There are moments when you sit back for a second and think: yeah, we’re pretty proud of this one.
The Pixiebug team worked on the complete visual post-production of the Hungarian feature film “10 éjszakás kaland”. We were also there on set as VFX On Set Supervisors, and later worked on the film’s post-production, from animation and AI-generated scenes to visual effects and compositing.
The film hits Hungarian cinemas on September 17, and we’re really looking forward to finally seeing it on the big screen, rather than shot by shot on our monitors, after all the work that went into it.
But what exactly is “10 éjszakás kaland”?
The film is a contemporary and rather unconventional adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s “Reigen” (La Ronde). The story brings the original into present-day Hungary, into the world of Tinder and online dating: ten interconnected dates, plenty of strange situations, desire, disappointment, and increasingly dark twists.
The cast includes Szabolcs Thuróczy, Bori Péterfy, Ernő Fekete, Lídia Danis, Anna Mészöly, Dia Nyári and András Csonka. The screenplay was written by Péter Kalmár, the film was directed by Erik Novák, with János Vecsernyés as director of photography and Péter Kalmár as producer.
And that’s where we came in
The film was made as an independent production, with a limited budget, so it was important to find solutions that could save time and resources on certain parts of the production.
That’s where AI came into the picture.
In this respect, “10 éjszakás kaland” is a pioneering project, as even today relatively few feature films make such extensive use of AI-generated scenes. On top of that, the film was in production for almost a year, while AI tools were changing and evolving almost month by month.
There was no ready-made, well-established workflow that we could simply follow. A lot of things had to be figured out and tested along the way. AI still isn’t really designed for feature-film production: resolution, image quality, colour depth, character consistency and motion can all present serious technical challenges.
Our goal was to make sure that this new tool didn’t replace traditional filmmaking techniques, but instead worked alongside them.
These days, anyone can generate moving images with AI. But when a director says, this is exactly the scene I want, with this camera, this lighting, this character and this movement, things get a little more complicated.
That’s where years of experience in film and animation really make a difference. For each scene, we had to think like a director, cinematographer, gaffer, animator, graphic designer, production designer, stylist, makeup artist – and, of course, a post-production artist. Some scenes took days, and sometimes even weeks, to get right.
And we didn’t only use AI to create complete scenes. We also used it throughout post-production, where it can increasingly complement traditional VFX work and speed up certain tasks that would otherwise require a lot more time and manual work.
We were there on set, too
We were involved from the very beginning. As VFX On Set Supervisors, we were there during the shoot, keeping an eye on which scenes would require visual effects or additional work later, and how they needed to be shot. This is important because many potential problems can be prevented on set – or at least we can figure out the best way to solve them before post-production begins.
CsonkAI András
One of the film’s most interesting ideas actually came from a very practical problem.
The shoot took place almost entirely at night, and with all his other work, András Csonka simply couldn’t commit to the night shoots. But the production didn’t want to let him go, so an idea was born: what if he became an AI character?
András eventually recorded the necessary material separately, which was then used to create different digital versions of his character. That’s how he appears in the film – as a head waiter, a driver, a bartender, and at other times as a kind of Tinder ghost connecting the different threads of the story.
And that’s where we really came in.
The goal wasn’t to make the film “AI-generated”, but to make the AI work within the film. The generated scenes, animation, live-action footage and visual effects all had to come together as one coherent whole.
That was the really exciting part for us.
Using a new technology without letting the technology become the main character – because the film itself should always come first.
In cinemas from September 17
“10 éjszakás kaland” hits Hungarian cinemas on September 17.
We can’t wait to finally see the whole thing on the big screen.
See you at the movies!
Recommended:
RTL interview with the cast of “10 éjszakás kaland”
“10 éjszakás kaland” – music video premiere
