Redbox
Meet Yaki

Case Study

Christmas came 3 weeks early for Carbon when the ultra-talented folks at Fusion 92 called offering the chance to work with Hungry Man’s Dave Laden on some whip-smart comedy scripts. An easy ‘yes.’

Carbon

  • Executive Producer Phil Linturn
  • Producer Lauryn Grimando
  • Colorist Julien Biard
  • Color Assistant Angelica Anderson
  • Lead Flame Artist Michael Sarabia
  • Flame Artist Michael Anderson
  • Flame Artist Chris Wiseman
  • Flame Artist Kieran Walsh
  • Flame Artist Peter Mayor
  • Flame Artist Steven Wind

External

  • Production Company Hungryman
  • Director Dave Laden
  • Producer Caleb Dewart
  • Agency Fusion 92
  • Producer Josh Hurley
  • Edit Company Hungryman
  • Editor Adam Parker
  • Mix Noise Floor
  • Sound Design Noise Floor
  • Music Company Sees Music

The concept was nice and simple: Give our low-key hero Yaki, prehensile feet (lower limbs that can grasp like a hand). As always, simple concepts are not always simple to execute, especially when those feet-hands are playing Playstation, working a laptop, preparing food, and tickling the ivories. The Carbon team, led by Michael Sarabia, began creating motion tests in the studio, shooting our own hands and feet, and stitching them together in Flame. This vital testing shed light on all the pitfalls and considerations ahead of supervising the shoot in LA. It also helped inform conversations with Dave and the team creating the prosthetics that were to be worn on set. We tested everything from dimensions and placement of the thumb, the length of the prehensile foot, clothing, rotational limitations, and the minimal amount of tracking data we could work with.


Once the prosthetics were made and tested for use in the wide shots, we sent our LA shoot supervisor Matt Stevens to gather all the important data from the set. It was always going to be a fun day, but this was easily one of our favorite shoots; tightly run, great direction, and seamlessly executed by a great cast and crew.


Back in Chicago, Michael oversaw a team of 7 Flame artists, working across all 3 studios, to complete the full set of films in just 10 days. The inter-office Flame/roto/color pipeline was refined during the project to allow seamless workflow, fast reviews and same-day revisions across multiple simultaneous edits.



Julien Biard created the final color grade, walking the perfect line between cinematic and documentary … and finally Yaki’s story could be shared!