Auggie Awards Interaction Software Magnopus Lion King Virtual Production

Jon Favreau gave us the mandate to do anything necessary to make The Lion King feel like a live-action film.

Though the imagery itself could look photo-real through modern visual effects, we knew we needed to put the filmmakers back inside their movies and put the traditional tools of cinema back in their hands.

By building the world of the film in a real-time game engine, we could put the filmmakers inside that world through virtual reality.

And by connecting interfaces to their traditional live-action cinematography equipment, we could give them and the crew an experience similar to traditional filmmaking.

During development, dozens of new user interfaces were integrated into a heavily modified version of the Unity game engine.

Every interactable tool had an interface designed around its intended user, allowing non-technically savvy filmmakers access to similar methodologies they employ on live-action productions.

The workflow was designed with speed and efficiency in mind.

with custom interfaces built to offload control of specialized equipment to the creatives, while the technical operator used a custom in-engine interface to achieve the requested setup instructions.

By supporting the filmmakers with interfaces that are familiar and

user-driven, the technology simply got out of their way, giving them the creative freedom to explore while ensuring that their intentions and actions flow through to post-production.