Celebrity Bear Hunt
Last year, I spent about six months teaming up with Netflix, Workerbee, and UF6 to bring the new Bear Grylls TV show’s maps and visuals to life.
We started out building three full-scale maps in Cinema 4D, but with 2,000 frames to render for each one, it quickly became obvious that Cinema 4D alone would take forever. That’s when I suggested exporting everything into Unreal Engine 5.
What followed was a five-month adventure of map-building in UE5 often with me sharing my screen and bouncing ideas around with Ben Mitchel and Dean Barnet.
Unreal’s real-time rendering was an absolute game-changer: instead of weeks in C4D, we wrapped up all 120 renders (2,000 frames each) in about 85 hours.
Our favorite workflow ended up being: render in UE5, drop the footage into After Effects, and use AE’s tracker to pin down dozens of control points for each “player” element.
A big shout-out to UF6 for knocking the sprite designs out of the park.
Massive thanks to everyone UF6, Workerbee, and Ben for believing in me and making this ride so much fun.
Gifs and Snippets
Stills
Initial mockups
C R E D I T S
Client : Netflix
Production Company: wbtv.uk
Creative directors: Ben Mitchel
Designer: UF6
Unreal Engine Designer: Goncalo Perdigao
Motion Designers: Anne-marie, Goncalo Perdigao
Editor: Justin Saculles
Producer: Thea Gladines, Deborah Reece-Bloch, Justin Saculles
Production Company: wbtv.uk
Creative directors: Ben Mitchel
Designer: UF6
Unreal Engine Designer: Goncalo Perdigao
Motion Designers: Anne-marie, Goncalo Perdigao
Editor: Justin Saculles
Producer: Thea Gladines, Deborah Reece-Bloch, Justin Saculles
