PXO’S PROCESS ‘STARTS WITH ART’.

We house one of the industry’s pre-eminent conceptual art collectives who work with production designers and directors to establish look development at the outset of the pre-production process. We visualise early-stage designs for everything from characters and creatures, to vehicles and environments as a foundation of the creative production process.

As part of the early development process, our concept artists define artistic fundamentals such as perspective, anatomy, composition, light and tone for all types of character, creature, object or environment and often act as the first step in developing assets for a virtual production pipeline.

Our concept team's creativity and attention to detail allows us to design many varying styles of characters, creatures, environments, or anything else needed for production.

Previsualisation or ‘previs’ is an essential part of the development process for feature film and episodic productions as it enables creatives to design, plan and understand shots or sequences far in advance of the shoot.

Previs uses 3D imagery to visualise or design a show and utilises a bespoke pipeline and digital toolset which is designed to facilitate the quick iteration of different staging and art direction options such as lighting, camera placement and movement, stage direction and editing for specific shots or sequences without incurring the costs of actual production. Previs is designed to be fast and iterative and to prove creative and narrative concept.      

PXO can use a combination of previs shot creators, concept artists, animators, and real-time technical artists to create ‘Pitchvis’ material to help an in-development project earn a greenlight from a studio or gain interest from would-be investors.      

This can include specific sequences from the proposed project or an overall trailer to convey the filmmakers’ creative intent. Beyond script pages and static visual references, pitchvis is a versatile creative service which can be used to dynamically move a project from abstract concept to tangible product and is increasingly being used in the development cycle by many of our studio partners.  

Techvis is the process of planning (often) complex shots using a combination of virtual elements with real-world equipment to help inform the work of multiple production departments.     

Techvis typically takes the form of diagrams, animated schematics and data used to drive or control onset equipment such as motion control rigs, wire cams and techno-dollys. Its creation is based on captured footage and virtual assets to validate camera moves, camera placement and lens choices, mitigating the risk of physically implausible virtual choices.      

Techvis is concerned with physics and specific camera data and less so with visual fidelity or usage in an evolving edit. As shoots become ever more complex and schedules more constrained, Techvis is becoming an invaluable service to many studios and film makers who rely on its accuracy and intelligence to maximise time on set and to mitigate cost and risk. As an extension to Previs, Techvis is a vital facet of the PXO suite of creative services and one which can add significant value to a complex production. 

The Virtual Art Department bridges concepts and previs via real-time animation by developing real-time assets from initial look development to production-ready models and environments. In so doing we assure consistency and quality across all real-time models. The VAD acts as a liaison between creatives and artists to assure all stakeholder feedback gets fully incorporated into the assets and delivers camera-ready assets for production and ICVFX.

Virtual Production is an umbrella term for a spectrum of computer-aided production and visualization filmmaking methods which combine virtual and augmented reality with CGI and game-engine technologies to enable production crews to see their scenes unfold as they are composed and captured on set. 

PXO is a global leader in on-set virtual production, providing a network of the world’s most advanced led volumes, supported by on set supervision and brain bar teams for optimised virtual production; this ranges from lightweight AR tools used to roughly block set and crowd extensions to running complex led volumes for in camera compositing.  

PXO provides multiple creative services within our virtual production offering which form a replete toolkit for interactive creative development of a film or episodic project.     

PXO is a global leader in VFX production, having won the Academy Award and multiple EMMYs for our work in feature films and high-end TV. Over two decades we have developed our core VFX services to span animation, digital assets, characters and creatures, compositing, crowd simulation, environments and world building, layout, lighting, rigging and roto. With a word class roster of supervisors and a global network of studios we can provide VFX services to any scale and type of project.

In Camera VFX is a methodology for shooting real-time visual effects during a live action film shoot. It brings together digital environments, characters and other elements directly to the set, facilitating a blending of the digital and physical worlds allowing for greater immersion and collaboration. The technique relies on a mixture of LED lighting, live camera tracking, and real-time rendering with off-axis projection to create a seamless integration between foreground actors and virtual backgrounds. Its primary goal is to remove the need for green screen compositing to produce final pixel results in camera.

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In Camera VFX is created within an immersive LED volume. PXO, in partnership with William F. White International (WFW), has three proprietary LED volumes operating in North America, located in Toronto and Vancouver. By integrating ownership and operation of LED volumes into our creative services, PXO is uniquely positioned to manage a production from concept through to VFX finals, either achieved in camera or in computer