Saikrishna M, Utkarsha Singh, Akash Humne, Piyush Sharma, Sandeep Yadav, Surendhar Stalin, Dhruv Modi, Vaibhav Vijay Patil, Manthena Sainitesh Reddy
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Meet Morten Vinther, the cinematic sorcerer who’s spent years making pixels weep, villains shiver, and gamers forget to blink. Fresh off weaving visual magic for ‘The Last of Us Part 2″ and “Wild Hearts”, Vinther’s latest trick is a pulse-pounding trailer for “Earth Revival: Shadow of Akrid”—Bytedance’s sci-fi saga where three brainiacs in hazmat suits poke a dilapidated alien world with sticks (metaphorically, until things explode).
Behind the blockbuster-ready chaos? A three-day mocap marathon at L.A.’s Rouge Studios, where actors flung themselves into motion-capture suits to nail every desperate sprint and panicked flinch. Then, The Mill’s Shanghai and Bangalore squads sprinkled their VFX fairy dust, transforming raw data into a world where crumbling ruins ooze menace and alien skies look ‘almost’ too pretty to doom humanity. Spoiler: They’re not.
This globe-trotting collab—mixing Hollywood stunts with Shanghai-Bangalore digital wizardry—proves gaming’s future is a team sport. Vinther’s trailer is a love letter to mad scientists, mocap magic, and the art of making “run!” feel like poetry. Grab your popcorn (or a radiation suit). The apocalypse has never looked this stylish.
Director: Morten Vinther
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Talent
Zoe: Eboni Adams
Elizabeth: Jenna Rosenow
Tong Ran: Daniel Juhn
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Stunt Coordinator/Rigger: Derron Ross
Stunt Talent: Ben Middleton, Hunter Douglas Cooper, Brandon Belieu, Jake Hicks, Morgan Benoit
–
L.A. Production
Producer: Terry Gallagher
–
Rouge Motion Capture
Production Manager: Will Reinbold
Head of Production: Sam Stark
Producer: Patrick Bishop
Stage Manager: John Zymali
Associate Producer: Katherine Bottoms
–
DI4D Facial Capture
Supervisor: Colin Urquhart, Lewis Tatler
–
Music: 2WEI
–
The Mill Shanghai
Executive Producers: Lily Li, Chris Li
Senior Producer: Minzy Li
Editor: Marshall Raj
Editing Assistant: Jane Yang
Colorist: Agua Jiang
Color Assistants: Peter Yu, Christine Wang, Zhenkun Mei
VFX Supervisor: Christian Kalata
CG Supervisor: Yao Zhang
2D Supervisor: Zhongyan Dai
Senior Compositors: Zijian Wu, Alaric Liu, Fan Wang
Compositors: Fei Li, Jiabin Cao, Minnie Chen, Chloe Gao
Asset Leads: Simon Glas, Aram Hakze
CG Artists: Cathy Xi, Iris Jiao, Fiona Shi
Generalists: Jony He, Jianxin Bian
Junior Generalists: Miya Shen, Christine Stevens
Animation Lead: Alexey Petryaev
Animators: Voach Wang, Jane Kang, Jade Ma, Ruichen Wang
Previs: Al Lee, Yih Yao
FX Lead: Vivian Zhang
FX Artists: Anton Zheltiakov, Igor Kuchavo
Senior Lighting: Angela Liu
Matte Painters: Ria Zhao, Taylor He
Storyboard Artist: Sam
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The Mill Bangalore
Project Lead: Jaspreet Kaur Dua
Production Managers: Tarun Misra, Vinamra Bhartia
Production Coordinator: Tejas Solanki
3D Team: Shobith Nair, Yash Chauhan, Aman Kumar Mayur, Arnab Bhattacharya, Kailash Pol, Naveen Srinivasan, Rakesh Pujari, Saikrishna M, Utkarsha Singh, Akash Humne, Piyush Sharma, Sandeep Yadav, Surendhar Stalin, Dhruv Modi, Vaibhav Vijay Patil, Manthena Sainitesh Reddy