How did Babiru come to be?
Babiru started out as a passion project. I was a huge fan of the stunning concept art of Nivanh Chantara and Frederic Rambaud, the two concept artists behind the world of Babiru.
Their work, developed over the better part of a decade, painted a haunting, deeply textured world filled with potential for an immersive sci-fi story. I convinced them to develop this idea into a feature film, and we pitched the idea as a live-action project in different forms for a while. But after a few rejections citing the ambitious nature of the project, we quickly realized that undertaking something of this scale would be impossible to pull off in the traditional way.
I was looking at Unreal Engine as a possible solution to bring this project to life, without making the compromises we would’ve needed to if it had been live action, and applied for a MegaGrant.
The answer from Epic came right after the pandemic hit. We managed to put a worldwide team together and work remotely while the world was shut down. It was serendipity, and gave us all a much needed creative outlet during those days.
The grant allowed us to collaborate with world-class artists, pushing the boundaries of what was possible. At the time, we were venturing into experimental territory with the level of quality we aimed for, but Unreal Engine allowed us to dream big.
Since your earlier works were all done with live actors, it must have been quite a shift for you to embrace fully CG characters.
It was. Directing actors remotely from Montreal, in a motion capture environment at Beyond Capture Vancouver, was challenging at first, but afterwards this allowed for complete creative control—over movement, timing, and even camera work—without the constraints of physical sets or actor availability. We could use and modify captured animations to suit our scenes perfectly at a much later date, without the constraints of scheduling additional shoot days. This was a huge help given our budget and time constraints.
Unreal Engine made this process seamless with its real-time rendering and animation tools. We could review almost-final scenes and iterate quickly on performances, adjust lighting on the fly, and refine compositions in-engine without waiting for lengthy render times. It also allowed for a more decentralized workflow, enabling artists from around the world to contribute in parallel on multiple shots in the same scenes at the same time.
Why did you choose Unreal Engine as your primary rendering engine?
I’ve been a gamer my whole life, and I vividly remember playing Quake on an early build of Unreal Engine as a teenager. There was always something about those cinematic video game cutscenes (like Wing Commander or Call of Duty) that made me think, "I could watch a whole movie like this.”
From my experience with traditional rendering engines on my previous projects, I found that they had a much steeper learning curve and didn’t offer real-time results. If you made a mistake or if you wanted to adjust minor details, that could mean hours if not days of rendering for complex scenes.
Unreal Engine offered a real-time workflow that allowed us to visualize and refine shots instantly—something that traditional CG pipelines simply can’t match. The ability to work with fully textured, lit, and animated scenes in real time meant we could make creative decisions much faster. It was also cost-effective, enabling a level of visual fidelity that would have been much more expensive to achieve with conventional pre-rendered animation.
What excited me most, though, was how Unreal offers an almost all-in-one solution. You can handle previs, animation, lighting, shot acquisition, and even final pixel all in the same software.
That was groundbreaking at the time we started working on Babiru. I’ve always enjoyed testing new technology, pushing boundaries, and seeing how I could use it to realize creative ideas that might not be possible in a more traditional setup.
What’s the current status of Babiru, with regard to development?
We created 16 minutes of the film, but for now we’ve released the trailer as a proof of concept to showcase the world of Babiru. Our next step is presenting this to other financiers and film studios to secure additional financing to expand Babiru into a full-length feature film.
The proof of concept has demonstrated the visual and narrative potential of this world, and we are actively seeking partners to help bring it to life on a larger scale.
How do you see Unreal Engine fitting in with filmmaking in the future?
Unreal Engine is truly transforming how animated films are made. It allowed us to iterate faster, make real-time creative decisions, and collaborate in a decentralized way with artists worldwide in ways that traditional pipelines don’t allow.
The ability to work within a fully realized, real-time environment means filmmakers can focus on storytelling and visual design rather than waiting on renders. It allowed me to create shots that I never could’ve dreamed of if doing it the traditional way, and Babiru wouldn’t have been possible without this technology. I believe it’s a game changer for independent and large-scale productions alike.
We’re at a point where technology is enabling a new generation of creators to do things that were unthinkable a few years ago and explore new, hybrid forms of storytelling.