Rising was inspired by research showing that catastrophes have a profoundly unifying effect on people. A hurricane was chosen based on real events to help viewers identify with the characters, despite any feelings of implicit bias. The story reveals our common humanity and capacity to act inclusively every day.

Rising acknowledged recent disasters in the US with a closing montage of unedited photos of real survivors coming together. To ensure true-to-life details and safety on set, a crew of first responders was consulted who helped save lives during the recent hurricanes in Puerto Rico, Texas, and Florida.

We were challenged with VFX and color for the full 11-minute film, Rising. We colored in Resolve, created CG elements as 3D matte paintings in Maya, water elements and 2 full CG scenes in Houdini, and composited in Nuke and Flame. Time was the biggest challenge. In 10 days we had 2 big CG scenes to create with a moving camera, as well as 100+ shots of CG rain, clean up and addition of extra elements. We created CG houses, trees, debris, destruction and water. We also added a camera move and re-positioned the hero per the edit, which created parallax and added to the complexity of the work.