In launching the studio, the director of Evoke, Lukáš Skalník, was inspired by the making of the Star Wars sequel The Mandalorian (2019), which showed the process of creating a series heavy on special effects in virtual production.

“We started to work with the game platform Unreal engine in the first phase, in the development of the characters and real time production of animated content. We had that workflow already and one of the elements for further use of the data besides rendering was also to play the video in real time on the LED and replace the traditional way of shooting scenes with special effects, which used to be green or blue screen processed in postproduction,” Lukáš Skalník told FNE.

Using the virtual production process has several environmental and economical advantages including reducing the carbon footprint up to four times less than in average film production, saving on material consumption and human resources for crowd scenes, saving time waiting for the golden hour, preferred season or even funds needed for travelling to locations with difficult access. Moreover, the virtual production process enables the creators to see the output right away and therefore to reduce the length of the postproduction process.

Besides virtual production, Evoke also offers motion capture of digital characters (digital actors) and real time production available to make the whole full-fledged shooting in studio with special effects in real time. This seems to be the future of filmmaking.

Evoke describe themselves as “a group of artists, filmmakers and developers united by the desire to push creative boundaries using modern technologies”. Lukáš Skalník has a background as a film and commercial editor, and he is also a managing director of the animation and film production studio Eallin.