Coming on board in post, Territory Studio was tasked to create rich graphic elements to support director Steven Spielberg’s vision for the real and virtual worlds of Ready Player One.

Initially presenting concepts to production designer Adam Stockhausen, Territory’s team continued to work with Digital Domain for all traditional 2D and 3D ‘real world’ graphics and with ILM, for the interactive volumetric graphics featured in the full CG world of the Oasis.

Bridging the two worlds in terms of graphics and content, Territory drew on the studio’s narrative design expertise to develop the graphic language of both real and virtual worlds, adding content layers that tied into storybeats and narrative.

Delivering over 265 VFX shots and over 80 unique assets, the team touched the majority of sequences in the film that feature interactive UI on monitors, visors, HUDs and 3D environmental signage.

A hugely ambitious show, it demonstrates the value of Territory’s design led approach and VFX capability. Setting up two distinct pipelines to deliver to Digital Domain and ILM’s requirements, Territory were responsible for concepting the creative language and designing the graphics on a per shot basis. The team then laid everything out in a 3D environment, projection mapping onto plates for the real world, animating, and lighting full CG graphics in the Oasis. Slap comps on plates were submitted for director review and approval before being packaged and shipped to DD and ILM for final comp.