Red Giant announced the release of Run Like Hell, a new short film inspired by the cult classic video game, from Interplay Software. The film is directed by visual effects artist Stu Maschwitz (Star Wars, Sin City). Maschwitz is also Red Giant’s creative director and has designed many of its filmmaking tools.
Maschwitz wanted to tease some of Run Like Hell’s story and visual effects while on a very tight budget, so he used tools accessible to almost any filmmaker and visual effects artist. The film is shot POV-style, with a GoPro camera, available at many retail stores.
“The GoPro camera was critical in telling the story,” executive producer Aharon Rabinowitz said. “Stu wanted the audience to see what the main character misses – clues about the story – at the very edge of his field of view. The picture quality along with the GoPro’s signature wide-angle look made that possible.” Early in pre-production, Maschwitz came up with a workflow that simplified the process of adding believable visual effects into the wide angle GoPro footage.
Off-the-shelf software was also a critical part of the production. On-set, Maschwitz used Red Giant BulletProof to review and backup his footage. “BulletProof saved me a few times during the shoot,” Maschwitz said. “At one point I thought I was on my last take for a shot, but it turned out, on review, that I didn’t get what I needed. I was able to go back immediately and re-shoot, without losing my light.”
Adobe After Effects and Premiere CC were used extensively along with Red Giant’s Color Suite for color correction and Trapcode & Effects Suite for visual effects, as well as other inexpensive plug-ins.
“We’re really proud to help a guy as talented as Stu show the world who he is as a director,” Rabinowitz said. “Yeah, we’re a company that makes software for filmmakers and VFX artists, but we make that software because we love making films.”
