For the live-action trailer for Bethesda Softworks’ space-adventure game, Starfield, advertising agency AKQA collaborated with Merman director Nicole Ackermann, who is based in Cape Town, South Africa, and The Mill’s world-class VFX team to create an otherworldly piece.
In the trailer, a young girl runs to see a pilot before he takes off to fulfill a mission. As she gazes at him in wonder and admiration, he gives her a patch to remember him by. When he returns after blasting his way through asteroid fields and visiting other planets, she’s still there, hoping and waiting for his return.
“On the VFX side, we really strived to make sure that our work was grounded in reality and that we focused on using VFX to support Nicole’s story ideas of exploration and hope and the relationship between the captain and young girl characters,” said Jimmy Bullard, creative director, The Mill.
The trailer is backed by an orchestral cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
Bethesda Softworks’ Starfield was released in September.
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CREDITS
Client: Bethesda Softworks
Agency: AKQA
Production: Merman
Director: Nicole Ackermann
VFX: The Mill
Creative Director: Jimmy Bullard
Executive Producer: Chris Connolly
Producer: Katherine Miccio
Associate Producers: Stephen Dierks, Claire Stiefel
2D Lead: Ruairi Twohig
3D Lead: Ajit Menon, Karim Moussa
2D Team: Vi Nguyen, Varshini Kumar, Renato Carone, Yashvardhan Jain, David Forcada, Felipe Passarini, Ankit Mishra, Shaik Abdul Adil, Camilo Gutierrez, Ben Morse
Asset Artists: James Chan, Jemmy Molero, Quinn Thompson
Rigging Artist: Daishi Takishima
Animators: John Wilson, Sam Crees, Arsen Arzumanyan
Associate Production Manager (Mill India): Anjalika Jain
Animation Lead (Mill India): Aniruddhya Chang
Animation Supervisor (Mill India): Sukanta Chakraborty
Animation Artist (Mill India): Badireddy Sri Charan
FX/Sim Artists: Dave Barosin, Chris Wachter
FX Supervisor (Mill India): Biswajit Tarafder
FX Artists (Mill India): Kamaljeet Singh, M Kannan
Lighting: Arman Matin, Natasha Saenko, Mohammed Sinbaway
Matte Painting: Charles Lee
Matte Painting (Mill India): Gowri Sankar Velusamy D, Winnie Sharma, Mohan Rao, Paresh Kumar Swain
DFX Supervisor (Mill India): Sachin S Kadbane
Project Lead (Mill India): Redin Kumar M K
CG Asset Lead (Mill India): Nishant Kumar
CG Asset Artists (Mill India): Anchal Lahri, Brijul Venugopalan Nair, Dinesh Kanakaraj, Guntur Kamal Kepha, Jagdish Singh Yadav, Joydip Sarkar, Madhusudan Patel, Manukuru Manikanteswara, Prakhar Kulshreshtha, Pritika Sethi, Raj Sandeep Kadam, Ravishankar N, Ritika Das, Sandeep Kumar Yadav, Sandip Dhole, Sarjana Datta, Shahid Hussain, Sudalai Muthu Ramesh Pillai, Surendhar Stalin, Thiyagarajan, Guntur Kamal Kepha, Ram Yogeshwaran, Harsh Chaturvedi, Dinesh Kumar Lakshminarayan, Samir Solomon
Rigging Lead (Mill India): Garlapati Yeswanth
Rigging Artists (Mill India): Vivekkumar Shobhnath Pal
DMP Supervisor (Mill India): Gowri Sankar Velusamy D
DMP Artists (Mill India): Winnie Sharma, Mohan Rao, Paresh Kumar Swain
Compositing Lead (Mill India): Shaik Abdul Adil
Compositing Artist (Mill India): Ankit Mishra
Roto Leads (Mill India): Vikas Vikram, Kiran Jondhale
Roto Supervisor (Mill India): Kunal Bendke
Roto Jr. Supervisor (Mill India): Rohit Charde
Roto Artists (Mill India): Amit Chavan, Dayanand Sinha, Deepak Gupta, Harshad Rane, Imrojul Khan, Hrushikesh Tarade, Kamlesh Chauhan, Jegadeesan Velayutham, Pratik Prakash Sawant, Radha Kumari, Reddy Battula Durgarajesh Reddy, Sagar Adivarekar, Shaik Ravoof Basha, Shamim Zamir Khan, Shashi Sundarraj, Suhas Sitaram Jadhav, Tushar Suresh Bhat
Prep Leads (Mill India): Devappa Hadpad, Guthikonda Venkateswara Rao
Prep Supervisor (Mill India): Sugumar Selvaraj
Prep Artists (Mill India): Alex Johnsundaram, Anand Balvant Khawaskhane, Baljinder Singh, Dixit Kumar, Ritesh Patil, Prajakta Rajendra Nagarkar, Sagar Paswan, Tushar Tulsidas Burse, Shubham Pawar, Laxman Janardhan Pawar
Matchmove Leads (Mill India): Elangovan Ganeshan, Smijumon Viswanathan, Manoj Ravi
Matchmove Artists (Mill India): Asif Mohammad, Avaneetharan Karuppasamy, Bhushan Ghurade, Chetan Balasaheb Kadam, Dongili Varaprasad, Mubin Munaf Qureshi, Nallur Suhas Bhat, Nirgun Gawade, Paras Pareshkumar Shah, Sushant Lavhande, Tirupati Bhavani Shankar Derangula, Upasana Choudhary, Vedant Jagdish Mutrak, Verru Ramesh, Vijay Bapu Chavan, Vivek Yogesh Kamble, Vurukuti Siva Sarweswar
Music: Elton John “Rocket Man”
Tags: akqa bethesda softworks hot spots merman starfield the mill vfx