Tau Films Surround Cage with CG Woolly Spider Monkeys, Tapirs and a Rare White Jaguar as an Assassin Closes In; Wonderfilm’s ‘Primal’ in Theaters Now.
In Primal, death lurks around every corner. An assassin is on the loose and vicious animals are too, putting an entire ship on the defensive as an apex predator stalks its halls. To help create this CG killing machine, VFX studio Tau Films turned to Ziva VFX, bringing the power of physics-based simulations to an ambitious indie project.
Primal begins in the jungle, where a trapper (Nicolas Cage) is on the hunt for a rare white jaguar. After a near-fatal battle with the cat, his plans for a peaceful trip home are shattered when a political assassin (Kevin Durand) escapes and releases the dozens of animals Cage has brought on board. Chaos ensues, leaving Cage on the open sea fighting his fellow man and the deadly animals now closing in.
“We needed the audience to feel as threatened by the animals as they were by the political assassin, so the CG work had to be on point; if they didn’t feel the realism of the jaguar’s presence in that opening scene, everything else in the film would fall apart,” said Walt Jones, VFX supervisor for Tau Films.