MEGALOPOLIS – Film VFX
Francis Ford Coppola
Environment Supervision | Unreal Engine 5.3 | Lighting and Asset Development
Credits
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
VFX Supervisor: Jesse James Chisholm
Associate VFX Supervisor: Johnson Thomasson
Art Director & Principal Creative: Safari Sosebee
I led a small Unreal Engine team supporting the VFX department on Megalopolis, focused on building 3D environments for four sequences, including the city’s reveal. We collaborated with associate VFX supervisor Johnson Thomasson over 15 weeks to design, light, and render each set using UE 5.3 and the Path Tracer.
Our team handled all aspects of environment layout, asset prep, lighting, and camera passes. Once sets were finalized, we delivered them to Johnson, who rendered them and passed the renders to Rise VFX for compositing.
We also created crowds for several moments using motion capture. This helped bring scale and movement to key wide shots.
The work began with a technical test requested by Robert Legato and Jesse James. After that, Jesse brought us on to support Johnson and the broader VFX effort.
Collection of shots from the film (compositing by Rise VFX)
Below are work in progress images of assets and sets
