Meridian

Brand Film

Co-Director | Creative Director
Unreal Engine Technician

Real-time genre short film.

We took to Unreal Engine to create a short animated genre film for ADSW.

Close-up of a woman wearing a black headscarf, with light makeup and a neutral expression, in an indoor setting.

Cutting edge tech for a futuristic story.

Given a six week production timeline I was tasked with creating photorealistic, cinematic imagery for the opening film for Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2025.

With a tight timeline and high quality bar, I knew real-time would be the best creative solution. Unreal Engine’s incredible lighting system served us well during look dev as we could iterate quickly.

Another time saving decision led us to using motion capture for all animation. The mocap toolset in Unreal is super robust and gave us amazing results with minimal clean-up.

Finally, I used scanned face meshes and textures to edge us closer to that ever elusive, photorealistic target.

I worked with an incredible team. Director Gregory Koefer, Executive Producer Bruce MacDonald and Producer Jono Piercy at Boomtown. Then my dear friends at Ninja Lama, Ilya and Viktor.

Close-up of a woman's lips and teeth as she speaks or smiles.
A woman with dark hair wearing a black headscarf looking at the camera in an indoor setting with blurred background.
A person standing on a stage in front of a large curved screen displaying multiple video clips and images, with concentric circles of light on the floor.
A solitary person walks into a large, circular, well-lit space with dark sides, casting a shadow on the floor.
A person standing in a science or space simulation room with a curved wall of multiple screens displaying space-themed images and data.
A woman wearing a black hijab and black clothing stands in front of an abstract background with glass and blurred cityscape, looking to the side.
Animated girl with dark skin and braided hair riding a large sea creature with a big, rounded face underwater.
A young girl with curly hair in pigtails, wearing a pink headband and large pink glasses, is smiling and holding a paper with activity instructions, talking to an older woman with gray hair and red glasses, in a room with patterned wallpaper.
Animated characters in a scene with a large mechanical creature and a human figure. The scene appears to be from a video game or animated film with detailed, stylized graphics.