Revealed: first image from film made entirely in Unreal

The first image from Flite, a film made entirely in Unreal Engine, has been revealed.

The image, which you can see above, is a result of the co-production from Framestore and Inflammable Films, which is directed and written by Framestore chief creative officer Tim Webber.

The film comes from the Framestore Unreal Shot Engine project, which was announced in 2021 with the aim to create a film entirely in Unreal.This is done using a new VFX pipeline built around the software, and hopes to to create, stress-test and develop features which will feed back into Epic’s Unreal Engine, contributing to the wider VFX and engine communities as they adopt the technology.

Flite’s cast has also been revealed, and it will star Alba Baptista (Warrior Nun, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris), Gethin Anthony (Man Hunt: Unabomber, Game of Thrones) and Daniel Lawrence Taylor (Timewasters, Uncle).

It is set in a semi-submerged London in 2053, and explores the nascent and underground practice of memory visualisation.

Webber said: “I had been exploring the idea of a Memory Investigator for a while and separately had a strong  visual of a girl on a hoverboard teetering on a window of a glossy, luxury highrise, deciding whether to breakaway. I realised we could bring these strands together and tell the story of Stevie, a young, champion hoverboarder desperate to flee an oppressive manager, through the memory of a stranger anxious to help her.

“Over the course of five days Alba, Gethin and Daniel delivered stunning performances in highly experimental conditions as we chose this as an opportunity to test a new filmmaking technique and VFX pipeline, with Unreal Engine at its heart; from the initial planning and previsualisation through to final pixel.”